The Moody Blues - This Is The Moody Blues poll

inspired to make this thread because of the last original member's death just a few days back:

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/12/1055026618/moody-blues-co-founder-drummer-graeme-edge-dies-at-80

RIP

One of my earliest album purchases! Probably bought it around '76 or '77, when I was still in high school. Vivid memory: Mr. Paul's chemistry class, where we were supposed to be listening to these cassettes about chemical reactions (with headphones), and my friend Steve and I were listening to "Legend of a Mind" instead.

No "Go Now" (different label, probably), so "Tuesday Afternoon," primarily for the sublime middle section. Also like "Ride My See-Saw," "Question," and the aforementioned "Legend of a Mind."

Damn. That’s a hell of a tracklist. Doesn’t even have Gypsy on it!

Never was a big Moody Blues fan but this is a jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_J-hmyAS6c

Christgau line that stayed with me: "In 1970, while under the influence of marijuana and my new Toyota, I bought 'Question,' which sure beats Mantovani, reportedly their greatest influence."

No Gypsy so voted Nights in White Satin.

I know the original records, but I'll listen to this compilation before voting. All their albums except Threshold are pretty spotty. Here's my picks of these songs for each writer:

Hayward - "Watching and Waiting" vying with the Days of Future Past songs
Pinder - the "Have You Heard" suite, maybe the closest thing yet to prog rock in early 1969?
Thomas - "Dear Diary", darker than his usual whimsy
Edge - "The Dream"
Lodge - don't like any of these songs, would pick "Candle of Life" if it had been on here

TOCCC is a solid album too. not a bad track on that one. arguably Seventh Sojourn too. though there's one goofy song on there everyone hates. I can't remember what it is though and I don't wanna look it up. I actually think Days of Future Passed is the weakest of the seven. I mean once you hit "Peak Hour" it's all good but man is it a slog up to that point.

I finally picked up one of their post-7th albums, Long Distance Voyager. It's actually quite nice, they still do some great harmonies and the tunes are generally good. Doesn't hold up to the classics but it's about as good as you could reasonably expect from 80s Moodies. kinda appears to be the only decent one after 1972 though

a friend noted (about 50 years ago but whatever) that "on the threshold of a dream" heralded a label shift from threshold to deram and should more appropriately have been called "on the threshold of a deram." the things we remember.

i have all the individual reissue cds, but this is the album of theirs i listen to the most as its just back to back with the good stuff.
also, some of the edits were exclusive to this compilation.

yea I dig the albums but their comps are so rock solid and admittedly you aren't really missing that much. though I see this is also missing "Higher and Higher"...maybe its such an "opening track" you can't really put it anywhere

Good to see that Justin Hayward's still rockin' the hair, a true lifer

https://images.pulsewebcontent.com/photos/2019/02_Feb/800/JustinHayward2019_2_19.jpg

One of my earliest album purchases!

Me too, Record Club of America! This is actually really hard, gonna have to think about it.

the last original member's death

Mike Pinder, original keyboard player, is still around at 79 (but left the group in 1978).

...and so is Denny Laine!

I have a soft spot for the shanty-like whimsy of "For My Lady". I wish I could vote for "When You're A Free Man" which is also on Seventh Sojourn and is really affecting.

"on the threshold of a dream" heralded a label shift from threshold to deram and should more appropriately have been called "on the threshold of a deram."

It took me a bit to remember what's wrong with this. They started on Deram; later Threshold was their own label. But "On the Threshold of a Threshold" doesn't really work.

discogs makes it look like they flipped back to deram for threshold.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/266422-The-Moody-Blues

maybe they were on the deram of a threshold.

With the album On the Threshold of a Dream, they were on the threshold of the dream of starting their own record company that wouldn't come to be until their next record, could it be any more obvious?

a couple more great tracks that aren't on here: "Are You Sitting Comfortably" and "The Land of Make-Believe".

The Bucks Fizz song?

though I see this is also missing "Higher and Higher"...maybe its such an "opening track" you can't really put it anywhere

very good point.
absolutely immense opening track.
the way it builds and builds is just brilliant.

Ten billion butterfly sneezes!

