Well, I Like 'Em Dept. - The Moody Blues

Rock n' roll purists (hi, Mike!) like to believe that the Moodies lost the plot after Denny Laine quit, but that first album is nothing fantastic. Leave us dive straight into Days Of Future Passed, which is more their debut proper, and for 1967 - for any year - something approaching fantastic.

The Cover Deram marketed the album under their easy-listening Deramic Sound System banner; the only pop-rock act among dozens of suburban schlock LPs, such as *gulp* Tony Osborne's Three Brass Buttons [check generic sleeve format at left - Ed.]. Imagine the band's delight at seeing their commissioned arwork - a beautiful and intricate psychedelic painting by David Anstey - cheapened by the house style. My more minimalist approach above [above - Ed.] shews the painting with the best color palette you'll find on the internet and incorporating a none-more-sixties futuristic font. Tilt your head to the left to see the face. Like, oh wow!

The Music The band subverted the intent of the label for them to record versions of classical music, and covertly composed and recorded a suite of songs based around a day in the life of Everyman, interwoven with cinematic orchestral interludes based on their own music, played by The London Festival Orchestra. The arrangements are very much in the English Light Orchestral tradition of Eric Coates  [⬅︎ original critical aperću - Ed.] and that's absolutely appropriate. Nothing pompously fake-Wagnerian here. Recording at Decca London Studios started in May '67, when concept albums weren't exactly stuffing the racks - Sgt. Pepper (barely an idea, leave alone a concept) dropped the next month, Nirvana's Simon Simopath in October, SF Sorrow a year later.

All the hallmarks of the Moodies are here, fully-formed, for better or worse, and some haven't dated particularly well. But if you can forgive the pretentiousness as ambition, and the dumbness as naiveté, there's a lot to admire and enjoy. The across-the-board excellence in composition, arrangement, production and performance (they were an accomplished multi-instrumental band) was unmatched for the time in the U.K., and if that seems like a wild claim, prove me wrong.

As the album was recorded in state-of-the-art stereo specifically to demonstrate the capabilities of the Deramic Sound System, wanting to hear a mono version - or worse, pretending to prefer it - is just perverse. Here's some hi-fi porn for those with a taste for it:

"Two Neumann M50s in-line 4.5 feet apart and angled about 15 degs. to the floor. A third M50 centered between the two and placed forward 2.5 feet, again angled down about 15 degs., augmented by two more M50s set out beyond the first two and further back in the room for ambience and depth. All mics would be panned as they were in the room - left, right & center with the ambient mics about 6-8dB lower than the others. The genius of this setup is that they devised the perfect surround (5.1) recording technique nearly five decades early."

Tell me again about white-coated technicians drinking tea at Abbey Road.

The Critics Rave The deep thinkers at Rolling Stone loftily opined that it was "an English rock group strangling itself in conceptual goo, and one of the most startlingly saccharine conceptions of 'beauty' and 'mysticism' that any rock group has ever affected". New York Magazine weighed in with "a ponderous mound of thought-jello." Well, gee whiz. They forgot the sneer you send out returns to you. Time has mellowed their harsh, Rolling Stone honoring it with a place in its snooty list of the essential albums of 1967. Fuck them anyway. I don't hear any jello or goo, I hear a sincere and successful attempt to create an original, beautiful, and moving piece of music. Luckily, accusations of pretentiousness never seemed to bother the Moodies overmuch, and they continued on their own path with increasing success, much loved by millions of plain folks, such as je. 

The Loaddown Needledrop of the original stereo mix @320, plus the 2CD 2006 Deluxe Edition with all the bells and whistles. 

This post sposored by Tallulah's Tuna Town, Tullahoma, TN. "Just follow your nose!"