1971 – peak year for a concept album, no? It’s pretty remarkable to look back at the output of The Moody Blues (and, indeed, so many artists working at this time) and see just how much quality music they were able to put out in a short period of time. They had put out five top-quality albums in the four years preceding, and it’s amazing that they could still come up with something of this quality. Maybe that’s the result of having five members who could contribute songwriting that was all very much in a similar vein; that’s a real rarity. But there’s no question in my mind, this is one of the great albums of the ’70s. (I wish I loved the cover more . . . there’s something child-ish, not child-like, in the execution that puts me off. But unlike their last pair of albums, at least it’s not so dark you can’t even see the subject).
Interestingly, despite the success of the album (#1 UK, #2 US), it is only represented on “This Is The Moody Blues” by one track: their epic rocker, “The Story In Your Eyes.” Thus, to my cash-strapped, economy-minded record-collecting brain back in the ’70s/’80s, it made sense to buy this album because it had a whole bunch of tracks from peak Moody Blues that I didn’t have – so I’ve had this record for decades. It still doesn’t get as much play as some others, I’ll have to admit, but it’s a great record.