"why do we never get an answer ... "

due to family crap i have been struggling this evening with what to listen to ..
and then i realised this is exactly what i needed.
it really is one of the best compilations ever.

Mike Pinder, original keyboard player, is still around at 79 (but left the group in 1978).

the UDA Today headline was "Graeme Edge, drummer and last original member of the Moody Blues dies at 80"

so thanks for the clarification

forgot until now, that they are the group with "Timothy Leary's dead"

Mentioned it a couple times earlier by the title no one remembers.

i'm only about half way through this but this comp is pretty amazing. some great songs on here, going to be very hard to pick just one.

i also felt stoned while listening even though i wasn't. the vibe is just that way.

its even better if you are

voted "Lovely To See You", I also think Threshold is super solid

Really unusual that this band was so stable with four people writing songs, with a cohesive sound even.

Loved this record when I was 13, an excellent portrait of what this band could do when all the filler and most ridiculously dated psychedelic bits were stripped away.

Some of you have never faced piles of trials with smiles and it shows

I've got Days, Lost Chord, Threshold and I never felt there was much filler.

And they're very albumy albums so I think people would be missing out on a lot if they stuck with a best-of

I agree. I listened to this comp today, and I'm glad I know the songs from the albums. They clipped the punchline out of "Dear Diary" and removed the gong from the end of "Late Lament"!
I was thinking I would vote for "Watching and Waiting" but this remix brings the harmony vocal up and changes the whole mood... so I'll be obvious and vote for "Nights in White Satin".

we are having Santa Ana winds in Southern California today with a hint of fire smoke in the air where I'm at, seems like a perfect night for the Moody Blues

they're very albumy albums

Yes they are, they begin very theatrically, with spoken word and big orchestral crescendos and whatnot, and end similarly. Lots of lovely segues between songs as well. I wanted to own all the albums individually at the time (my best friend's older brother had them all) but as a kid on a budget this comp really hit most of the high points. Thanks to this thread I'm now relistening to the complete albums for the first time in ages.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

As I mentioned above, this is the album I listened to through high school, so I had never heard "Go Now" until probably the early '80s--it wasn't anything that still got played on the radio. (And I didn't year Bessie Banks' original until years after that; it ended one episode of some history of rock and roll I was watching.) Anyway, it'd be pretty close for me between "Go Now" and "Tuesday Afternoon" if they were both on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2L3UzM_FfE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prlWGe2EHro

Nice live version by the Wings in '76 on YouTube also, with Denny Laine singing lead.

this was a great listen and i am going to have to check out their albums

i could have voted for five or six different songs but in the end it was "Never Comes the Day"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

surprised "Question" only got one vote, it's kind of a perfect song in a way

That was mine…

Then again, not many votes here overall

Legend of Mind here. So expansive and dreamy, one of the songs that made me fall in love with psych. I now realize that as pre-internet 14 year old, it was a few years before I learned who Timothy Leary was. As the song enveloped me I just assumed he was another quirky chappy like Arnold Layne or Happy Jack or Walter in "Do You Remember Walter"

Repeatedly, I have always loved this song from the Hayward/Lodge album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bheNRb3D0I

(Clearly I meant “relatedly,” but I have also listened to this song many times over)

For this list, it probably would’ve been Never Comes the Day as well. I am a big sucker for the stately Hayward ballads.

I'm always surprised by who I meet who turns out to be a big Moody Blues fan. A straight-edge punk I knew in high school loved In Search Of The Lost Chord and insisted that our punk band take a high-speed run at "Legend Of A Mind." Had to convince our singer that "Timothy Leary's dead..." was sufficiently anti-hippie (ha!) and in the end we sounded a little like Nazz Nomad-era The Damned. Wish I had that recording.

Not exactly the same thing but close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvQXuFj1Kc4

i voted for this.

clearly someone is enjoying themselves a lot more than the others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68OXtuxKRr4

How do all 5 of them look like game show hosts

I voted in this, "Tuesday Afternoon," but I'd forgotten how great the co-winner "Lovely to See" is. Actually, I think I may have always underappreciated it and just realized that now (found a thrift-shop CD of On the Threshold of a Dream). Swear to god, all that guitar interplay could be the Jefferson Airplane, and it's an oddly perfect setting for their proper English voices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiHUAVZf_FY