Search - Moody Blues :: Days of Future Passed

Michelle D. from HAMPDEN, ME
Reviewed on 2/15/2021...

Days Of Future Passed, The Moody Blues' second album. Or first, depends how you look at it. The public's favorite. My favorite. Many think it to be the first progressive rock album, fusing orchestra with electric guitar and lyrics. The first song is okay. The second is very good. The third, even better. The fourth, I like. I think I like it more than the first, but less than the two before it. The first half is no match for the last three. Tuesday Afternoon is very nice. Evening time to get away is pretty good as well. The Sunset is okay, but is no match for Twilight Time, my favorite Moody Blues song. (If you add The Sunset to it, it gets bumped down a few spots,however) Then there's Nights In White Satin, a magnificent closer to a magnificent album.

Mark L. (MarkL) from WALNUT CREEK, CA
Reviewed on 2/21/2007...

A great album, from the days when albums were meant to played in their entirety.

1. "The Day Begins" – 5:51
* "The Day Begins" (Peter Knight) – 4:08
* "Morning Glory" (Graeme Edge) – 1:42
2. "Dawn: Dawn is a Feeling" (Mike Pinder) – 3:49
3. "The Morning: Another Morning" (Ray Thomas) – 3:56
4. "Lunch Break" – 5:29
* "Lunch Break" (Peter Knight) – 1:53
* "Peak Hour" (John Lodge) – 3:40
5. "The Afternoon" – 8:23
* "Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)" (Justin Hayward) – 4:48
* "Time To Get Away" (Lodge) – 3:35
6. "Evening" – 6:40
* "The Sun Set" (Pinder) – 3:17
* "Twilight Time" (Thomas) – 3:23
7. "The Night – 7:26
* "Nights In White Satin" (Hayward) – 5:37
* "Late Lament" (Edge) – 1:46

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Where it all started

Big City Trumpet | Phila, PA | 03/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If anyone reading this has read any of my other reviews (I only review my favorite cds out of the 3,500 that my wife and I own), then I will tell you that this probably should have been the first cd that I ever reviewed. I grew up listening to the music my brother listened to and by default, those groups became some of my favorites. I was born in 1968, so in the 70s, when I was little, I just knew what I liked by hearing good songs. Some of my favorites were the Beatles, Steve Miller, Kansas and Alan Parsons. As I got older and started to play trumpet, I got into bands like Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears. But when I was 13 (1981), things changed immediately - I didn't dislike the previously mentioned bands, but I heard something that completely changed the way I listened to music. I heard The Moody Blues - Long Distance Voyager to be exact. That album got me addicted to their music, so that I wanted to buy everything that they ever put out - I eventually became a collector. My brother did have Days of Future Passed on a tape, so when I first listened to it, after hearing Long Distance Voyager, I realized then that they were my new favorite band. Their songwriting, Justin Hayward's voice, their orchestrations, and the mellotron were all of the things that had me hooked. For those of you who don't know, Days of Future Passed ties all of the songs together using an assembled orchestra, playing themes and variations of the rest of the album. I won't write the story of the album here because anyone can look it up on their website or find it on any of a number of other websites, but it was revolutionary for it's time and more progressive than any other music of the 60s, with the exception of the Beatles. If anyone doesn't have this in their collection, they are missing a part of history. It really is an historically important recording and this is the reason that I'm disgusted with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have ignored the Moodies for far too long. If you don't have it, get it, dim the lights, sit back with a glass of wine and put this on from start to finish, and you'll know what I mean. Enjoy!"

Essential Classic

Phil (San Diego, CA) | San Diego, CA | 06/15/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even if you summarize the Moody Blues' career by purchasing the "Time Traveller" box set, you need this album. In this case I wouldn't settle for downloading just a couple select tracks.



The box set does do the justice of including the full album length versions of the two hits here, "Nights In White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon", but "Days of Future Passed" is a great example of a release from the album era where, from start to finish, it works as a whole and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Apart from the opening 'festival orchestra' instrumental (which seems to be very much about the orchestra and very little about the band) every track is a keeper.



Admittedly, when I compiled a single CD 'best of' for the car I edited out some of the portions at the end of songs that were strictly orchestration. This brought "Dawn is a Feeling" down to two minutes and change, and "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Another Morning" were trimmed of string section extensions as well.



The only negative I've ever heard levelled at this album came from an old girlfriend. She agreed that it was a choice album for putting on endless repeat when the two of you are in a sultry mood, but she suggested that the orchestrations sometimes sound like a travelogue. I'll give her that, they do; but "Days of Future Passed" is still an essential album, one of the two dozen or so most significant rock albums of the 1960s.

"