| Days of Future Passed | ||||||||||
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| Studio album by The Moody Blues with the London Festival Orchestra | ||||||||||
| Released | 11 November 1967 | |||||||||
| Recorded | 8 October - 3 November 1967 Decca Studios West Hampstead, London |
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| Genre | Symphonic rock Progressive rock Psychedelic rock |
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| Length | 41:34 | |||||||||
| Label | Deram Records | |||||||||
| Producer | Tony Clarke | |||||||||
| The Moody Blues chronology | ||||||||||
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic [1] | |
Days of Future Passed is the second album and first concept album by The Moody Blues, released in 1967. It was also their first album to feature Justin Hayward and John Lodge, who would play a very strong role in directing the band's sound in the decades to come. Utilising the London Festival Orchestra primarily for epic instrumental interludes between songs, Days of Future Passed moved the Birmingham band away from its early R&B roots (as displayed on its debut album with soon-departed future Wings member Denny Laine) into uncharted rock territory, making them the early pioneers of both classical and progressive rock.
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Members of the group have claimed that originally, the Moodies' British label, Decca Records, had wanted them to record a rock version of Dvořák's New World Symphony for the newly formed Deram Records division in order to demonstrate their latest recording techniques, which were named "Deramic Sound." Instead, the band (initially without the label's knowledge) decided to focus on an album based on an original stage show that they'd been working on. However, Decca recording engineer Derek Varnals disputes this story, claiming that even at the beginning of the sessions in 1967 there was no intent to record a Dvořák album and that talk of this project did not emerge until the mid 1970s.[2]
The concept of both the stage show and the album was very simple, tracing an "everyman's day" from dawn to night, from awakening to sleep. The seven tracks spawned two hit singles: "Tuesday Afternoon" (which on the album was combined with "Evening Time To Get Away" into a single track titled "The Afternoon: Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)") and "Nights in White Satin" which hit No. 2 five years after the LP's original release. Both remain commercial radio mainstays across various formats and de rigueur performances in concert.
The project was almost doomed to failure as executives at Deram felt that combining rock and symphonic music would both alienate rock fans and enrage symphonic fans. The album's subsequent success led to other criticism about implied drug use, especially with such lines as "the smell of grass just makes you pass into a dream" and "those gentle voices I hear explain it all with a sigh." Despite such early criticism, Days of Future Passed paved the way for progressive offerings from other bands and remains one of the Moody Blues' most popular releases ever.
The original packaging credited the orchestral parts to "Redwave/Knight". "Knight" was conductor Peter Knight, while "Redwave" was an imaginary name representing the Moody Blues themselves. (Knight built the orchestral parts around themes written by Hayward, Thomas, Pinder & Lodge). Also, the packaging failed to give titles or credits for Graeme Edge's poems "Morning Glory" and "Late Lament".
Some 8-track tape versions of this album have the distinction of being one of the few 8-tracks that are arranged exactly like the record album . In order to make the songs fit, a portion of "Dawn Is a Feeling" is repeated, making the song longer than the album version. The same extension is applied to "Peak Hour" in order to make it longer. This was easy to do, as both of these songs have false endings in the middle of the melody.
In March 2006 the album was remastered into SACD format and repackaged as a two-CD Deluxe Edition.
In 2008 a remaster for single standard audio CD was issued with the ten bonus tracks.
In 1978 the album was remixed because of deterioration of the master tapes. The original 1967 stereo mix has never seen a CD release (although a high quality copy, allegedly derived from a first generation master tape, circulates among collectors). All CD versions, including remasters, use the later mix. However, the 1990 greatest hits package "The Story Of The Moody Blues/Legend Of A Band" CD compilation, contains the original mix of "Nights In White Satin".
The ways in which the later mix departs most noticeably from the original are:
The album was also remixed into quadraphonic in 1972, and into 5.1 surround sound for the 2006 Deluxe Edition SACD.
The album was named as one of Classic Rock magazine's "50 Albums That Built Prog Rock".[3]
Days of Future Passed was remastered into SACD in March 2006 and repackaged into a 2 CD Deluxe Edition.
Extra tracks on the Deluxe Edition are:
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1967 | UK Albums Chart | 27[4] |
| 1972 | Billboard 200 | 3 |
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | "Nights in White Satin" | UK Singles Chart | 19[5] |
| 1968 | "Tuesday Afternoon" | Billboard Hot 100 | 24 |
| 1972 | "Nights in White Satin" | UK Singles Chart | 9[6] |
| Billboard Hot 100 | 2 |
The Moody Blues:
Reed, John (1999). Days of Future Passed Re-release liner notes. London, England: The Decca Record Co. Ltd
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