Jethro Tull - Aqualung [40th Anniversary Adapted Edition 2xCD] (1971)

This 2016 remastered release manages to better the 40th anniversary version that was released before. The 40th version was awesome in its improvement of sound over all other versions before it, but this one is even better. They're both clear and shockingly faithful to the original recording, but this version has more midrange presence and space between the instruments than the 40th version. The 40th is a little brighter than this one, so if you like a brighter recording keep that one. If you like MoFi style audiophile, balanced and impeccable sonics, this version is sure to please. It's really like hearing the album for the first time. You can hear Ian's voice like it's just a few feet away from you and it's clear where in the room around him the rest of the instruments are.
(amazon.com)

In 1970 Jethro Tull released Benefit. It just failed to make the US Top 10, and Ian Anderson knew the band had to push themselves to reach a mainstream American audience. Aqualung did that: it was a deft mix a folk, prog and hard rock, with at least a couple of proto-metal riffs thrown into an already bubbling stew. At first, Anderson wasn’t sure if they’d got the balance right.
“We were getting quite esoteric on the album, and I felt that we might have pushed things too far in that regard,” he told Music Aficionado. “What gets you noticed in one territory might not have the same appeal elsewhere. The record had a lot of more acoustic singer-songwriter material on it, and Jethro Tull had become thought of as more of a rock band. The riffy rock material had a pretty immediate appeal to live audiences, so I felt reasonably confident and gratified. But you never know until you put it out, and then the record did very well, so it all worked.”
It really was. The definitive Jethro Tull album, it was evidence of the band’s constant musical evolution, aided and abetted by a bewildering, ever-changing cast of musicians alongside leader Ian Anderson and his long-time lieutenant guitarist Martin Barre. The title track and Locomotive Breath are among the most celebrated and heavy tracks in Tull’s enormous repertoire, with acoustic tracks like Mother Goose providing the light relief.
(loudersound.com/reviews/album-of-the-week-club-review-jethro-tull-aqualung)