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More Guilty Pleasures Of 70′s Symphonic Rock: The Moody Blues
Topics: Music | 5 CommentsBy admin | September 24, 2010
Sure, these stoned, classically-trained hippies may have accidentally planted the seeds of the new age movement, but until tragedy struck in 1978, they were one of the best art rock bands in existence.
  With covers like this they may have been indirectly responsible for the new age movement, but they still rocked. |
Last year I publicly revealed the shameful pleasure I still derive from listening to 70′s symphonic rock band ELO, and was genuinely surprised by how many people still enjoyed their Beatles-esque pop genius. Well, today I have an even more shameful confession. I am a hopeless The Moody Blues fan. In spite of the fact that these guys were essentially a bunch of hairy-faced, classically-trained hippies who may be single-handedly responsible for the entire new age movement with their penchant for stoned, pseudo-spiritual peacenik poetry interludes and dreamy airbrush psychedelic album covers, they also happened to be amongst the most talented and innovative of all the 60′s/70′s art rock bands, with their brilliant early use of the mellotron and tight pop symphonics, provided mostly by the London Festival Orchestra. The Moody Blues especially stood out amongst many of their prog-rock contemporaries like Yes or Pink Floyd for the simple fact that they possessed a gift that few of these bands did: the ability to not sound like crap live. In fact, if you’re familiar with the studio version of Ride My See-Saw, I would defy you to be able to tell the difference between it and this live Paris club performance (also below) from 1970. The band churned out a string of hit singles and solid albums beginning with (video below) 1964′s Go Now – which could easily be mistaken for a song by Peter Bjorn & John or Grizzly Bear – and culminating with 1972′s Seventh Sojourn. Unfortunately, after creating a series of well-crafted stoner concept albums like Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Seventh Sojourn, and A Question of Balance, as well as resilient singles like Nights in White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon and I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock ‘n Roll Band), tragedy struck in 1978. No, there was no tragic aircrash, 1978 was the year the band decided to get back together and release Octave, which launched a series of middle-of-the-road pop dreck albums with aging rock star saccharine hits like I Know You’re Out There Somewhere. Personally, I do a good job of pretending – as I do with much of the 80′s – that their later releases never happened, and just enjoy the good stuff. Vids below.
Their 1964 hit “Go Now” could almost be mistaken for a Peter Bjorn & John tune:
This 1970 Paris club performance of “Ride My Seesaw” is a good example of their ability to pull off their sound live:
Sadly, tragedy struck in the late 70′s. They reunited, and started releasing mortifyingly cheesy material like “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere”:
Posted by kristin on 09.25.10 6:37 am
“knights in white satin” seriously creeped me out when i was a kid and always turned me off to these guys. “go now” is absolutely fabulous, and i’ve always had a soft heart for “i know you’re out there somewhere”. it was on many a mixtape of mine.
Posted by admin on 09.25.10 6:51 am
“White Satin” definitely had some creepy atmosphere about it, but that was exactly what made them so great – their ability to create so much darn “atmosphere”. This effect was enhanced tremendously under the influence of various drugs
Posted by Gloria on 09.25.10 10:55 am
That entire Paris concert is a combination lip-synch with only some live blended in for ‘some’ songs.
There is no “K” in Nights In White Satin.
I’m a pretty involved fan, but I don’t care much for the ‘hits’ from the 80′s. That said, the rest of the albums (Long Distance Voyager, Keys Of The Kingdom, The Present, Sur La Mer and The Other Side Of Life contain much more interesting material than just what was on TV and radio. Bears listening before discounting.
Posted by admin on 09.25.10 3:38 pm
Thanks for the correction on the Paris clip, Gloria. I’m not surprised I guess; the only thing that really sounded different to me was more reverb on the vocals, and it is after all a YouTube clip so who knows how the uploader managed the audio along the way….
That being said, I don’t question the talent behind (or the quality of) the later material, but I personally don’t enjoy it, especially in the context of their larger body of work. But I’m glad they have an audience somewhere, as I would be for pretty much any act…
Posted by The Best Of 2010 | dissociatedpress.com on 12.30.10 9:23 pm
[...] and Survivor. This inspired us to dig deeper, and track the often-overlooked Moody Blues’ spiral down the infernal abyss of the 70’s to their tragic end in the 80’s. Meanwhile, back here in the 21st century, we took a look at why you can’t learn about rap on [...]