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Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Days of Future Passed
  • Group name: The Moody Blues
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Deram Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written inside album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $19.98

Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve reviewed three Moody Blues records:

I’ve had mixed feelings about them, generally enjoying the musicality and overall sound of the songs, but disliking the attempts to show their audience just how weird they can be.

What I expected

Progressive rock… with an orchestra.

What it was actually like

The weird narrator from other Moody Blues records made an appearance on this one, but mercifully he didn’t stick around for long. Remind me why a prog rock record needs narration in the first place?

I had a hard time deciding whether or not I liked the overall use of the orchestral style instrumentation. For most of the record I leaned towards saying that it wasn’t good, but the last song was The Night (including Nights in White Satin), which did actually tie it together quite well, and that tipped me back towards saying that I liked the sound. But it did not work universally, and the awful narrator returned at the end, which was bad.

Besides that, there were parts that sounded like children’s music (a critique that I made yesterday about Ramblin’ Boy by Tom Paxton), and other parts (I think on Lunch Break: Peak Hour) sounded like musical theater. Musical theater! On a rock record!

Then immediately after that, it suddenly sounded like a pretty sweet mid 1960s rock song, sort of a British invasion answer to surf rock.

The more I listen to Nights in White Satin, the more I think it’s a masterpiece, and also that I just think it’s grand because it’s the best song that the Moody Blues ever recorded.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: John Wesley Harding
  • Artist name: Bob Dylan
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $11.95

John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve probably only listened to John Wesley Harding around 10 times in my life: it wasn’t one of the records that my parents played a lot, wasn’t on the radio, and wasn’t one of the Dylan records that I liked enough to put into my regular playlist rotation around 15 years ago. His other records that I’ve reviewed are:

And also:

What I expected

Country rock, folk rock.

What it was actually like

First of all, there’s a lot of harmonica on this record – like, more harmonica than I’m accustomed to hearing. And all the songs had a remarkably consistent sound that was acoustic and tight, with very little adventurousness of the sort that Dylan has done frequently throughout his career.

Several of them in fact, sounded like they could have been one song, or different parts of one song, or maybe just multiple songs played as if they were all one song: John Wesley Harding (the song), As I Went Out One Morning, I Am a Lonesome Hobo.

Then there were a few that sounded very similar, except with a somewhat slower tempo: Dear Landlord, I Pity the Poor Immigrant, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (I’m going to venture a guess that Dylan was referring to Augustine of Hippo, not Augustine of Canterbury, but does he even know that these were different people?).

And Drifter’s Escape sounded like the same song, only a bit faster.

The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest was more conversational than the rest, and was incongruously upbeat – I thought it would never end!

The Wicked Messenger also had a different vocal style that was sort of louder, more negative or harsh or accusatory sounding, and different instrumentation with a much more prominent bass line. This was one in which the harmonica really detracted.

Another song that I thought really wasn’t helped by the harmonica was Down Along the Cove, which kind of had a bit of a soul sound, with some country style guitar twang, and was almost kind of dancey. And I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight had even more of a country sound than that.

I’ve left All Along the Watchtower to last because I’m such a fan of it, and because I already wrote, when reviewing Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2:

All Along the Watchtower was probably the high point for me; I listen to the Hendrix version a lot (and I think it will come up imminently in a review, as I noticed that album on the shelf), so hearing Dylan’s totally-different-and-almost-as-good take was very cool.

By the end of this record, I wanted to yank Dylan’s harmonica out of his hands and smash it with a hammer. I also think this is a solid and strong record, and would have been a lot of artists’ best and best known record of their careers, but I still stand by my decision to exclude it from my routine Dylan listening, though do I think I’ll listen to it more often.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Disraeli Gears by Cream (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Disraeli Gears
  • Group name: Cream
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ATCO
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $11.01

Disraeli Gears by Cream

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Cream was very big on classic rock radio when I used to listen to the radio a lot, in the second half of the 1990s, and I’ve been a fan ever since then.

What I expected

Psychedelic rock, blues rock, hard rock.

What it was actually like

This is another record that’s incredibly difficult to review because I’m already so familiar with it, from listening to it a lot because it’s great, but one thing I didn’t recall was how thin the vocals were across some of these songs, though I did recall the incredible musicianship of all three members of Cream.

It’s not easy to pick a place to highlight that musicianship, but Sunshine of Your Love has one of the most memorable riffs in all of rock music, dark and threatening. How is it even a love song? It’s got to be the coldest sunshine on earth.

On that note, World of Pain feels numbing rather than painful, and Dance the Night Away doesn’t exactly strike me as a dance song, while Tales of Brave Ulysses explicitly mentions “the colors of the sea,” but somehow doesn’t mention that Ulysses’ sea is “wine-dark”? What a missed opportunity.

On that subject, I think We’re Going Wrong is probably a lyrical and vocal low point of the record, and that they should have taken the time to think through the song carefully, or just made it an instrumental. I would have been happy with it as an instrumental, I think, and they could have done like on SWLABR by making the electric guitar sing as a vocalist itself.

I loved the bluesiest songs on Disraeli Gears – Take It Back, which really stands out for its harmonica; Blue Condition; and Outside Woman Blues, which is only good until it gets to the guitar solo that blows it up – but really this record is about psychedelic rock, and starting it with Strange Brew just sends an incredibly powerful message about everything that’s about to arrive. I wouldn’t have objected if they’d named the whole record after Strange Brew.

