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 Asia

Released 1982

"And now you find yourself in '82. The disco hot spots hold no charm for you. You can concern yourself with bigger things. You catch a pearl and ride the dragon's wings"

When I picked up my second hand copy of Asia's eponymous first album, for one (Scottish) pound, I was unaware that this was a prog 'supergroup'. Although this is my fifty-first prog album, in as-close-as-I-can-manage-it chronological order of purchase, when money changed hands over the counter at Lost In Music in DeCourcey's arcade in Glasgow in 1985, I hadn't heard of John Wetton or Yes' Drama, had yet to hear a full album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and was unaware of the connection with The Buggles.

I had, of course, heard Heat Of The Moment, a huge single from three years previously. One of my favourite albums of my late teens - long misplaced, I'm sad to say - was an AOR compilation called American Heartbeat. Most of the classic expected usual suspects were there, from Journey to Styx, Kansas to Quarterflash, Boston to Foreigner etc, and it also contained Heat Of The Moment. Therefore, I associated Asia with laid back American driving music rather than with the prog rock scene.

If truth be told, for some time, I actually listened to the album as an AOR album, seeing it as light relief from the existential angst of Van Der Graaf Generator or the complex signatures of Rush, not realising that Asia's band members had been responsible from some of the defining tracks, side long suites and triple live albums of the classic prog era.

Of course, I should have known better. Roger Dean's artwork for Asia is arguably amongst his most well known, due in no small part to it's huge commercial success.

The title track is one of the most ubiquitous AOR songs from the eighties. Wonderful big fuzzy riffing, stadium sized drumming, an echo laden vocal with remarkably catchy lyrics all combine to make a song which is very difficult not to sing along too and be impressed by. When I finally made the connection and noted that Steve Howe was on this record, I was stunned. I couldn't reconcile this aggressive, commercial style with the intricate playing I was so familiar with from Yes. Was there another great guitarist called Steve Howe?

Only Time Will Tell turns the commercial pop sensibility up to eleven. The keyboard intro (and repeated motif) could so easily have been from a track by Europe or Bon Jovi a few years later. It softens to a very Journey-esque, verse-chorus-verse structure, interspersed with another stunning thick powerful guitar and wave after wave of several different keyboard effects. At the time, I pictured John Wetton as a Jon Bon Jovi or David Lee Roth type poseur rather than an elder statesman of prog, with a track record in Family, King Crimson, UK et al.

Given that I had a tremendous dislike for Yes' broadly contemporary foray into commercial success with 90125, I can only put my enjoyment of this similarly styled effort down to my ignorance about Asia's pedigree. Sole Survivor would have been equally at home on 90125, which is amusing given Steve Howe's obvious displeasure in later years, when pressured into playing Trevor Rabin's 'licks' live.

The lack of variation on Asia is a bit wearing. Where there are a (very) few obvious prog moments on 90125, for example, hearing tracks such as One Step Closer in isolation, one would be mistaken for it being anything other than a straight forward pop song. An obviously well played pop song for sure, but not much more.

The intro to Time Again however, sounds like it could have been an outtake from Yes' Drama. It then veers oddly from by-the-books AOR to leaping between time signatures, never quite sure with it is pop or prog.

I think it is the eighties drum style employed by Carl Palmer which grates and frustrates: it is so formulaic and incredibly pedestrian when compared to his past performances. This is certainly true of Widest Dreams. It is clearly catchy. Catchy and horribly dull.

Without You has the same effect. It is intoxicating in its commercial sensibility, has stunning playing by Steve Howe, stupidly infectious lyrics and a keyboard accompaniment designed to get the zippos waving in the dark of an enormodome. It is impeccably done, but it still is prostituted by the nasty, nasty drumming, which, whether you like it or not, it is impossible not to tap your feet or thrum your fingers to. Before you know it, you are playing air guitar and swaying from side to side, singing along to the closing versus and chorus, thinking; "Stop it! This is silly! Where's my copy of Foxtrot?"

In short, it is an album of great contradiction: impeccable pop played by prog maestros, creating songs with hooks that you'll be singing the next day against your will.

Review of Yes' Fragile

Released 1971

"Love comes to you and then after, dream on, on to the heart of the sunrise. Sharp-distance, how can the sun with it's arms all around me? Sharp-distance, how can the wind with so many around me I feel lost in the city."

