Really MOODY BLUES sub genre - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Teaflax

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Posted: July 10 2006 at 20:46

^Honestly, the difference is quite minimal (and that's my point).

Looking through the UK Top 40 Singles chart there are songs on there I would much prefer like #17, Muse - Supermassive Black Hole or #29, Jose Gonzales - Hand on Your Heart.

bhikkhu

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Posted: July 10 2006 at 20:55

Teaflax wrote:

^Honestly, the difference is quite minimal (and that's my point).

Looking through the UK Top 40 Singles chart there are songs on there I
would much prefer like #17, Muse - Supermassive Black Hole or #29, Jose
Gonzales - Hand on Your Heart.

Just as I always suspected. Europe has better taste.

a.k.a. H.T.

http://riekels.wordpress.com

akin

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Posted: July 13 2006 at 18:02

Talking about the structure, some of the most acclaimed prog songs are poor in structure, for example, 21th schizoid man which is like Doors' Light My Fire (an extensive experimental solo in the middle of the song). Genesis' Firth of Fifth is very similar to Moody Blues' Legend of a Mind, for example. The main difference is that the first have a long intro, but it has the same two or three different structures during the verses and different solos in the middle. Take the whole Selling England by the Pound Album, the only song that stands out is Dancing With the Moonlit Knight. The others would be as pop/rock as the moody blues compositions (though both excellent). Take some Moody Blues albuns like In Search of the Lost Chord, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Along with the pop/rock, they have songs that stand out like House of Four Doors, Procession, My Song: they are as prog as Selling England, only the length of the songs is reduced.

Teaflax

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Posted: July 13 2006 at 18:36

^You're completely ignoring melodic and harmonic components in your reasoning above, thus rendering it pretty much useless. The Moody Blues rarely if ever stray from very common harmonic/melodic tropes (or phrasing, for that matter), which is what makes them so spectacularly un-Prog.

Ivan_Melgar_M View Drop Down

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Posted: July 19 2006 at 00:01

Honestly Prog Related until Long Distance Voyager, that was a great Prog release.

Iván

BigBrownBear View Drop Down

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Posted: July 19 2006 at 05:31

akin wrote:

Talking about the structure, some of the most acclaimed prog songs are poor in structure, for example, 21th schizoid man which is like Doors' Light My Fire (an extensive experimental solo in the middle of the song). Genesis' Firth of Fifth is very similar to Moody Blues' Legend of a Mind, for example. The main difference is that the first have a long intro, but it has the same two or three different structures during the verses and different solos in the middle. Take the whole Selling England by the Pound Album, the only song that stands out is Dancing With the Moonlit Knight. The others would be as pop/rock as the moody blues compositions (though both excellent). Take some Moody Blues albuns like In Search of the Lost Chord, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Along with the pop/rock, they have songs that stand out like House of Four Doors, Procession, My Song: they are as prog as Selling England, only the length of the songs is reduced.

Teaflax and I are having a little bit of a tussle with regards to what constitues 'Prog' or not, and once again Teaflax, I have no problem with what you consider to be Prog, it's what you consider not to be Prog that is my problem. You just arn't considering the simpler material...which is where I would place Moody Blues...but I am kind of happy with Proto Prog for them due to their early stuff in the sixties....at least their pioneering material is recognised....

But...Akin!!!!!!! what are you going on about?...arguably one of the three best Prog Albums ever written and you say it is 'pop rock'!!! That has superceded anything I have heard this year as the funniest statement anyone has made!!...lol

You have reduced Cinama Show, Firth Of Fifth, and the incredibly unstructured Battle Of Epping Forest, to the realms of pop rock!!!....hhahahahahaahahaha very funny!

Teaflax

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Posted: July 19 2006 at 07:15

BigBrownBear wrote:

You just arn't considering the simpler material...

Bingo.

Not that simple is automatically mainstream, but when it comes to the Moodys, that's certainly the case.

