Moody Blues – Days Of Future Passed

I’ll probably be lynched for saying this, but here goes: Days Of Future Passed, not Sgt. Pepper, was the best rock album to come out in 1967. I can buy the arguments that Lennon and McCartney are/were masterful songwriters, and even that Sgt. Pepper was a huge technical leap for rock music. But the sheer beauty and depth of emotion with which the Moody Blues imbued their most famous – and so far unparallelled – album puts it light-years of the material the Beatles were turning out at the time. Days of Future Passed paints a humblingly poetic view of the progression of a single day, and the music keeps getting better as the “day” in question goes on. Naturally everyone remembers “Tuesday Afternoon” – which was here titled “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)” – and “Nights In White Satin”, but my all-time favorite Moody Blues song has to be the exotic Mike Pinder tune “The Sun Set”. The combination of an unusual rhythm and the flowing orchestral melody never fail to entrance me. It’s definitely on my DNP Album List.

1. The Day Begins (5:55)
2. Dawn is a Feeling (3:48)
3. Another Morning (3:56)
4. Peak Hour (5:27)
5. Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?) / (Evening) Time to Get Away (8:24)
6. The Sun Set / Twilight Time (6:40)
7. Nights in White Satin (7:32)

Released by: Deram
Release date: 1967
Total running time: 41:42