burst onto the music scene with the 60's chart topper classic 'go now' in 1964. after which they didnt really bother the singles chart too much ... apart from the way ott sentimental 'nights in white satin ' either a great love song or the biggest load of cheese ever! you decide... 'question' and 'isnt life strange' (70 72) were decent singles but the best IMHO was 'ride my see saw' from '68.

 

the band concentrated mainly on albums, striking up a very respectable portfolio of success. ive got 'days of future passed', but tbh wasnt impressed. i kinda got the feeling they courted mainly middle ground, appealing to ageing beatles fans and 'nice' people who behaved themselves! :lol:

 

thoughts?

They were never my type of band but they did some good songs I liked - the afore mentioned Nights In White Satin, Question and Driftwood. The latter was a hit on the US Hot 100 but flopped in the UK when released in mid 1978. I also liked Blue Guitar from 1975 though that wasn't strictly a Moody Blues single.

Edited February 16, 201015 yr by Robbie

my dad's favourite band, so I've kinda had them inflicted on me over the years. Days Of Future Passed is a great album though

I like some of their stuff, mainly from early 1970's, the album "Seventh Sojourn" tracks like Isnt life strange,I'm just a singer in a rock n roll band. Also the tracks Question,Steppin in a Slide Zone ,Driftwood, Go Now were all better then Nights in White Satin, which is the song that always gets played.

 

Also liked Blue Guitar by Justin Hayward & John Lodge. Didn't mind Forever Autumn from War of the worlds soundtrack as well.

Great band

From classics such as Go Now and Boulevard De La Madelaine to the haunting Nights In White Satin

 

Nights In White Satin was a hit on 3 seperate occasions - #19 in 1967 - #9 in 1972 - #14 in 1979

 

My favourite is the brilliant QUESTION - #2 in 1970 from the album A Question Of Balance.

 

I think they were the first band to use the Mellotron.

The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. The heart of the instrument is a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tapes, which have approximately eight seconds of playing time each. Playback heads underneath each key enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds.

Mellotrons were normally pre-loaded with string instrument and orchestral sounds, although the model 400's tape bank could be removed with relative ease by the owner and loaded with banks containing different sounds including percussion loops, sound effects, or synthesizer-generated sounds, to generate polyphonic electronically generated sounds in the days before polyphonic synthesizers.

 

This was how the Moody's got there orchestral and background voices.

Edited February 28, 201015 yr by euro music

The full version of Nights In White Satin complete with the orchestral bit still sounds fantastic. That shouldn't detract from the fact that songs like Question were also damned good.

ive gone off nights in white satin, its too slushy for me now, but i like 'question' more...

I could never stand Nights in White Satin (I must confess though ... when I was a kid ... I always thought it was 'Knights in White Satin' ... which conjured up all sorts of images for me!)

 

I recently bought a Best of the Moody Blues album but gave it to my brother as I realised I only liked Question and Go Now (oh ... Forever Autumn was on it too ... but I prefer the full version on the Jeff Wayne WOTW album ... which I've already got).

 

Norma