Sean Trane View Drop Down

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Posted: July 19 2006 at 08:14

Certif1ed wrote:

A pop/rock band that got an orchestra to fill in the silences on their first LP and liked the effect, so kept doing it.

None of the songs I've heard of theirs are remotely Proggy in themselves - it's the orchestral atmosphere that conjours up "l'essence du Prog" - but the music itself doesn't develop or feel spontaneous in character.

It feels like a bunch of rather good songs strung together.

Teaflax wrote:

Vaguely Prog-related Regular Pop/Rock.

Both TF and Cert are right in their assertions here, even if they are also a bit harsh on them too.

For me, Moody Blues does not represent full-blown progressive rock, BUT they do belong in the proto-prog and before that were in Symphonic and it was fine with me also.

Moody Blues represent for me the essence of conceptual albums (which is one of the constituants of prog) , because they made 7 successive concept albums (from Days to arguably Seventh Sojourn >> not that sure that one is a real concept album), something completely unheard of until the late 90's. The artworks are also definitely proggy (including to the sickening Long Distant Voyager and the Present).

But there are moments in those "classic Moody albums" that come to the divine. Just like Floyd, TMB were never about tricky time sigs and incredible virtuosity: it just was not their thing.

but there is always something going on in their music, and the ambiances are always adventurous and the production was usually excellent. These guys went as far as simulating a rocket launch at the start of their album, because the recording of the Nasa was not what they wanted/had hoped for.

At least they were prog in their attitude. Too bad they decided to regroup and destroy their legend.

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword

akin

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Posted: July 19 2006 at 11:10

BigBrownBear wrote:

You have reduced Cinama Show, Firth Of Fifth, and the incredibly unstructured Battle Of Epping Forest, to the realms of pop rock!!!....hhahahahahaahahaha very funny!

You didn 't get the point. These songs are as pop/rock as the moody blues compositions. It is a comparison. For me they are at the same level of progressiveness.

akin

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Posted: July 19 2006 at 11:15

Sean Trane wrote:

Teaflax wrote:

Vaguely Prog-related Regular Pop/Rock.

Both TF and Cert are right in their assertions here, even if they are also a bit harsh on them too.

For me, Moody Blues does not represent full-blown progressive rock, BUT they do belong in the proto-prog and before that were in Symphonic and it was fine with me also.

But there are moments in those "classic Moody albums" that come to the divine. Just like Floyd, TMB were never about tricky time sigs and incredible virtuosity: it just was not their thing.

At least they were prog in their attitude. Too bad they decided to regroup and destroy their legend.

I don't think they are right since Moody Blues were considered prog before bands like Yes or Genesis were considered prog too.

What some people do in this site is like reclassifying 50's rock as other genre, because 90's definition of rock is different from 50's definition of rock.

Teaflax

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Posted: July 20 2006 at 01:54

akin wrote:

You didn 't get the point. These songs are as pop/rock as the moody blues compositions. It is a comparison. For me they are at the same level of progressiveness.

Except that they're not even close if you listen to tonality, harmony and melody lines - which was the point in the first place anyway.

akin

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Posted: July 20 2006 at 10:22

Teaflax wrote:

akin wrote:

You didn 't get the point. These songs are as pop/rock as the moody blues compositions. It is a comparison. For me they are at the same level of progressiveness.

Except that they're not even close if you listen to tonality, harmony and melody lines - which was the point in the first place anyway.

In your own humble opinion.

The Wizard View Drop Down

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Posted: July 20 2006 at 10:22

For me the Moody Blues are pop with a mellotron.

Teaflax

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Posted: July 20 2006 at 17:19

akin wrote:

Teaflax wrote:

akin wrote:

You didn 't get the point. These songs are as pop/rock as the moody blues compositions. It is a comparison. For me they are at the same level of progressiveness.

Except that they're not even close if you listen to tonality, harmony and melody lines - which was the point in the first place anyway.

In your own humble opinion.

