Don’t fret and don’t cover your eyes—I’m not posting NSFW pictures of post-middle-age, prog-mush demi-rockers in their underpants or worse…
In the recent thread about downrating concept albums, I said that a prime candidate for de-starring was Days of Future Passed – the overblown 1967 album by The Moody Blues that’s been held near and dear forever by misguided progsters. (OK, I know there are some who would say that “misguided” and “progsters” are redundant.) I don’t like this record in the state it was released, yet I can’t ignore its place in the Moodies’ history and there would be a glaring hole in my music collection if I left it out. What to do? I took a cue from Paul McCartney‘s surgery on Let It Be and decided to make a “naked” version! That meant slicing out around 16 minutes of bad soundtrack music, orchestral cliches, and groan-inducing spoken-word doggerel with an Audacity (a free and excellent Windows sound editing program) scalpel.
I humbly present a pretty good collection of early Moodies as a 25:07 mp3 file for your listening and dancing pleasure. Yeah, I know you probably don’t need to hear “Nights in White Satin” again, as it’s perhaps the most overplayed Moodies song. To be honest, neither do I. However, there are plenty of other fair to very good tunes here that have previously been hard to discern in the symphonic fog of the original album. Please click on RTH Player below to heard Days of Future Passed Naked and assess its application for a Critical Upgrade. I hope you enjoy it and I’d like to see your comments.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/MoodyDays.mp3|titles=Days of Future Passed Naked]
I have to say I only knew the singles of Moody Blues (and Children’s Children CD) but have seen them 4-5 times on tour in the 90’s and 2000’s.
This “Naked” version is pretty good. I can see that the orchestral stuff might get old unless you were in a specific “mood”
I think if they had gone more of the Naked direction they would have been a bigger mainstream band (ala Darkside Floyd)
well done!
I haven’t listened to it but great job on the graphics!
I remembered your comment about how you gave this record an Audacity scalpel job, because I have been doing that for years to my records. Just recently edited the side-long (and nearly side-long) epics from Can’s Tago Mago into more bite-sized pieces. Curious how many people similarly tinker with their favorite records in this manner (and not just deleting tracks they don’t like, but actually editing the songs).
Anyway tonyola, this record sounds much better now!
I believe it was BigSteve who made something like a 20-minute version of Roxy Music’s “Bogus Man.” Were I to undertake such an endeavor, I’d like to find a way to seamlessly edit together the three versions of Judee Sill’s “The Donor” i own.
Actually, Mr. Mod gets the credit for the Janet Jackson picture. He’ll get the call from her lawyers, too. 🙂
So far this mix-down is helping. Can we quickly brand this the first iAlbum?
On 2nd listen this is much better. You have removed 75% of their pretentious twat factor.
The songs themselves are good, aren’t they? I particularly like “Dawn Is a Feeling”, “Tuesday Afternoon”, and “Twilight Time”. I know the Moodies were ambitious in 1967, but this is the way the album should have been released, especially since the group had a few non-album singles around the same tine that they could have put in to extend the music to full-album length. Also, thanks for the picture, formatting, and putting the mp3 into an easily-playable form.
My pleasure, tonyola. You do good work. And yes, hearing the songs like this makes me feel like I’m listening to something like the Zombies, the Hollies, or the Bee Gees – just fairly ambitious psych-pop of that era.
I agree – a great endeavor. Thanks for the mini-Moody lesson.
I like it. Nice work. They sound like the Vogues.