My first three Yes albums were - in order of purchase - The Yes Album, Close to The Edge and 90125. My crashing disappointment with the last of these had the impact of devaluing the other two, coming the consider them as good, but not great.

Thus, by the time I went away to University, Yes could not be considered a favourite band of mine, although I had the first two of these three albums on opposing sides of a C90 cassette. I was, if truth be told, gutted that i had come to see Yes as nothing special. I have previously mentioned elsewhere in this blog that I had been aware of the mystique and grandeur of the Yes name from a very young age, long coveting the gorgeousness of Roger Dean's handiwork, fantasizing that the music that it enveloped was as beautiful and mysterious. Now, three albums in, the pedestal had toppled and my interest had waned.

My opinion was changed by a friend's elder brothers collection of original Yes LPs. This friend had inherited not only his brothers records but his passion for Yes. This was, from memory, a more or less complete collection of Yes' seventies oeuvre, so there was wall to wall Roger Dean, vast opening gate folds and lyric sheets. Prog heaven, in other words. Combine this with the extra kudos afforded by the scuffed edges, mild fading and industrial thickness of the vinyl and I could once more glimpse my pre-pubescent fervor for the mystique of the band.

And so to Fragile itself. I knew in advance that this was seen by fans as one of the pinnacles not just of Yes' career but of the entire prog genre. The artwork was obviously iconic one of those I had been aware of from before the age of ten.

This was the first album featuring Rick Wakeman, and it's his distinctive keyboard work that launches Roundabout and continues to define a key shift in Yes' sound from The Yes Album. I have as much time for Tony Kaye as Rick Wakeman. I've wondered often why the latter is so revered while Tony was all but forgotten until the execrable 80's albums. They have a very different sound but of equal value in my view. However, Roundabout's undoubted infectiousness is down to Rick Wakeman's contribution. I read somewhere that Jon Anderson was inspired to write the lyrics when seeing the mountains of Scotland looming out the mist, not that you would know from his bonkers lyrics: as obtuse as a fish in a Landrover.

What stops Fragile being regarded more highly be me and by many others is the mix of more successfully realised lengthier group songs and the shorter individual tracks. Yes, it's very prog to show off your remarkable virtuosity, but, call me unadventurous, it only succeeds in punctuating the album badly. Just as The Beatles White Album would have been a less successful release if the genius of the track sequencing had been altered, I believe Fragile could have been a classic with more prudent editing.

Now that I've shown my colours as a miserable old fart, this is a minor quibble as the longer tracks are uniformly excellent. South Side of The Sky is a particular favourite with a grand interplay between Rick and Steve Howe. As barmy as Jon Anderson is, his performance is transcendent, in a league of his own. SSOTS is a standout group effort with Bill Bruford's drumming frighteningly complex and very very tight with Chris' bass.

Long Distance Runaround achieves the seemingly impossible: a catchy sing-a-long prog song with lyrics that defy explanation.

Heart of The Sunrise is stunning. Jon's delivery is profoundly beautiful producing arguably the best track Yes had recorded up until that point.

To this day, although not my favourite Yes album, Fragile remains one of the finest headphones albums I own.

Review of Yes' 90125

Released 1983

"Talk the simple smile Such platonic eye
How they drown in incomplete capacity
Strangest of them all
When the feeling calls
How we drown in stylistic audacity
Charge the common ground
Round and round and round
We living in gravity"

The fact that I have attempted to write this review four times is entirely symptomatic of the frustrating experience I have each time I listen to the album.

Why I chose to purchase 90125 as my fourth Yes album remains a mystery to me. It was probably heavily influenced by the fact that at the time - mid 1985 - Yes were still riding high on the success of this, their most commercially successful album by a country mile. When flicking through the 'Y' section in any music emporium, the ubiquity of the hideous silver sleeve must have burned it's sickly way into my being. Of course, Owner Of A Lonely Heart was played as often on the radio as Kayleigh. I'd almost certainly also seen the video, complete with blonde highlights, silly outfits and drum machines akimbo.

Why then, was it not plain to me that this was a very different animal to the prog monster albums of their which I already owned and loved? Goodness only knows?

Mind you, there is the horrible possibility that I've conveniently forgotten that I may have actually liked it first time around. I don't think so, but who knows.

