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[vytasas]

Артист: The Moody Blues Альбом: On The Threshold Of A Dream, 1969 Жанр: Rock Формат файла: Eac/Ape/Cue/Covers Ссылка: CD 86 clicks Нахождение: eDonkey

Review by Bruce Eder
On the Threshold of a Dream was the first album that the Moody Blues had a chance to record and prepare in a situation of relative calm, without juggling tour schedules and stealing time in the studio between gigs - indeed, it was a product of what were almost ideal circumstances, though it might not have seemed that way to some observers. The Moodies had mostly exhausted the best parts of the song bag from which their two preceding albums, Days of Future Passed and In Search of the Lost Chord, had been drawn, and as it turned out, even the leftover tracks from those sessions wouldn't pass muster for their next long-player project - but those albums had both been hits, and charted well in America as well as England, and had overlapped with a pair of hit singles, "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon," on both sides of the Atlantic. Their success had earned them enough consideration from Decca Records that they could work at their leisure in the studio through all of January and most of February of 1969; what's more, with two LPs under their belt, they now had a much better idea of what they could accomplish in the studio, and write songs with that capability in mind. Equally important, they'd just come off of an extensive U.S. tour (opening for Cream) and had learned a lot in the course of concertizing over the previous year, achieving a much bolder yet tighter sound instrumentally as well as vocally, and they could now write to and for that sound as well. So this album is oozing with bright, splashy creative flourishes in two seemingly contradictory directions that somehow come together as a valid whole. On the original LP's first side (which was the more rock-oriented side), the songs "Lovely to See You," "Send Me No Wine," "To Share Our Love," and "So Deep Within You" all featured killer guitar hooks (electric and acoustic) and fills by Justin Hayward; beautiful, muscular bass from John Lodge; and vocal hooks everywhere. It's also a surprisingly hard-rocking album considering the amount of overdubbing that went into perfecting the songs, including cellos, wind and reed instruments, and lots of vocal layers - yet it even found room to display a pop-soul edge on "So Deep Within You" (a number that the Four Tops later recorded).

Side two was the more overtly ambitious of the two halves - after a pair of songs dominated by acoustic guitar and heavy Mellotron, "Never Comes the Day" and "Lazy Day" (the latter a piece of social commentary showing that Ray Thomas, at least, still remembered his roots in Birmingham), the remainder of the record was devoted to the most challenging body of music in the group's history. Justin Hayward's deliberately archaic "Are You Sitting Comfortably?," a piece that sounds almost 400 years out of its own time, evokes images out of medieval and Renaissance history laced with magic and mysticism, all set to Hayward's acoustic guitar and Thomas' flute, leading into Graeme Edge's poetic contribution, "The Dream," accompanied by Mike Pinder's Mellotrons in their most exposed appearance to date on a record. And all of that flows into Pinder's three-part suite, "Have You Heard, Pt. 1"/"The Voyage"/"Have You Heard, Pt. 2," a tour de force for the band - check out Edge's and Lodge's rock-solid playing on "Have You Heard" - and for Pinder, whose Mellotrons, in conjunction with Thomas' flute and supported by some overdubbed orchestral instruments, push the group almost prematurely into the realm of progressive rock. This synthesis of psychedelia and classical music, including a section featuring Pinder on grand piano, may sound overblown and pretentious today, but in 1969 this was envelope-ripping, genre-busting music, scaling established boundaries into unknown territory, not only "outside the box" but outside of any musical box that had been conceived at that moment - perhaps it can be considered rock's flirtation with the territory covered by works such as Alexander Scriabin's Mysterium, and if it overreached (as did Scriabin), well, so did a lot of other people at the time, including Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, et al. To show the difference in the times, the Moodies even brought this extended suite successfully to their concert repertory, and audiences devoured it at the time (and evidently still did in 2005, as they brought part of it back to their set list that year). Amazingly, On the Threshold of a Dream was their first chart-topping LP in England, and remained on the charts for an astonishing 70 weeks, a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that the accompanying single, "Never Comes the Day" b/w "So Deep Within You," never charted at all.

