DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED

There have been so many words written about this album that it’s unlikely there is really anything new to say, but in the interest of covering all my favorite Moodies releases, I’ll add my words anyway.

I think the most remarkable things about this album aren’t the many arguable firsts – first progressive album; first use of an orchestra in a purely pop/rock album; first use of mellotron as primary instruments in a pop/rock album; first use of spoken-word poems to augment pop/rock songs; etc. etc. The really remarkable things are the reissues of the best-known single “Nights in White Satin” in the 70s that outsold even the original release, and the reemergence of the album on hit charts several times throughout the 70s, indicating both continuing and renewed interest in it. I first heard that song as a young teenager, not realizing that what I thought was a huge new hit was actually more than half a dozen years old. For a midwestern American in the early 70s, this was an incredibly exotic-sounding work, and after hearing the whole album (on 8-track, of course) I was dumbfounded. We didn’t have music like that where I came from.

Even today you can get completely lost in this album. The lushness of the arrangements, over-the-top grandeur of the orchestra combined with the novelty and subtlety of the mellotron tracks (compared to so many later works by cheap knockoff bands) really made this album work. Justin Hayward’s voice, particularly on “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Evening” is so devastatingly mournful and yet beautiful at the same time. All of these combined with the quiet and suave flute just gave this album a much more refined and weighty feel to it than most of what else was available at the time.

Even though the album tells a contiguous story, it’s really the second half that makes the whole thing work. From “Tuesday Afternoon” through the end, the listener is just swept into this surreal world that was at the time so novel, not psychedelic, and not classic orchestral, not folk, but a perfect melding of the three.

I have to wonder if Arjen Anthony Lucassen at least thought about this album when he penned The Human Equation, and if this is the bar he set for himself. If so, he may have bested it, but not by much.

I can’t really say anything else that others haven’t already said – a true classic in every sense. Five stars.

peace

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