Alexander S. - 23.02.2020  "Days of Future Passed" is the second album of The Moody Blues, and at the same time the first album, where the musicians gained that sound, thanks to which they later gained fame around the world. Throughout the album, a symphony orchestra is conducted under the direction of conductor Peter Knight, and on this album this is the key basis, well, in fact, a rather interesting concept compiled by the band members. As many music critics say, and I have to completely agree with them, the work is one of the most successful attempts to cross rock music with symphonic arrangements, as a result of which this laid the foundation for the formation of the so-called "progressive rock", or as it is also called - " art rock "; the album is often called the pioneer of this very progressive rock, but I’ll clarify on my own - for me it’s the first album in this style, despite the fact that the Beatles’s first “Sergeant Pepper” is still considered to be “Pepper” 66 , I would directly say that this is the first "progressive" album).
Such a difference in styles between their debut album and "Days" clearly stems from creative motives: Mike Pinder (keyboards, vocals), the founder of the group, being one of the founders of the mellotron, gave his instrument a symphonic sound (beautiful parts in "Tuesday Afternoon" and, of course, "Nights in White Satin"), and Ray Thomas, also one of the founders, began to use the flute. In addition, the musicians now began to devote themselves completely to songwriting, while in their debut work they used cover versions of many then popular American blues songs, while their style could be considered hard R'n'B.
The concept of the album is this: “Blues” decided to paint on the whole album a picture of the day of an ordinary person who “takes nothing from nostalgia for the past, at the same time does not add anything to the possibilities of the future” (an interesting quote from the annotation on the album cover).
You can describe the concept of songs as follows: Beginning of the day - Dawn - Morning - Lunch break - After lunch - Evening - Night. It was the last song on the album, "Nights in White Satin", (written by Justin Hayward (guitar, vocals) at 19 (!) Years) became their classic hit of all time.
For me, this is the group’s best album for the entire period of its creation, although I pay more attention to “On the Threshold of a Dream” (1969), a lot of facts speak about this: music, verses, and harmony. What is the design of the cover: if you look closer, you can see a lot of human outlines and much more. In general, I set the maximum, because this is really a “Masterpiece of all time”!
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