QUOTE

EAC extraction logfile from 24. October 2004, 14:23 for CD The Moody Blues / On The Threshold of a Dream Used drive : MATSHITAUJDA710 Adapter: 2 ID: 0 Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache Read offset correction : 720 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No Used output format : Internal WAV Routines 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo Use compression offset : 0 Other options : Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No Installed external ASPI interface Track 1 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\01 - In The Beginning.wav Pre-gap length 0:00:02.37 Peak level 86.4 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC 646D2653 Copy CRC 646D2653 Copy OK Track 2 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\02 - Lovely To See You.wav Peak level 91.2 % Track quality 99.9 % Test CRC E2EF2E7B Copy CRC E2EF2E7B Copy OK Track 3 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\03 - Dear Diary.wav Peak level 91.3 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC 7C2DAD63 Copy CRC 7C2DAD63 Copy OK Track 4 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\04 - Send Me No Wine.wav Peak level 82.3 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC 084F07B6 Copy CRC 084F07B6 Copy OK Track 5 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\05 - To Share Our Love.wav Peak level 97.9 % Track quality 99.9 % Test CRC 6B855D36 Copy CRC 6B855D36 Copy OK Track 6 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\06 - So Deep Within You.wav Peak level 97.6 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC BB49ED55 Copy CRC BB49ED55 Copy OK Track 7 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\07 - Never Comes The Day.wav Pre-gap length 0:00:01.15 Peak level 100.0 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC 4BE9EB94 Copy CRC 4BE9EB94 Copy OK Track 8 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\08 - Lazy Day.wav Peak level 89.0 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC E0A501E1 Copy CRC E0A501E1 Copy OK Track 9 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\09 - Are You Sitting Comfortably.wav Peak level 71.3 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC B32A2E8B Copy CRC B32A2E8B Copy OK Track 10 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\10 - The Dream.wav Peak level 79.2 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC AC3363F8 Copy CRC AC3363F8 Copy OK Track 11 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\11 - Have You Heard Part I.wav Peak level 98.9 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC F0039FF3 Copy CRC F0039FF3 Copy OK Track 12 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\12 - The Voyage.wav Peak level 88.6 % Track quality 100.0 % Test CRC CC03DAE6 Copy CRC CC03DAE6 Copy OK Track 13 Filename D:\My FLACs\The Moody Blues\The Moody Blues - On The Threshold of a Dream (1969) [flac] (mfsl)\13 - Have You Heard Part II.wav Peak level 100.0 % Track quality 99.9 % Test CRC C8368E66 Copy CRC C8368E66 Copy OK No errors occured End of status report

Израелитяни - держитесь, мы с вами!

[Гордый]

Израелитяни - держитесь, мы с вами!

[vvt]

А я думаю: чтоб качнуть? Все мулы на "вниз" пустые!
Попробуем! Спасибо!

[arizonadream]

Не за что! Всегда была мечта чтоб такой гигант сказал что то в таком роде! Только чтобы потом несказали пошол ты со своями !

This post has been edited by vytasas on 18-07-2006, 19:59

[stewie]

Я не гигант - я Пират.
Гигант... вот например "Продукт дружбы".

[valentin levit]

Правда, какой-то маленький Гигант получился.

[azur]

его плющит

[kokiku]

[vytasas]

[kokiku]

нечестно так, шеф, над маленьким да больным надсмехаться
с Пиратом я разберусь по простому - за угол вывел, одним левым ластом махнул и ... навряд ли он меня догонит!
ну а вам, шеф, разве что анекдот:
Продают 3 попугая - одного, говорящего по-русски за 300$; другого, говорящего по-русски и английски, за 500$; а третьего, вообще не говорящего, за 1000$
и почему ж так?

[kokiku]

[LF_]

Что то плохо сделал? А действительно OlCh гигант!

This post has been edited by vytasas on 19-07-2006, 10:11

[vytasas]

[OlCh]

Потому что он админ, ну в крайнем случае - модер.

[vytasas]

[kokiku]

Неее, я - продукт!
а server alliance - эт гигант!

[OlCh]

Продукт, Пират и Юра ет server alliance

This post has been edited by vytasas on 19-07-2006, 14:28

[vytasas]

Ну вот!

[vytasas]

[OlCh]

с одной стороны - участников поболе, а с другой - юрий как бы безвременно покинул нас... даже заявление об уходе не написал

[LAI671]

OlCh
а почему такое странное название?