Recommened me some Moody Blues....

back in the 70s I was quite enamored of them. Days is the first big hit. The next few albums are fun but I headed off to college so no money. First exposure was on a guy's portable cassette deck with headphones on a ski trip in the lounge. This was about 71 so way before iPods, that was very cool.

Long Distance Voyager,
To Our Children's Children's,Children,
On the Threshold of a Dream.
Question of Balance,
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,
Seventh Sojourn

they should keep you going, most are available on Spotify, if you want to try before you buy.

They (or most of them) are still touring, we saw recently and very good they were too.

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is my favourite Moody Blues elpee, but I also like the two you have very much indeed.

Others that are excellent are On the Threshold of a Dream, To Our Children's Children's Children, and of course, the superb A Question of Balance. Although not as strong as those mentioned so far Seventh Sojurn does contain the magnificent I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band).

Great band IMHO.

Days Of Future Passed.

cheers for the replies, I think I'll pickup on the threshold of a dream and to our children's children's children.

The MoFi's all have outstanding SQ and most of them you can get on the cheap. The below is the exception and one of my personal favorites.

Ah buying them in chronological order eh? You'll not be disappointed - they were (and possibly still are) one of Britain's finest bands - part of the Brum scene, which also gave us Black Sabbath, but more interestingly IMHO gave us the mighty Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne and, of course, the excellent Steve Gibbons.

The Moody Blues were an R&B band that progressed to a more psychedelic sound and evolved in to one of the better prog rock groups. Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder were El Riot & the Rebels, a popular Birmingham band.

After a spell in the army Mike teamed up again with Ray in the Krew Cats and recruited Denny Laine, Graeme Edge and Clint Warwick and changed their name to the Moody Blues. In 1964, Decca (a label never known to miss a good band) signed them up and they released a mediocre single: Steal Your Heart Away. However the follow-up was the superb Denny Laine Go Now - surely one the best records of the 60s.

Alas, the follow-up singles and the debut album were not so good. The album the Magnificent Moodies was IMHO a misnomer. Then came the breakthrough: Denny and Clint left - enter John Lodge and Justin Hayward. In 66, Decca launched Deram and asked the Moody Blues to promote stereo on the new label. The Decca Deram management told the group to make a rock and roll version of Dvorak's New World Symphony - you know the Hovis add.

The Moody Blues said "No" and embarked on an original work, Days of Future Passed. The Moodies and the Orchestra were recorded separately and merged together on the recording. There were also two hit singles from the album: Nights in White Satin and Tuesday Afternoon.

After this success, they released the psychedelic gem that was In Search of the Lost Chord and used a Mellotron to create that orchestral feel. What a great pop-psych gem they created with Ride My See Saw.

As they progressed, the music became quite complex and the problem with Threshold of a Dream and 1969's To Our Children's Children's Children were they were too difficult to perform. That didn't stop them being superb records.

However, subsequently the band decided to record only songs they could play in concert. The result was A Question of Balance in 1970; they promoted this on the short lived Top of the Pops album slot. The single Question was a massive hit and quite rightly too.

The next elpee Every Good Boy Deserves Favour remains my favourite elpee by The Moody Blues. Released in 1971 it seems to capture the best of psychedelic elements of Lost Chord, the progressiveness of Children's Children and the directness of Question and present the result in a coherent masterwork. This is rock music at its very best. The second track The Story in Your Eyes is absolutely wonderful and, for me, the pinnacle of their work.

On Seventh Sojourn in 1972, the Moody Blues returned to lush sounds - the notable exception being the storming I'm Just A Singer.

After that, the band took an extended break ............ zzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

You certainly know your Moodies ROTF. Like you, Ive been a long standing fan of the band having been hooked by my brother's original Mono version of Threshold the first time I heard it. They immediately became 'my favourite' band and remain so to this day. I make that 38 years give or take.

I think the core seven albums are the pinnacle of their output with the quality and consistency never quite matching their output between '67 and '72.

For that reason I would wholeheartedly recommend those seven albums. If you love those, then carry on through their catalogue, perhaps stalling at Sur La Mer.

I think the band adopted a style after Pinder's departure after Octave in '78, perhaps focussing too strongly on the Blue Jays style of Hayward and Lodge at the expensa of the more varied output previously enjoyed.

My personal favourite track is (per ROTF) The Story In Your Eyes from Every Good Boy. Not released as a single in the UK, which was a crazy decision by the band. Certainly a track that's a challenge to some systems.

Best album, well it changes from time to time, but overall I think it's Question followed by On The Threshold (the first album I ever heard incidentally). Sometimes I push Seventh Sojourn to the top of the list if my overall mood reflects this 'darker' album from '72.

Justin Hayward is one of the best singer songwriters this country has ever produced. His The View From The Hill is by far the best from their respective solo albums over the years and is on a par with some of the earlier Moodies albums.

I've converted many to the fold over the years, one friend even buying their entire output within 2 or 3 weeks.

Pete

From the magnificent 7 in preference:

Search
Days
Threshold
Children's
Good Boy
Question
Seventh Sojourn

Ty6pically the later albums are softer and gradually get less optimistic.

They had an outstanding set of composers. Heyward's ballads (and Pinder's for that matter) were top rank and Heyward was no mean guitarist - something that gets overlooked as the they got increasingly pigeon-holed as yesterday's sound with the dominance of heavier prog an rock tastes in the early 70s.