My wife has just this last week, bought the latest Depeche Mode album whose sleeve shares a remarkable similarity with 90125; sharing the same metallic silver background and pastel awfulness in the foreground. This speaks volumes to me. Yes, it was a different line-up. Yes, it was a different decade, and they were undoubtedly, and ultimately very successfully achieving the objective of reaching a different audience, but the degree of difference served to alienate a large number of the long-standing fans.

I am conscious that, at the time I bought 90125, I wasn't the biggest Yes fan in the world and that my view is largely coloured by my perception many years later and with over twenty of their albums on my shelves. While this has coloured my judgement, I find it difficult to put my current view to one side.

There are some redeeming aspects of the album, though few and far between. Without Jon Anderson's involvement, I very much doubt that the album would have enjoyed a second listen. In many respects, in sharing some of the vocals with Trevor Rabin added a worthwhile dimension to Jon's styling; he was forced out of his comfort zone and produced a very pleasant result. Although I have no time for Mr Rabin's horrid MOR vocal growling, when combined with Jon's unique delivery, the result is not half bad. Throw Chris Squire's solid background vocals into the mix and it's no surprise that commercially this worked so well. Old school Yes fans took some solace in the fact that Jon's nutty mysticism was kind of still there, not completely eradicated by the Journey-Foreigner-REO Speedwagon-esque glossiness of the overall effect.

Old school Yes fans would have originally been delighted that Tony Kaye was coming back into the picture. Many of us favour his approach over that of Rick Wakeman. We were all then bemused in the resulting departure in style from anything remotely Yes-like keyboard wise on 90125. It's all special effects and very contemporary and not what most fans expected or wanted.

The rhythm section of Chris Squire and Alan White is still present, but not immediately recognisable as such. I've always felt that Alan White's background as a more straightforward rock and roll drummer meant that he probably relished the opportunity to branch out from the odd time signatures and get back to familiar territory. Chris Squire's contribution, like Jon Anderson's remains relatively unquashed, such is the distinctive nature of his playing.

As a Yes purist, I struggle to say anything positive about Trevor Rabin's role on guitar. He was no doubt was the main change from the norm and he obviously was very successful in doing what he set out to do. For me, and for many others, his style was just not Yes-like.

I don't like being negative in reviewing any album, but, as a prog album, 90125 fails on practically level. At least for me.

Review of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra

Released 1974

To the budding prog rock fan, eager to be submerged further into the myriad mysteries of the genre, discovering that there was a band with the splendid name of Tangerine Dream was only going to excite, entice and encourage said fan to seek out their work. To then learn that comparisons had been drawn with Pink Floyd's sound during their 'middle period', specifically the use of similar synthesiser technology, only served to point me towards one of the the more widely stocked second hand record shops Cornwall had to offer.

It took several visits before I came across a particularly battered second hand copy of Phaedra. That the cover image was ultimately beyond description only further enhanced the sense of anticipation.

The relationship between cover art and the music it accompanies is a curious one. In the best instances, the cover art becomes so synonymous with the music and the group, that is becomes part of the their 'brand'. Hipnosis's work with Pink Floyd for example, or Roger Dean's work with Yes have become ingrained as iconic pieces of twentieth century popular culture and hugely influence how we feel about those respective bands. When Yes shifted gear, changing musical direction between Drama and 90125, it was no accident that there was a paradigm shift in the artwork as well as the quality of the music. It's also worth noting that there must be hundreds of very worthwhile albums whose awful artwork has prevented a potential new fan from parting with their cash.

Anyway, I digress. What did the cover of Phaedrus depict? I still have no idea. Personally, I've always seen it as a vaguely aquatic, cold Scandinavian sea scape. Goodness only knows why. It's interesting to note that I made this judgement before hearing the record. Learning that the musicians were, in fact German was intriguing. My foray into European prog was still evolving. I could guess that eclecticism and invention - two cornerstones of prog - would prevail and that there wouldn't be too many laughs.

Whenever I saw a release from the pre-CD age clocking in at less that forty minutes I felt somewhat cheated, as in this case. However, there were just four tracks, so I could perhaps forgive on this occasion.

I was a mite nervous when laying the stylus on the vinyl for the first time. Was I being overtly ambitious in pursuing this largely instrumental vein so early in my prog quest? ?My recent purchases of Tubular Bells and Moving Waves were certainly more challenging than many non-instrumentally biased records; they appeared to require a more intense and mature consideration. Ever the self-doubter, I was unsure I was 'qualified' to appreciate these works as they were intended. I wasn't consciously placing prog on a pedestal; the reality was that until I heard The Dark Side of The Moon, my musical predilection was largely of the loud and heavy heroic posturing and pouting metallic variety. Prog may have opened my eyes, but could also furrow my brow. Not that that's a bad thing, you understand.

