This Is The Moody Blues (1974)

WARNING!!

These reviews are given in the spirit of a personal editorial and of personal opinion. If you would find yourself offended by these views and criticisms within the body of these reviews, please do not read further. It is not our intention to offend or injure someone's views on their favourite band. We wrote these as one-time fans who now, after many years, revisited these albums and wanted to write fair and unbiased reviews of The Moody Blues' material. If indeed, a member of The Moody Blues does happen to read these reviews, please take into consideration that these are simply opinions. These reviews present an alternate perspective.
Thank You,
Shawn and Andrew Dow,
March, 2007

Album Review by Andrew Dow

Album Review by Shawn Dow

Album Review by Andrew Dow

Two years after the release of "Seventh Sojourn", Decca still looked to capitalize on the popularity of The Moody Blues, after the release of that No. 1 hit album and the successful re-release of "Nights In White Satin" as a single. So, Decca released a two LP greatest hits package (of what would be the beginning of many for The Moody Blues) entitled, "This Is The Moody Blues". This greatest hits package had a different twist to it: this one featured re-mixes of several of its titles. This album sold reasonably well and continued The Moodies popularity to help keep word of mouth alive about the band so that their subsequent solo material could get some notice.

Since all of the material on This Is The Moody Blues has all been previously released (except for Simply Game by Pinder), I will not go into extreme detail about this greatest hits album, the best one released by the band. The packaging is rather nice, the cover featuring the original release covers of all their albums, shown against a cloudy sky. The inner cover showing a collage of photos of the band from early on in their career up till the end of 1972, all in black and white against a pale blue background. Of note here, Phil Travers was not commissioned to do this cover, no doubt he was too busy working on the many different Moody solo album cover at the time. The label of each LP still features the inventive swirling Threshold label.

In some cases on this album, I prefer these version as compared to the LP versions of them. The opening reworking of "Question", "The use of "Beyond" to back the Edge poem "The Word", "The Actor's" omitted second repeat, the nice descending chord progression to open "Have You Heard (Part II)", the lead-in to "Ride My See-Saw", are all great touches and almost preferable to the LP versions. Except for "Eyes of A Child" omitting the harps and flute, although this remix is just basically a single version of it. "I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock N'Roll Band) has it's opening drum intro begin cold without fading in here as well.

One small complaint is that not much of "To Our Children's, Children's Children" is on this set, instead most of "On The Threshold of A Dream" is here, including the entire end suite of "Have You Heard", with it's rip-off of Also Spach Zarathrustra, an ode to Kubrick's "2001: a space odyssey" during "The Voyage". Man that movie must have flipped Pinder out. If you are a casual Moody Blues fan and not too rabid about their music, this would be the album to get. A lot of their best material is here and it sounds so much better then the original LP versions. There must have been some remastering for these LP's back in 1974. I'm not entirely sure if this set still survives on CD, I acquired mine in 1990 when it was first released by Polygram. The sound quality on this one is really great and encapsulates the Moody Blues in their "classic seven" period, thankfully deleting such awful stuff as "My Song" and "Procession" but it does have the suicidal "Melancholy Man". They must have thought a lot of that one to include it here, just before "Nights In White Satin", and yes, we must listen to that tune once again. But for a greatest hits package I can forgive its' inclusion. The great "Watching And Waiting" is here, but I almost wish "One More Time To Live" was here. Notice how much of "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor" and "A Question of Balance" is NOT on this set! One track that didn't make the original album cuts was "Simple Game", so I'll do a review for it here:

Simple Game: The song starts out simply enough with an acoustic guitar/bass intro that starts off with Pinders vocals and seems fairly straight ahead, until the tune crashes into a falsetto stretch by Lodge and massive tambourine exercise by Thomas. The song has a nice middle 8 section that almost saves the song from too much excess, but the girlishly screamed "Be what we want to be", tire the song down. The song then repeats once again from the start, and makes the song feel longer than it actually is. It's only 3 minutes but feels like 5! The song fades out its chorus with a constant string of wailing. This tune was supposed to have won an award or something for Pinder, but I don't' see how. Nice melody at times, but all that wailing! Mamma Mia! Sorry ABBA.

So, I would definitely recommend a casual fan of the band what is undoubtedly their best greatest hit collection, and I sincerely hope this set is still in print. I'd also recommend "To Our Children's Children's Children". These two-albums sum up what is for me, the best of The Moody Blues.

Star Rating (out of 5)

**** out of *****

Album Review by Shawn Dow

Watch for an upcoming Review by Shawn Dow