DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED

To mark this review 400 (look out Hugues, I'm catching ya) I wanted to give proper due to one of the big 3 releases of '67 that in my opinion are the reason we're all here today. We have plenty of folks at the site who will scold me for saying these albums were the birth of Prog but keep your pants on. I'm not saying there *were* Prog, I'm saying they got the ball rolling. They were the single-celled creatures in the Ocean. They were the foreplay before Prog consummated with the release of [insert what you consider Prog's first true album here].

Earlier in that glorious year of 1967 the Beatles dropped Sgt. Pepper in our lap. Although rock music was already taking off with exciting releases in the years prior, this album altered our ideas about what kinds of ideas could be expressed. Not to mention the music was great fun too. Later, in August, came what in my view may have been the first true Prog song when Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released. Syd's fantastic psych-heaven album may not have been Prog as a whole but it's hard to deny that the 9-minute instrumental "Interstellar Overdrive" didn't meet some criteria. Three months after Syd's masterpiece came The Moodies' Days of Future Passed. Again, if not entirely progressive in the majority opinion it is an early conceptual work that combined orchestration and mellotron into a grandiose spectacle and a fine one at that. Everything about the album screams classy from the production to the great playing to the impressive singles to the fantastic cover painting.

With so many reviews another description of songs is not necessary. But I would like to comment on the notion I've read where some infer the album is too "conservative" or that it might bore today's listeners with its sweeping, orchestral sounds. Boy, that was not my experience. As someone who grew up after that period and never made time for this album until fairly recently I can say that I find the effect of the period orchestral sound to be very fresh and even a bit radical to me personally. If you're used to just modern rock's mechanical sounds, hearing something like this is quite new and interesting-records don't sound like this anymore. So my point to the youngsters is, just because the old guys here find this dated, don't pass it up. I'm sure to your ears it will be far more "new" sounding than the latest flavor of the month album. Last, again to the new young proggers who might read this: While all the advice you get might point you to the early '70s classics, don't forget to hear the freshman class of '67: Pepper, Piper, and Passed. The three Ps won't let you down. Play this one alone on a rainy night and enjoy. It's true that you might find some of the poetry or strings cheesy is places but remember, this was meant to be played as a complete conceptual piece and the album works wonders in that context. A true classic.

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