The Moody Blues - Long Distance Voyager
#231
Jim Erbe
May 15 1981
The Moody Blues
Long Distance Voyager
Genre: Fog Rock
Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Jim’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Highlights:
The Voice
Gemini Dream
I had this album.
I didn’t remember it until the first song, “The Voice”, started up and even then I didn’t fully believe it until three or four songs in. But I owned it. On cassette. And I either played it until the tape broke or I unloaded it freshman year during “The Culling,” when I learned I could trade in old records for new ones.
In either case, I owned it and then I didn’t. And once it was gone it erased itself from my memory. Thoroughly. So thoroughly, in fact, that a couple of years later when The Moody Blues reentered the zeitgeist with “Your Wildest Dreams,” I can recall eyeing that album with a hard-earned distaste for Prog Rock and asking myself if I really wanted to dip a toe into those waters. I didn’t.
So, I came at this album with fresh ears and a persistent sense of déjà vu. Here’s what I found:
The Voice – This was the second single, but it was the one that topped the charts. Lush orchestration, driving beat, vaguely new-agey lyrics about finding your inner true north…this would have been musical catnip for me back in 1981. It still is.
Talking Out of Turn – Strip off the synthesizer bleeps and blorps and this is a better than average acoustic ballad. I don’t hate it.
Gemini Dream – If you told me this was early-eighties ELO, I’d believe you. Delightful.
In My World – The first real misstep on this album. It’s not terrible, just kind of rambling and it overstays its welcome. There is a fake-out ending at 4:45 and then the song comes back for two and a half more minutes of random noodling. Full point deduction for not bowing out gracefully.
Meanwhile – A brief return to form. A very 70’s sounding mid-tempo rocker. Good.
22,000 Days – This reminds me of stoner friends in college who would latch onto something they think is deep and cannot stop talking about: “22,000 days, get it?” “You gotta make it count ‘cause we all die at sixty, right?” “So, you only get like 22,00 days”
This is five minutes out of my life I’m not getting back.
Nervous – Good. A little too long and way too Renaissance Fair for my tastes.
Painted Smile – This is a weird one. I remember loving this song back in high school. The use of a sad clown as a metaphor for someone beaten by life and love appealed to me, because…you know, moody teen. Also, the fact that Ray Thomas’ voice sounded quite a bit like Anthony Newley I found perversely enjoyable. But, man, this does not age well. To make matters worse, XTC would take this same concept and make the vastly superior “Dear Madam Barnum” eleven years later.
Reflected Smile – Spoken word. With Napoleon XIV-level audio effects to make it...I don’t know, edgy? This saves “22,000 Days” from being this worst thing here.
Veteran Cosmic Rocker – Apparently, “Painted Smile”, “Reflected Smile” and this song are a mini-suite about a rocker struggling with self-doubts, getting his head right and stepping out on stage again. In that context, this song still isn’t great. It sounded dated in 1981 and has not improved with age.
This album was a comeback of sorts for the band. After a seven-year hiatus, old keyboardist Mike Pinder out, new keyboardist Patrick Moraz in, lawsuits filed and court cases won; this album arrived in a whole cloud of drama. The fact that this record came out all is impressive. The fact that it’s mostly pretty good is frankly a miracle.
For these reviews, I tend to like to listen to the album a few times. I let it marinate in my brain for a day or two and then come up with an overriding theme for the record. It’s what I do. It’s how I work. I prefer to take on each album as an entire piece. I like to pretend it helps me keep the reviews shorter.
I chose to leave my track-by-track notes in this time, because I simply couldn’t treat this record as a single piece. It just will not stick with me. Even now, literally five minutes after my eighth time through the album, I am hard pressed to tell you the difference between…say…“Talking Out of Turn” and “Meanwhile.” I’m having a hard time remembering anything about “Gemini Dream” beyond the fact that I liked it. There are multiple songs I can’t even recall the names of at this point.
To be honest, aside from the song I loved and the songs I hated, this album is sort of a sea of sameness for me.
While this might be a side effect of my general contempt for Prog Rock, I don’t think it is. For one thing, I like to believe I’m better than that. And for another, I genuinely like large swaths of this record, it just doesn’t stick with me. It didn’t in high school and it still doesn’t today.
And that seems a shame. I hate that after all the hurdles The Moody Blues overcame to get this record out, that what they came up with is sort of a musical henna tattoo. It’s fun while it lasts, but after a bit it’s like it was never there.
Oh well, for what it’s worth, I’m going to go add “The Voice” and that other one to my Apple library.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4t5Za54Hk2E1vSxvtGoRSE?si=mHEIgnp7RFi637egHczxoQ
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