John Lodge wrote some fine (harder) stuff and even Graeme Edge chipped in (though the poetry maybe hasn't aged too well). Ray Thomas's cheery music-hall ditties are definitely an acquired taste, though he co-wrote some lovely tunes and the albums wouldn't be quite the same without them.

All of the above feature some of the mellotron's greatest moments (except perhaps for Question, which was the Moodies equivalent of Let It Be - a deliberate step back to basics),

Nice to be filled in on the sequence of events and changes. I know I had at least 4 of their albums and would dream away in high school.

I can do no more but agree with most folk's recommendations here. The Moodies are probably my favourite band and criminally under-rated IMO. For some reason they were regarded as distinctly uncool and I had to conceal my love of them from my mates.

My favourite album's also Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, which has the distinction of being the first music I ever heard through stereo headphones! The Story in your Eyes is a firm favourite of mine too.

I recently bought this DVD of them in concert -



It was recorded at a concert in Los Angeles in 2005 and is quite superb both in their performances (forgiving Graeme Edge his embarrassing turn) and the quality of recording.

I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but being surprised by how good they were I looked to see if they were still touring. They were, and had played Ipswich Regent the week before! Damn...

When we were young there were albums that you played in the dark. One was The Zodiac - Cosmic Sounds (an acquired but magical taste!) and another was On The Threshold Of A Dream. I still play both regularly and both have to be played in the near-dark (with a bit of a green glow coming from the corner).

I confess i would never have thought to buy a Moody Blues album until this thread appeared.

This is obviously the best reason for the music forum to exist.

I read this thread by accident and was persuaded to try by the obvious enthusiasm. Now i'm hooked and am working my way through the albums. Cheers!

quote:

Originally posted by MilesSmiles:
The MoFi's all have outstanding SQ and most of them you can get on the cheap. The below is the exception and one of my personal favorites.

Could you please tell me where? I've only seen them available for insane prices.

Incidentally, I've been collecting the 1997 reissues/remasters ... there are a few times where the vocals come in horribly loud in the mix. So far I have (in order of pref):

In search of the lost chord
On the threshold of a dream
Days of future passed
Every good boy deserves a favour (not overly excited with this one, hopefully it will grow..)

Still these are supposed to be better than the 2008 remasters....

Would be interested in checking out the mobile fidelity ones if I could find them for reasonable money, anyone got any ideas?

They do seem to be somewhat available from the US.... second hand we're talking about 35 quid a CD.

If like these albums enough to pony up the cash, but it purely depends on how much better they actually are.

I could take a chance with DOFP as it's kind of a 'test cd' for me and see if it sounds hugely better then slowly buy the rest.

quote:

Originally posted by Spoonboy:
Still these are supposed to be better than the 2008 remasters....

This simply isn't true. I had the 90's remasters, tried a couple of the new ones and have now replaced them all with the recent versions. They're excellent.

Not a great Moddies fan but the best sounding ones are the original Deram discs of the ones I have heard

quote:

Originally posted by ewemon:
Not a great Moddies fan but the best sounding ones are the original Deram discs of the ones I have heard

Agreed. I have only two, "Every Good Boy" and "On the Threshold" - the originals on Deram are pretty good, no NR and plenty of dynamic range. The remasters I heard were loudness victims - NR'd, peak limited with compression added. Good news is that the originals can be picked up fairly cheaply.

Joe

quote:

Originally posted by Joe Bibb:

quote:

Originally posted by ewemon:
Not a great Moddies fan but the best sounding ones are the original Deram discs of the ones I have heard

Agreed. I have only two, "Every Good Boy" and "On the Threshold" - the originals on Deram are pretty good, no NR and plenty of dynamic range. The remasters I heard were loudness victims - NR'd, peak limited with compression added. Good news is that the originals can be picked up fairly cheaply.

Joe

threshold is good ,most of them are ease to be found

Just thought I'd update this.

Currently have:

In search of the lost chord
days of future passed
on the threshold of a dream
to our childrens chhildrens children
every good boy deserves favour

Every single one is a stonker.

I'm holding back from buying question and seventh sojourn just because they seems to be grouped as the bottom two.

I also have the MFSL In Search of the Lost Chord CD on the way.. can't wait for that!

In the mean time, can anyone recommend me some solo stuff? I imagine Justin has some good stuff?

I heard a couple of Ray Thomas tracks, but the two solo albums he did are *impossible* to find!

Without doubt ... 'Days of Future Passed'. Get the Deluxe edition (2CD). The surround mix is also good and there are some interesting bonus tracks.

Lo, Spoonboy.

I've bought a couple of MB cd's since your began this thread and I've enjoyed them all, though I think 'Days Of Future Passed' a little odd and disjointed. I need to hear it a few more times perhaps.

Questions is due to arrive soon and it has my (to now ) favourite MB track on it. Let you know how it compares with the others i have (imo) later.

Cheers for the initial heads up. Paul.

Try The Bue Jays album (Justin Hayward and John Lodge). It's very soft and (to me) lacks the Moodies magic, but this was made in the middle of their hot run so it could be for you.

quote:

I think 'Days Of Future Passed' a little odd and disjointed.

Well it is - the Moodies and the London Festival Orchestra were not in the same place when it was recorded, but Dawn is a Feeling, Tuesday Afternoon and Nights in White Satin are worth the price of several records on their own.

I'm going to play it a good few more times before i condemn it, if only because of Nights'. As you say, a quite flawless tune.