A distant ethereal, cold and mechanical sweep of sound perfectly attuned to the choice of cover art washed through the headphones, being indeed extremely reminiscent of the mellow trippiness of Pink Floyd. Listening to this as an eighteen year old in 1984, in the midst of the synthesised pap pop that was the New Romantic era, it would have been easy for me to groan in naivety at the prospect of music purely created by synthesisers. But the seemingly infinite depth of emotional evocation and atmospheric ghostliness achieved on the title track was a world away from the unimaginative contemporary shallowness that was 80's pop.

Layer upon layer of textural marvel unfolded with no apparent direction or logic. It may have been odd to immerse oneself in a tapestry of sound which didn't get a toe tapping, summon a whistle or have a lyric, no matter how obscure, to attach to. At the risk of sounding outrageously pretentious, this was Zen music; non participatory music where all you had to do was be.

I didn't expect to enjoy such a dense bizarre offering so immediately. I strongly believe that were I in a different frame of mind durinmg that first airing, I perhaps would have been less receptive and more likely to have consigned it to one of the infrequently visited areas of my record collection.

It may not be the most often played album in my collection but, when the mood is right, and the moon is full, it is a very fulfilling experience.

Review of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of The Moon

Released 1973

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say".

My first prog rock purchase was The Dark Side of The Moon by Pink Floyd.

My love of music came from an early immersion in my parent's record collections: The Beatles, Elvis, Buddy Holly etc. The first band I decided I liked off my own back was Queen. I delighted in collecting everything they did and threw myself fully into the history of the band. Listening to Alexis Korner's 'Great Guitarists' (or similar) Sunday night Radio 1 series to learn more initially about the influences of Brian May, I was drawn further into the series and became captivated by the programmes on Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page. This drew me into investigating rock music per se from the late sixties and early seventies.

I read voraciously about this classic period and fell in love with the myths and legends of Led Zeppelin. Keen to learn more about their contemporaries I gradually became aware of the better known exponents of prog rock. Fascinated by the other worldliness of the album sleeves of Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes whenever I visited a record shop, I remained intrigued but did not commit myself to a purchase until I was about seventeen.

I remember very clearly descending the iron steps to the now long defunct basement record store on Menage Street in Helston, Cornwall. This was a tiny dark room with background music which was at the time completely unfamiliar to me; probably Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart in hindsight. I felt out of my depth, but somehow knew that serious music fans were more likely to be seen here in the dark rather than down the road in Woolworths.

Thumbing through the albums I stopped when I recognised the name TDSOTM. In those days (early eighties) albums were still presented in see through plastic sleeves. I removed the album from the sleeve and rubbed a thumb across the emitted spectrum of light emerging from the prism. This had quality. It told me that this was a significant item; time and effort had gone into the design of this. It felt right. Opening the gatefold, the spectrum of light formed a repeating pulse motif across the middle, with lyrics above and below. I knew I wanted to own this piece of art and I knew that in doing so, things would change.

Later, at home, when I placed the record on the turntable, and turned on the Amstrad tower system carefully lowering the stylus onto the outside edge of the album, I swear I was holding my breath.

To first hear a pulse, to then hear sound effects, rather than just 'music', followed by mechanical noises and a soaring crescendo, all before the first track settles into a laid back almost stoned groove left me speechless. My life changed at that point. Odd time signatures, long instrumental passages, glorious female wailing, stunning guitar solos, atmospheric keyboards and lyrics that seemed to speak directly to me with absolute immediacy, all served to freeze time. I stood throughout that first listen, desparate for it not to end.

I studied the accompanying poster wondering what inspired these strange looking men pictured against a background of pyramids, flames and gongs to compose a piece of music that flowed effortlessly and beautifully across forty five minutes suite, of such complete perfection. Why wwere there two postcards? What did it mean? I had no idea, but I knew it felt right.

I felt proud and priviledged just to hold the complete package. I wanted to both shout it out loud and keep it utterly to myself at the same time. I lay back on my bed, put on my headphones and listened to it once more straight away.

I was hooked. My appetite had been whetted. I wanted more and was overwhelmed at the thought of the unknown world I was about to tap into.