Moody Blues
(Decca)
Individual Ratings:
Days Of Future Passed (8 Stars)
In Search Of The Lost Chord (8 Stars)
On The Threshold Of A Dream (8 Stars)
To Our Children’s Children’s Children (5 Stars)
A Question Of Balance (6 ½ Stars)
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (6 Stars)
Seventh Sojourn (7 Stars)
BY RICK ALLEN
These seven albums, recorded and released between 1967 and 1972, represent the Moody Blues during their glory days.
A part of the first wave of the British Invasion, they hit #1 in the U.K. and #10 in the U.S. with a memorable version of R & B singer Bessie Young’s “Go Now” on the London Records subsidiary label, Decca. But the band couldn’t crack the upper regions of the pop charts with a follow-up and was about to give up the ghost when an opportunity came to fulfill their contract obligations and get a last shot at some kind of success by recording a “pop” version of Antonìn Dvořák’s “New World Symphony” with an orchestra conducted by Peter Knight and that was to be produced by Tony Clarke (who would subsequently work with the band for the next eleven years). Once they got in the studio, however, they convinced Knight and Clarke to shuck the original idea and instead record “symphonic” arrangements of their own material.
All of the band wrote, but much of the new material, songs that would bring them their greatest success and establish their signature sound, came from new bassist John Lodge and guitarist/singer Justin Hayward, who had been brought in to replace original members Rod Clark and Denny Laine (the latter sang lead on “Go Now” and would go on to form Wings with Heather Mills’ future ex-husband).
The result of that daring switcheroo was the album Days Of Future Passed. Released on Decca’s sister label, Deram, it was a seminal entry in the genre sometimes known as “art rock”. It would produce two massive hits and keep the Moody Blues in and around the Top Twenty album charts for the next thirteen years. The Moody Blues would continue to have sporadic success with a handful of singles and albums afterward but even though some of their later songs became radio staples, the formula began to wear thin (even for them) as early as the middle of the period these seven discs cover. The band hasn’t released a new album since 2003, and the five members responsible for the body of work presented here have yet to record or perform together again.
Days Of Future Passed
In 1978 a remixed version of this album was released but the new version uses the superior 1967 original master as a source. Days is, thematically, basically an expansion of the Beatles’ “Good Morning”; taking an album to do what John Lennon did in three minutes. But what was once great about the album is still great and all of that — except for “Dawn Is A Feeling” — takes place on what was Side Two. Knowing what’s ahead, it’s hard to wait through the exposition of the opening numbers to the inspired work on Side Two. Beginning with “Lunch Hour” that side moves through the Who-like mod-pop of "Be Calm" to the unselfconsciously lush “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)” and the album’s showpiece, “Nights In White Satin”. Unlike some of the band’s much overplayed later material, “Tuesday” and “Nights” are still highly listenable, something that may surprise those who haven’t heard them in a while. But it's a notable and superiors an early example of “art-rock.”
The bonus tracks are mostly leftovers from the band’s last days as a traditional pop group. They take a respectable crack at “Don’t let Me Be Misunderstood” though it doesn’t have the testosterone laden menace of the Animals’ version (there is only one Eric Burden after all) or the stately anger of Nina Simone’s original version. “Fly Me High”, written by Justin Hayward, was the first single to put the man who, perhaps by default, became the “face” of the band up front. Keyboardist Mike Pinder’s “Love And Beauty” was the Moodies’ next single release and the last from any member of the band except Hayward or John Lodge. The stylistic turn the band would take is demonstrated in nascent form by another bonus cut, “Cities.” The four alternate/outtake versions of other Days cuts aren’t significantly different from their official versions to matter; there’s also “Leave This Man Alone”, a solid Hollies-like pop tune that should have made a bigger splash as a single.
Standout Tracks: “Nights In White Satin”, “The Sun Set”
In Search Of The Lost Chord
The heightened clarity of the remix of Chord actually highlights the advancements made in recording technology between 1967 and 1969 even more than it does those that have come since the sixties. This is a more even album than Days; the quality of the songs closer in quality. But like on Days, things really gets going in the second half or rather, just before it, with the paean to Timothy Leary “Legend Of A Mind” that’s part of the mini-suite “House Of Four Doors” (actually constructed with the idea of turning the record over) at the end of what on vinyl was Side One. Side Two comes on strong with “Voices In The Sky”, “The Best Way To Travel”, “Visions Of Paradise” and one of the band’s most transcendentally beautiful songs, Hayward’s “The Actor”, in succession. The original album concluded with an Edge poem followed by “Om” which provided a few reflective moments before stirring to refill the bong.
