*** The Moody Blues -- Days of Future Passed (Remastered)
I liked this album a lot more before I bought it. When I was at the recent Moodies concert in Fargo, I noticed in the overpriced tour programme that the original Deram/Threshold albums had been remastered. Then last weekend, I found a slug of them at Walmart for $10 apiece. I snagged this, eager to hear an album I hadn't listened to for about 15 years. Then I read the liner notes about the creation of the album, and that really messed things up. You see, this album wasn't orchestrated by the band -- they recorded a bunch of songs, then sent them to a conductor who wrote his own orchestration. That's probably ok, but then I listened to it with that in mind, and if you strip all the songs of the orchestral parts, you get some pretty schlocky stuff. I like all of the subsequent Moody Blues releases, but this sounds a bit too much like "Go Now" or the Dave Clark Five with a symphony score tacked over the top. "The Sunset/Twilight Time" is still a pretty cool track, though.
Reviews by A. D. Jensen
