Review of The Moody Blues' Days Of Future Passed

Released 1967

"Cold hearted orb that rules the night, Removes the colours from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white, But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion? Pinprick holes in a colourless sky,
Let inspired figures of light pass by, The mighty light of ten thousand suns, Challenges infinity and is soon gone. Night time, to some a brief interlude,
To others the fear of solitude. Brave Helios wake up your steeds,
Bring the warmth the countryside needs."

The Moody Blues have a very odd position in the pantheon of prog history. Despite seven very strong albums in the late sixties and early seventies, and the undoubted claim of Days Of Future Passed as the first true prog album, they are rarely lauded today in the way I feel their pedigree should warrant. While many of their contemporaries still gain countless column inches forty years on, it is rare to read a retrospective of their early career in the same way you might encounter Yes, King Crimson or many others who emerged around the same time. Perhaps this is because, for a while anyway, The Moodies crossed over and enjoyed success in the mainstream, all but abandoning their progressive roots altogether. However, they were not alone in that regard, and I for one will continue to champion their myriad virtues in this humble blog.

In previous reviews of albums by The Moody Blues, I have described how I was effectively made caretaker for a friend's record collection for an extended period, and that this weighty LP box contained a full set of the classic Moodies first seven albums. I should explain. for any pedants reading this, that I am discounting the very first Moodies album as an unspectacular (but nonetheless, very successful) unremarkable 'beat combo' offering in the same manner as Genesis fans (which incidentally includes me) discount From Genesis To Revelation, seeing Trespass as the first real Genesis album.

The cover was reminiscent of a film soundtrack, and, from my youthful perspective, bore no prog credentials whatsoever. The fact that it was their first album proper with their new line up, so soon after the pedestrian Go Now, didn't particularly excite me either. Of course, like the rest of the Western world I was familiar with Nights In White Satin, although at the time, only knowing it as a single, I probably saw it as fairly MOR; undoubtedly a good pop song but nothing special.

Thus it became one of many albums which I didn't fully comprehend or appreciate until it occupied one side of a C90 cassette, and I was playing it on a Sony Walkman on one of the interminably long coach trips I had to take between Redruth and Glasgow.

It was definitely one of those "this-is supposed-to-be-a-classic-although-I doubt-it" begrudging listens. With fourteen hours ahead of me, I had a lot of cassettes to divert me and I knew that I better get it over and done with.

Were I to review that first full run through giving my nineteen year old response, this would be short and grumpy review. It is only fair to superimpose my more mature, gently greying view, all these years on.

The album begins very softly with an almost imperceptible reverberating percussion which builds to a climax introducing a full orchestra. As a nineteen year old, I would have groaned and thought, 'yup; piss poor soundtrack nonsense'. Now I am old enough and wise enough to realise what incredible new ground The Moodies were making with Days Of Future Passed. Decca had seen sufficient potential in them to bestow free reigh of all the latest technologies, along with a full orchestra and a seemingly bottomless budget. This was 1967; pop/rock bands playing with orchestras on a concept album was new, completely untried. Pop bands did play along with orchestras for TV specials for the masses, but this was something different.

The delivery of the opening spoken verse (see top of this review) indicates just how different this was. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to reference future Moodies releases which would also use a spoken opening, as well as future borrowings of this device by other prog bands (both Tommy and Quadophrenia both use the overture device as witnessed here, for example), but at the time, you would have to ask; just who was their audience? This wouldn't have appealed to a pop audience, surely? Nor the classical audience either, as it was a bit too far out there for the 'straights'.

Dawn Is A Feeling has a curious blend of classic sixties pop sensibilities in the chorus, blended with a more sophisticated drama in the verses. Where, on a traditional prog album , you might expect to hear a mellotron or keyboard solo, to hear the mellotron accompanied with a full orchestra is a strange thing first time around, a huge sound, and one which must have caused much scratching of heads by the 'straights' and much excited stroking of chins by aspiring progsters.

The Morning again has much of the standard pop whimsy which would have been commonplace amongst specifically their pop contemporaries, but the chorus introduces swathes of mellotron and vocal harmonies. The orchestral accompaniment can jar occasionally and date the music very firmly as a sixties oddity.

Lunch Break is probably the greatest casualty of this on the album: the first half sounds like the soundtrack for a terrible Peter Sellers film from that period. However, the second half of the track introduces Jefferson Airplane type keyboard effects and frankly wonderful harmonies. At three minutes fifty, the band collectively take off on a remarkable guitar and bass frenzy; very Byrds-like. Suddenly it is not difficult to imagine this being played at the Roundhouse in London admist swirling light displays just after The Pink Floyd have finished their set without it sounding anything other than perfectly suited to its surroundings.

The prog credentials are heightened further with The Afternoon. The mellotron here is as effective as anything on In The Court Of The Crimson King. There is an effortlessness by which the band switches between prog passages, orchestral arrangements and a pop based chorus which is quite unique. I defy anyone currently lumping The Moodies into the average prog bracket to retain that view after listening to The Afternoon.

Without getting caught up in the actual comparative chronology of Days Of Future Passed and Sgt Pepper, or indeed any other 1967 album claiming to be the first to be labelled as prog, I strongly believe that the former has to be the stronger contender, based if nothing else on the large number of prog motifs which became the norm on later albums by most of the the classic prog bands in the seventies.

The Evening ( like the rest of the album) does a very credible job of creating an atmosphere relative to the title of the song and the concept of the album as a whole. Its probably true to say that the Eastern inflections used here are not as successful as those Mr Harrison used on Sgt Pepper. This is remedied, at least in part, by the space-rock chorusing in the middle section of the song and the sublime set up at the end of the track for what is arguably the highpoint of the album.

