This recording still retains enough of the edginess and eccentricity that caused Jethro Tull to stand out during the band's early years and that caught my ear way back when. I would recommend getting the remastered CD more for the improved sound quality than the bonus tracks (which aren't bad though).

16 of 17 found the following review helpful:


A musical landmark  Aug 06, 2003 By D B Campbell
In the vast Tull catalogue, this 1970 effort stands out as a neglected classic, coming as it did on the heels of the hugely successful Stand Up. Ian Anderson's songs were becoming more complex, and shifting away markedly from his early Blues influences. The maturity of his songwriting, and of the band's playing, are illustrated perfectly by the opening track "With You There to Help Me", a broody and introspective piece that breaks out into a group tour de force. This album also welcomed keyboards player John Evan, who filled out the sound and freed guitarist Martin Barre to assume the leading instrumental role he has played in the group ever since. Listen to his slashing licks, dueling with Anderson's shrieking echoed flute, which climaxes this track. Magic.

Jethro Tull were touring heavily in the States at this time, accused of neglecting audiences back in the UK, and finding the darker side of the music business unpalatable. In the notes written for this reissue in 2001, Anderson talks of "a growing cynicism" and "a sense of alienation". Ironically, it is such conditions that often bring out the best in songwriters, as they lock themselves away in anonymous hotel rooms, escaping the noise outside by drowning themselves in their music. Anderson was no different, resisting the American influences he felt were creeping into many fellow British bands. His flute had endowed Tull with a distinctly Celtic touch from the start, but he now gave full rein to this aspect on songs like "Play In Time", which is a revved-up electric jig that would have given him plenty of opportunity to play the lunatic on stage. In a similar but quieter vein, "Sossity, You're a Woman" displays a strong folk flavour in Anderson's acoustic guitar playing. Bands like the Strawbs and Barclay James Harvest were to follow similar paths in the 70s.

Contrast this with "Alive and Well and Living In", Anderson's flute and Evans' piano combining to take the jazz and rock idioms into areas that were to be explored widely in the decade ahead. It's a strong pointer to the conceptual complexities of Thick As A Brick that were to come two years later.

"Son" is a more acidic view of the generation gap than, for example, the sentimental picture painted by Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" ("If you're good, when you grow up, we will buy you a bike."). "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me" will puzzle anyone born after the 1960s. Collins was the third man in the 1969 Apollo expedition to the moon. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin got to go down to the surface and fool around, Collins had to stay behind and keep the orbiting mother ship in trim. It was a song that reflected Anderson's own previously stated sense of alienation ("It's on my mind, I'm left behind when I should have been there, walking with you.").

"To Cry You A Song" and "A Time For Everything" were strong guitar-driven numbers which were precursors to the following album, Aqualung. "Inside", Benefit's single, was arguably the band's last Blues-flavoured song, Anderson's flute motif producing a haunting air over Glenn Cornick's fluid bass lines (it was to be Cornick's last album with Tull).

Bonuses on this reissue include the classic singles, "The Witch's Promise" and "Teacher" - described as "close cousins" to Benefit by Anderson, having been recorded only weeks before the album. These stand out in my view as two of the finest musical tracks laid down at the end of the 1960s. The former again illustrates Tull's folk roots in an eerie tale of enchantment, while the latter is a hedonistic rock anthem ("Jump up, look around, find yourself some fun") that I can recall making parties come alive as Anderson's fierce flute traded centre stage with Barre's guitar.

Radio DJs referred to this as "underground" music, and later it became "progressive". Whatever the labels, it signalled the emergence of the album as a musical art form in its own right. What followed was a sharp contrast from the innocent-sounding 45s that cranked out of tinny speakers on the beach; this was music that made demands of the listener. You couldn't dance to it - at least not a dance that had a name. It heralded an era when musicians began to rule the studios, telling the fat cat producers to just twiddle the nobs and shut up, and challenging the industry to catch up with the creative flow that defied all the established rules. This music wanted you to listen seriously, and think about what it was saying.