Mother’s Lament, naturally, is the only track that I’d be happy to skip, and it just reminds me of “Faul’s granny shit” from a 1968-1970 Beatles record.

Grade

5/5: love it

Between the Buttons by the Rolling Stones (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Between the Buttons
  • Group name: the Rolling Stones
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Decca Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: I think my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $29.99

Between the Buttons by the Rolling Stones

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m pretty sure that I’ve never heard of Between the Buttons, which is weird, because it seems to have a couple of the best and most recognizable Rolling Stones songs of their entire career.

Here are other Rolling Stones records that I’ve reviewed recently:

What I expected

1960s blues-influenced pop rock.

What it was actually like

One of my big questions when I put this record on was whether it was going to be a case of two world class singles (that both weren’t even on the UK album release) and a bunch of filler crap, or whether Let’s Spend the Night Together and Ruby Tuesday would be representative of the whole record.

Unfortunately, they weren’t, and my hunch was right.

To address those two first, I think Let’s Spend the Night Together is a very good song, but Ruby Tuesday has to be one of my all time favorites. Here is the famous performance on the Ed Sullivan show, when he made them change the lyric to “let’s spend some time together” and they lolled so hard – Ed Sullivan was such a square!

Also, how did Mick Jagger get to be such a bad dancer? Drugs alone couldn’t do that, right?

And let’s not forget that Melanie covered Ruby Tuesday on Candles in the Rain, but it wasn’t spectacular.

Anyway, those were the only strong tracks on Between the Buttons and now I can understand why I hadn’t heard of it.

Connection was a bit anachronistic, sounding much more like early 1960s music, and it was ok. She Smiled Sweetly reminded me of listening to a Velvet Underground demo tape from 1964.

Cool, Calm & Collected definitely stood out as a ragtime song with a kazoo on a Stones record – that decision was a fascinating mix of corny and courageous.

My Obsession sounded like just the outline of a song, as if they were jamming and came up with it, but never actually worked on it. Complicated, on the other hand, was more fully formed and coherent, but still more on the boring side.

Miss Amanda Jones was a blues rock song that had more of an electric sound that most of the others, and I thought it was decent.

Something Happened to Me Yesterday had a strong Oompa Loompa influence, but also it sounded kind of like a joke, and at times like Bob Dylan might have been the joke’s punchline.

The others – Yesterday’s Papers, All Sold Out, Who’s Been Sleeping Here? – were just forgettable.

With the exception of the two hit songs, my impression of Between the Buttons was that it may have been thrown together over a long weekend to have an LP to release in support of their singles.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
  • Group name: the Beatles
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Capitol Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $33.80

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I think Sgt. Pepper is probably the music I’ve heard most in my entire life, because it was a favorite of my parents and then my own favorite. I’ve described it as a desert island album, as the Beatles’ greatest achievement, and sometimes as my top record of all time.

Other Beatles records I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

Sgt. Pepper.

What it was actually like

It’s incredibly difficult to write reviews of these songs, because I feel like I’ve known every note and every lyric of all of them since before I was even born, like they’re almost a part of me, and because of the way that they’ve always seemed to run together to me as one rather than as distinct tracks, reinforced by the “concept album” structure of Sgt. Pepper.

Long ago, I read about the idea that in the distant future, Beatles songs will be the nursery rhymes of their day, and every time I’ve come back to that idea over the years, it’s always been Sgt. Pepper‘s songs that I imagine five year olds singing as they jump rope.

Listening to it this time, my favorites are With a Little Help from My Friends and Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!. I’m not sure that I’ve ever identified the latter as a favorite before, but I’ve always enjoyed it because of its weirdness and because I think it’s representative of the record overall. I wrote about the former a little bit when I reviewed the Woodstock soundtrack, but I’d add to that how easy it is to listen to this as being totally innocent and quite entirely about friendship of the sort that kids have (before they know what “getting high” means).

If one thing that both of those songs share is their sense of joy, wonder and happiness, She’s Leaving Home has always struck me as the archetypal sad song, sadder than any love song ever could be, because people may fall out of (romantic) love but find it again, while that’s not possible for the love a parent has for a child.

Within You Without You is one that I didn’t even remotely get when I was a child or a teenager, but it’s really endeared itself to me as an adult. It was not only my first exposure to classical Hindustani music, but the first time I was introduced to any Indian culture of any kind, and as a longtime admirer of Indian civilization (and fan of Ravi Shankar), I hear it all the time, even when it’s not playing.

I think it’s only fair to mention the elephant in the room on Sgt. Pepper, which is When I’m Sixty-Four, one of the worst examples of “Faul’s granny shit” that was even lame enough for my third grade teacher to get my class to sing it for her.

Everyone should listen to Sgt. Pepper. Listen to it when you’re five years old and keep listening to it when you’re 50 years old, listen to it when you’re happy and when you’re sad, when you’re stone cold sober and with the assistance of a certain medicinal herb. Listen to covers of it, like this one by Easy Star that I first heard on the beach by Frischman Street, shortly after moving to Tel Aviv, on a Friday afternoon in summer 2006, as the sun was setting and Shabbat was about to begin.

Grade

5/5: love it