Well, there is that - but it can be mathematically proven by looking at types of chords, how they are strung together, whether the melodies stay in one key or modulate and whether they follow the cadences of the chords, if bass lines simply mark the root of the chord or add to it, etc. So, unless you want to say that such things don't matter, it's really an empirical statement of fact.

DallasBryan View Drop Down

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Posted: January 06 2007 at 07:52

here we go, reconstructing the past again.

the Moody Blues were the first PROGRESSIVE ROCK band.

call it English Symphonic or whatever, but they were pre-Yes, KC, VDGG, ELP, Tull, Pink Floyd, Genesis in breaking into psychedelic symphonic music, also known as PROG!

Everyone followed after there lead........

ALBUM INFORMATION | ALBUM ART

LIST OF SONGS

  1. IN THE BEGINNING
  2. LOVELY TO SEE YOU
  3. DEAR DIARY
  4. SEND ME NO WINE
  5. TO SHARE OUR LOVE
  6. SO DEEP WITHIN YOU
  7. NEVER COMES THE DAY
  8. LAZY DAY
  9. ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY
10. THE DREAM
11. HAVE YOU HEARD (PART 1)
12. THE VOYAGE
13. HAVE YOU HEARD (PART 2)

In the Beginning
Graeme Edge

     First Man:
		I think...
		I think I am.
		Therefore I am!
		I think...

Establishment:	
		Of course you are, my bright little star...
		I've miles and miles of files
		Pretty files of your forefather's fruit
		And now to suit our great computer
		You're magnetic ink!

     First Man:	
		I'm more than that
		I know I am...
		At least, I think I must be

     Inner Man: 
		There you go, man
		Keep as cool as you can
		Face piles of trials with smiles
		It riles them to believe
		That you perceive
		The web they weave...
		And keep on thinking free

DallasBryan View Drop Down

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Posted: January 06 2007 at 07:54

what most metal fatigued youngstas miss, is their first seven albums play almost like a religious experience, but I dont think we have the attention span for that these days. this was brand new territory in 1967.

they sat upon the fence when it split!

Are You Sitting Comfortably
Ray Thomas and Justin Hayward


Take another sip my love 
And see what you will see
A fleet of golden galleons
On a crystal sea

Are you sitting comfortably?
Let Merlin cast his spell...

Ride along the winds of time 
And see where we have been
The glorious age of Camelot
When Guinevere was Queen

It all unfolds before your eyes
As Merlin casts his spell...

The Seven Wonders of the World 
He'll lay before your feet
In far-off lands, on distant shores 
So many friends to meet

Are you sitting comfortably?
Let Merlin cast his spell...

Edited by DallasBryan - January 12 2007 at 17:58

Atkingani

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Posted: January 06 2007 at 08:03

Check the genre they are now, DB... The Archives consider them as being plain & genuine Prog!

Guigo

~~~~~~

akin

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Posted: January 06 2007 at 09:37

I have already seen and I am very satisfied to see bands like Moody Blues and The Nice in categories rather than proto-prog since they are for sure progressive rock bands (they were always considered like that) and this destroys that prejudicial clichè that nothing can considered progressive before In the Court of Crimson King (which would be highly controvertial since most of it resembles very much Moody Blues) which is a great album without a doubt, but in 69 there were many progressive albums being done.

tuxon

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Posted: January 06 2007 at 18:12

The first symphonic rock band. love the Moodies, they weren't complex, but that is not a requirement for prog IMO anyway.

I'm always almost unlucky _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Id5ZcnjXSZaSMFMC Id5LM2q2jfqz3YxT

Dick Heath View Drop Down

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Posted: January 07 2007 at 12:11

And psychedelia of Nights In White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon, Legend Of A Mind???????????????

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Poll Question: Which is really Moody Blues sub genre?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
Beat Prog	2	[5.13%]
Symphonic Proto Prog	20	[51.28%]
Symphonic POP	7	[17.95%]
Other	10	[25.64%]
This topic is closed, no new votes accepted