Although I had heard Nights In White Satin a hundred times before, hearing it for the first time in the context of the album is, dare I say it, akin to a religious experience. I cannot hear it now as the climax to the album without a tear in my eye. On one level it is a classic pop song whilst on another it is a brilliant fusion of all what was emerging as prog at the time: mellotrons, classical leanings, a flute solo, a timeless concept and an excellent vocal performance.

I urge you to to put any prejudices to one side, put the album on, select track one, put on some headphones, turn the volume up as high as you can bear, close your eyes, lie back and be amazed.

The spoken finale is suitably cinematic, emotionally intense and absolutely worthy of its classic groundbreaking status. Possibly the misunderstood album in prog.

Review of The Beatles' Abbey Road

Released 1969

"He roller coaster, He got early warning,
He got Muddy Water, He one Mojo filter,
He say one and one and one is three.
Got to be good looking, 'Cause he so hard to see"

Having groaned and grimaced my way through the review of 90125, I can say with genuine delight that I have been looking forward to recounting my initial experience of Abbey Road ever since it saw it peering over the horizon.

Abbey Road was one of the albums in a big black LP case which was entrusted to me by a Helicopter Pilot from RNAS Culdrose whilst he was on manoeuvres. ( I realise how dubious that sounds, although I can proudly and honestly state in a deep manly voice that he only opened my eyes through the delights of his record collection). Moving on.

There is only a small handfulof albums where the first time I placed the stylus on the vinyl, pressed play on the cassette player or the CD player, where I can now, many years later fully recreate the entire sense of that moment, such was the immediacy and intensity of the experience. That day in the summer of 1985, when I first played Abbey Road is one of those precious moments.

I've possibly got this a bit wrong, but I think I'm correct in saying the original pressings of Abbey Road were the only ones to list Her Majesty on the sleeve and that it was omitted in later years. Either way, I'm fairly certain that the copy I was entrusted with was an original.

Obviously the sleeve is iconic, perhaps more so even than Sgt. Pepper. A simple concept but engendered with so much significance simply because it was the last true recording of the world's most influential pop group. Having visited the spot where the famous photograph was taken, it is astonishing how culturally significant it still feels all these years on.

I came to Abbey Road a tad weary from over exposure to Sgt. Pepper and unenthusiastic at the prospect of having to endure Octopus's Garden; which I still consider the second most irritating track recorded by The Beatles, after Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da. Mind you, as it was The Beatles it was still invested with a certain charm. Before hearing the album in it's entirety I would never have considered it a prog rock album.

As I say, the moment the rolling drum and bass emerge from the hiss of the stylus moving into the first track will stay with me forever. It was instantly and emphatically hypnotising, entirely captivating and jaw-droppingly 'right'. It oozed quality from the first note. I was stunned. Although I knew The Beatles were capable of more than just proficient pop, I had no idea they had produced anything so far removed from pop as this. This was a rock record.

Or was it. I'd forgotten about Something; George Harrision's finest moment, which was, for many the definitive pop song. Whilst Something itself was a million miles from prog, the contrast in styles in the first two songs was a very prog like technique.

Or so I thought. It would be a real stretch to categorise Maxwell's Silver Hammer as prog like. Typical for McCartney it was twee, largely daft and considered odious by his estranged writing partner. Oh! Darling again was very McCartney, although with an excellent lead and harmony vocals, it (just) rises above ordinariness.

Four songs in, and awaiting the shudderingly terrible Octopus's Garden, I was extremely sceptical about the formidable reputation of the album. With the exception of Come Together, it was never too far away from mainstream pop: proficient, but pop nontheless.

I almost certainly skipped past most of, or all of Octopus's Garden and was then pleasantly surprised by the massive leap forward in quality with I Want You (She's so heavy). From the sublime lead guitar, the many changes in tempo, the simple but brilliant bass guitar theme, the sterling drum working to the wonderful hammond, I was utterly impressed and knew in an instant that this was a classic track. It, for me, lays to rest the nonsensical argument that Ringo couldn't drum. The sudden, unexpected ending lends it a grand menace. I like to think that this was a the result of a particularly fruitful and enjoyable jam session, where the four of them actually got on.

That it moves with a very short break into the hugely different Here Comes The Sun can only make you smile and appreciate the ultimate genius of The Beatles: capable of such a wide variety of styles, often in the same album.

I'm glad that I was unprepared for the suite on the second side. If I had known it was coming it may have lessened the impact. I would never have associated The Beatles with a twenty minute suite of music. I find it very hard to listen to the second side of Abbey Road without a tear or two in my eyes. This is for several reasons. First and foremost it is one of the most beautifully accomplished suites of music I am aware of: it all appears so effortless. Secondly this was the swansong for the band: although relations between them were all but over, the manner in which their various contributions mould together to produce an incredible whole, reveals just how desperately sad it was that the world would never again hear the result of the their collaboration.

That they could barely look at each other in the studio, but could bring together the separately conceived basic tracks for Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came in Through The Bathroom Window, and run them together so expertly makes me wonder what they could have been capable of if they enjoyed being in each other's company more.

I defy anyone not to well up during Golden Slumbers; invested with added significance due to its role as the epitaph to The Beatles career. McCartney's has never delivered a better vocal.

The final guitar solo, shared between Harrison, Lennon and McCartney is achingly poignant. If they could find the space for each other in this way, why did it have it to end?

An odd album; from the sublime to the ridiculous, from godawful pop to raucous psychedelic prog worthy wig-outs, it has moments of unsurpassed brilliance as well as moments that make me cringe. The end result, with the iconic sleeve, side long suite and its inherent historical significance cannot fail to leave all but the most cynical of prog rock fans reverent and respectful of its value.

For me, it's The Beatles greatest hour. Had they stuck together, I would love to know what the next album would have produced; I think it could have been a prog epic.