Time Traveller, (4 disc box set)

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Customer reviews

review by: The Old Geezer date: 2008-12-31 rating:
A Good Collection...
...if you don't have any of the MB cds this is a nice overview of their works. I do believe it could have been better in terms of their song selection, but that is a matter of personal preference. For example:

A few more selections form Days Of Future Past would have been nice.

"Dr. Livingston, I Presume" from "In Search Of The Lost Chord" was left off this cd & disturbs the flow of the original cd. It's not like they didn't have time left on the cd (72 out of 80 minutes on a cd.)

I also wish they had the original edit of "Legend of a Mind" intertwined with "House Of Four Doors" instead of being included as seperate tunes.

Also, too many good tunes left off their first 7 cds & FAR TOO MUCH material included from the Lodge/Hayward "Blue Jays" cd where one or two tunes would have sufficed.

But then, as I said before, it's a matter of personal preference. I'm sure the MB had their reasons for what they did.

The sound quality is Fantastic, especially for being released in the "early days" of CD releases (1994). :-)

Like I said before, this is a great overview of the MB's music & if you are a casual fan & not a "completist" you will be satisfied with purchasing this box set. I did.

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review by: peacenik date: 2008-11-03 rating:
moody blues comeback
truly a trip back in time for me. I haven't heard some of this music in a very long time. And, may i say, this music stands the test of time. I highly recommend this collection for any fan of the Moodys.

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review by: date: 2008-09-28 rating:
The best way to travel
This box set is ideal for those who:
- Love the Moody Blues;
- do not think all the past material was equally strong;
- love Justin Hayward;
- like John Lodge occasionally
- don't give much for the Pinder/Thomas/Edge tunes;
- move to a smaller house and feel the need to compress the CD collection.
Also, it's a nice package job (unfortunately not done by Pat Travers, that would have been something) with a colourful booklet included. What more could you want?

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review by: date: 2007-11-18 rating:
Made a fan of me
I'd had a couple of the original Moody Blues albums as a teenager so I had a good notion that this box set would be enjoyable but I didn't dream that it would be as solid and consistent as it is. You could dub this entire history to your portable mp3 player, or at least the bulk of the set which covers the original albums that made the Moody Blues' reputations.

Up through the last song from "Seventh Sojourn" the entire thing is spotless. The remainder of the set could be consolidated to round out the third disk. The weak part? From disk 3 track 8 up until their revival with "In Your Wildest Dreams" the only keeper for me was "Stepping In A Slide Zone". But from "Wildest Dreams" through the end of the set the band sets new heights with song after song.

Is this the only Moody Blues set a person needs? For my money the classic album "Days of Future Passed" got shortchanged, represented by only the two hit singles. Unlike previous compilations however, both songs are here in their entirety rather than in edited single versions. "Cities", the b-side of "Nights in White Satin", dovetails perfectly with this collection and fills the role of lost gem quite nicely. The spoken introduction to the next album isn't named in the tracklisting but it's incorporated as one track with "Ride My Seesaw".

Album after album, songs are well-chosen, discreetly leaving the occasional number that sounds dated to history, emphasizing the timeless quality of the vast majority of the Moody Blues' music. When presented as a whole these albums seem to have a narrative, building to a climax in "Seventh Sojourn" that the band simply couldn't trump.

If you get the five disk version of this box set you'll find that the concert performances are pleasant but you don't need the Tin Pan Alley nouveau "This is the Moment". Disk five is nice but not essential so if it's out of print I'd strongly recommend the four disk version.




review by: date: 2007-09-18 rating:
A Moodies time capsule
This is one exceptional, yet at times frustrating, boxed set with terrific sound and liner notes. The first two discs cover all except one LP from the "Core Seven" - basically the first seven LPs the Lodge/Hayward era Moodies released. These two discs are simply outstanding and capture almost every worthy track from these LPs. The sequencing is excellent and the tracks still flow as well as they did on the original LPs. One puzzling exception is their first LP, the classic Days of Future Passed, which is only represented by "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon" - there are certainly other worthy tracks on that effort so I can only assume that when they selected the tracks they figured that every Moodies fan will want the entire "Days" CD anyway. Again most of the essential tracks are here with just a few exceptions.

Disc 3 is a bit more problematic: It starts off very well indeed with six of the eight tracks from "Seventh Sojourn" but then we get detoured with no less than six numbers from the Hayward/Lodge venture "The Blue Jays". The tracks aren't bad, some are quite good, but this is supposed to be a Moody Blues set, right? And we're not given any tracks from the solo efforts of Thomas, Edge, or Pinder. Then we get the "Justin-fronts-10cc" track "Blue Guitar" which is also very good but musically sounds more like a 10cc number than anything the Moodies ever produced. Then we're back into Moodies territory with three tracks from uneven "Octave" - two strong tracks "Steppin' in a Slide Zone" and "Driftwood", but I would have so preferred that they dropped "The Day We Meet Again" and replaced it with the beautiful "Had to Fall In Love" or energetic "I'll Be Level".

Disc 4, after another Hayward track, gets back on track with the rest of the Moodies catalog from "Long Distance Voyager" up through "Keys to the Kingdom" (possibly their weakest LP). "Long Distance Voyager" is considered by many the Moodies first and best LP from the 2nd phase of their career and it is excellent. So why we only get three songs from it is beyond me. Certainly Hayward's "Meanwhile" and Edge's "22,000 Days" would have made nice additions and, again, I would have preferred them over some of the tracks from "Blue Jays". "Other Side of Life", "The Present", "Sur La Mer", and "Keys to the Kingdom" are nicely represented with two or three tracks each from what were uneven albums (although "Want to Be With You" and "Deep" from Sur La Mer are both pretty strong). But since it's only the best tracks from these later efforts it's a consistently strong sampler of the more contemporary catalog.

So three and a half excellent discs of Moodies music which does a fine job at presenting the early catalog in depth and the post 1980 "hits". I do recommend supplementing with:
1: "Days of Future Passed"
2: "Long Distance Voyager" and
3: 1999s excellent "Strange Times" which sees a return to an earlier guitar based sound with some excellent compositions from Lodge and Hayward.

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