Bonus tracks-wise, the inclusion of what are essentially live versions of “Dr. Livingston” and “Thinking Is The Best Way To Travel” done for BBC radio is a nice plus.
Standout Tracks: “The Actor”, “A Simple Game”)
On The Threshold Of A Dream
The third Moodies album recorded by their classic lineup may be the best realized one in the bunch. None of the individual songs reach the high level of “Nights” but the album flows seamlessly and the eventually over-used formula is utilized here at its most effective. It reflects the less-hurried, more assured nature of an album recorded without the pressure of the looming deadline of a tour or release date interfering. Pinder, the most “bluesy” of the bunch, has a high moment with “So Deep Within You”, and Hayward shows that with rare exception he was generally able to stay on the right side of the line that divides the romantically sweet from the cloyingly treacly.
Standout Tracks: “So Deep Within You”, “Never Comes The Day”
To Our Children’s Children’s Children
The best thing about this album in its new form – the original was the first one released on the band’s Threshold label — is the inclusion of the BBC recordings of have “You Heard” “The Voyage” and “Legend Of A Mind” (whose official versions were on the two previous albums). The original album does contain the excellent ‘Gypsy” but is otherwise fairly undistinguished and nearly undistinguishable, from those that followed it.
Standout Tracks: “Gypsy”, “Beyond”
A Question Of Balance
Things start to get tricky here. The band’s following had been steadily growing and propelled this one to the band’s highest U.S. chart position since Days, which also reached #3. But at this point, while they were getting more fans there was now a definite distinction between Moody Blues People and Non-Moody Blues People. They sold more and more records to the faithful, but became increasingly irritating to everyone else —and the Moodies seemed to know it. The album’s title reflects a “get-back-to-basics” desire on the band’s part and it’s made up of less orchestrated more stage-manageable material. The result is fairly successful, highlighted by “It’s Up To You”, a semi-traditional bit of British pop-rock. Outstanding
Standout Tracks: “Question” “It’s Up To You”
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
To their credit, the band never backed away from their collective advocacy of peace and social justice. But this album’s breakout number, “The Story In Your Eyes”, like “Question” from the previous album, is less hopeful than previous songs dealing with similar themes, reflecting Hayward’s increasing frustration and impatience with the state of things; despite its uptempo swings, “Story” has a definite air of weary resignation. Probably shared by the rest of the band, that resignation combined with the expected internecine squabbles, road-weariness and creative burnout probably contributed to the fact that they would only manage one more, albeit highly successful, album before taking a six-year hiatus.
Standout Tracks: “The Story In Your Eyes,” “Nice To Be Here”
Seventh Sojourn
The final album in this back catalog overhaul of the Moodies was the last one with Pinder who was to be replaced — unofficially, according to them, though he claimed otherwise — by Patrick Moraz, who had recently been booted out of Yes (where he had replaced Rick Wakeman). The Moody Blues had hit #1 on the U.K. album charts three times by now but this was the first album to reach that mark in the U.S. – a feat they wouldn’t repeat until two albums and nine years later with Long Distance Voyager.” To this point Hayward had authored their best selling singles (except for “Go Now”) but it was Lodge’s “Isn’t Life Strange” and the autobiographical “I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock And roll Band)” that boosted this one to the top. Usually the most straight ahead rocker of the bunch, Lodge stepped into Hayward’s softer middle of the road territory with “Life.”
The single didn’t actually sell that well, but it got extensive airplay on rock and adult contemporary stations and had a long and enduring half-life; maybe even more than the superior “Singer.” Sojourn is a good enough album to cause detractors to reconsider and it made for a respectable swan song. The dormant period would last until 1978 when the band, in varying incarnations would release the first of eight more albums (three of which would crack the Top Twenty in the U.S. and the U.K.) and a handful of big selling singles.
Standout Tracks: “Lost In A Lost World”, “I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band)”
Though most of the bonus cuts other than the early singles and BBC recordings are superfluous, each album in this group has a few worthwhile cuts and Days Of Future Passed, In Search Of The Lost Chord and On The Threshold Of A Dream are pretty good by any standard and well worth picking up. Anyone who isn’t a hardcore fan would likely be able to make do with the best bits of the rest as part of a comprehensive “Best Of” collection — both the two-CD This Is The Moody Blues and the single-disc The Very Best Of provide reasonable overviews of the group.
