Finally!!!
5
By Scott N Amber
I've wondered why this album wasn't available on iTunes. All other studio albums, many compilations, live albums etc.... have all been on iTunes for a while, but not this one. Record companies, back catalogs, and pubishing are all sold at such a dizzying pace these days, no telling what held it up. But here it is. With Octave the Moodies faced a lot of challenges during it's recording, including losing Mike Pinder part way through the process. But they were also attempting to redefine themselves a bit for the new decade. There was a lot of new recrding and instrumentation technology to navigate through. So, while Octave has some fine moments... it did not do the job of defining that new direction. Long Distance Voyager goes much further and basically completes the process. I've always considered this the "bridge" album between old and new Moodies. They found a way to keep the sound of the Moodies, but embrace new sounds, and new ways of making music. This album is more or less a blue print for what came after it. Future albums featured diminishing input from Ray Thomas, but here he's pretty well represented. When this album came out, you knew it was the Moody Blues immediately, even though their sound had been modernized. I think this was when they themselves realized, that when they entered a room and made music together, there was a certain sound.... no matter the other factors. I think that led to a confidence that allowed them to continue having a few more hits through the 80s. This album was also the last to have that sort of conceptual feel to it. Everything after this was more just a collection of songs. This has more of that old school cohesive listening experience, from beginning to end. But, because it is the "bridge" album it kinda gets lost in the overall Moodies picture. And the same might be said for the Present album as well. In their incredibly extensive concert touring since the release of these albums, they have pretty much abandoned playing any material from them. After the support tour for the Present album, they never played anything from it again. These two albums fall in the post-Mike Piner era, and the pre-Polydor Records period. Once they signed with Polydor and had two huge international hits... it pretty much left those two albums in the dust. Which is unfortunate, because they are both very good. Neither album features their best songwriting ever.... but it's made up for in their sheer playing ability. They just create that sound so well. You can take the classic 7 albums as one listening experience....Octave, Long Distance Voyager, and The Present as another listening experience, and then everything else as yet another. People don't think of songs the way the used to, they relate to the same anymore. People don't listen as intently as they used to. The Moody Blues are for people who can still listen to music the way it was meant to be listened to. It's an experience. It involves both simple and complex emotions. It's fun. It's made by guys who were/are a real band of brothers, warts and all. A familial strain runs through every bit of it. And overt disadain for attempting to be cool or hip, yet made some really cool, hip stuff. There are many musical journey's to go on with the Moodies. They made music that they liked, regardless of what was expected. They played what liked hearing themselves. They supported and amplified each others contributions. You just don't see that in music anymore. One guy could walk into a room and hum a tune and maybe have a few lyrics, and the rest would turn into something. Thats what makes them one of my favorite bands.