Recorded on the cusp of a new decade, Benefit must now take its place as a watershed in the rock music idiom. What's more, it's worn surprisingly well.

11 of 12 found the following review helpful:


For the Benefit of All Who Care to Listen....  Feb 26, 2002 By Minstrel
Benefit marks the third and the last album of the early formative period of Jethro Tull. (The collection Living in the Past, released a couple of years later, is also from this period.) While the band's music has continually changed during this period, Benefit feels more a leap-forward than a gradual evolution. Much of the album sounds startlingly modern and experimental (particularly, Time For Everything, Play in Time) and must have sounded more so at the time of its release. The music is intricate and multi-layered, and yet somehow natural and organic, a feat that is well demonstrated in the opening song, With You There to Help Me. The crescendo of flute, keys, guitars (both acoustic and electric) and vocals is so carefully crafted, that one marvels at the cohesiveness of the piece. Yet, there is nothing gratuitous about it, with every note seeming to serve some higher aesthetic purpose. The use of instrumentation to convey texture and meaning to the song is indeed a novel aspect of the album. For instance, the introduction of the electric guitar in the otherwise acoustic Alive And Well and Living In provides a gritty feel to the song and serves to awaken the listener to the true import of the lyrics. But, the real revelation is Ian's voice and vocalizations. At times, stentorian and impassioned (Son, Nothing To Say) and, at times, tender and caring (Inside, For Michael Collins, Sossity), he bravely soars over the instrumentation and takes melodic centre stage. His lyrical themes do not depart significantly from previous material and, typically, focus on personal issues of life and love; however, the lyrics are more poetic and hint at the kind of imagery that Ian will turn to more in future work.

Benefit may lack the kind of individual masterpieces (except, perhaps, To Cry You a Song, which I don't much care for) that find everlasting life in "greatest-of" compilations or in live sets, but don't let this mislead you. This is THE album where Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson find their niche. Listen to it carefully, and you will see why Aqualung, Thick as a Brick and Passion Play had to happen.

15 of 18 found the following review helpful:


"And awake to a new day of living"  Apr 22, 2003 By mwreview "mwreview"
My review is on the un-remastered version of Benefit which is the one that I own. For some reason, Amazon includes the same reviews for this album under both the remastered and unremastered CDs even though there is definitely a difference between the two. Looking at the extra tracks on the remastered CD, I see no reason to spend my money on another copy of Benefit since I already have the bonus tracks on either Living in the Past or the 20th Anniversary boxed set. From reading the other reviews, the "UK version" of "Teacher" isn't anything special either. Also, why is "Sossity" and "You're a Woman" listed as two separate tracks? I'll stay with my CD copy of Benefit, thank you.

Now, as to the album itself, after putting my top JT albums list together for Amazon, I decided that Benefit is my favorite Tull record. I enjoy this one (and even Stand Up) even more than Aqualung. For the most part, Benefit is brilliant from start to finish. The only weakness is "To Cry You A Song", which is overly repetitive at times and, unfortunately, is the longest track on the album at 6:09. I tolerate that track, though, because the rest of the album is so awesome. "With You There To Help Me" hooked me right away. It is an innovative number which brilliantly balances the edge between art and noise. "Son" is a sarcastic, humorous track about a young man's estrangement from a stereotypical strict father (using all those fatherly clichés). One gets the idea of what Ian Anderson's relationship with his pop was like when listening to the angry lyrics. Every time I hear "Don't talk like that I'm you're old man" I have to chuckle. "Sossity; You're A Woman" is a soothing ending to the album. "Teacher" is probably the most well-known song from Benefit, being included on the US release and on M.U. The Best of Jethro Tull. Although it is one of the first tracks I ever heard from Tull and I love it, it is really in the middle of the pack in terms of the top songs on Benefit. My favorite is "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, and Me." Certain parts of this song are too wonderful for words. If your Jethro Tull collection starts with Aqualung, make sure you get their earlier albums Stand Up and this brilliant work. And, since you will probably be hooked on Tull's music and will be buying up their back catalog anyway, don't worry about getting the remastered CD, as you'll get the "bonus tracks" elsewhere.

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