Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

Hi Gang... here goes...

 

When I think of the Moodies, the word that comes to mind is: craftsmanship. Craftsmanship in songwriting, musicianship, vocals,production values, etc. With this in mind, lets take a look at "Higher and Higher", a 41 song, 3 CD tribute to the Moodies, put out by Mellow Records.

 

We'll start out with an easy one: vocals. Let's face it folks, the Moodies are one of the best vocal groups on the planet (at least on albums), so most everyone will suffer in comparison. The majority of the groups on this set, come from countries where English is - at best - a second language (and I'm willing to bet that some of these songs were sung phonetically), so credit should be given to these groups in attempting these songs in English... even more so when you consider that - IMHO - the worst vocal performance was done by a Canadian band. In most cases, the harmonies were pretty good too.

 

Next: musicianship. In most cases, the musicianship was very good. There is liberal use of Mellotron...or 'Tron samples throughout the CD's... some of which frighteningly emulates Mike Pinder's mellotronic style. 'Nuff said.

 

Next: songwriting... or song "styling',s" in this case. The majority of this collection draws it's songs from the 7 "core" Moodies albums... which -IMHO- is a good thing. If you're one of those Moodies fans that believe that a "tribute" album should be made up of "clones" of the original songs... then avoid this collection. That being said... how do the versions of the songs stack up? Some are accurate versions of the Moodies ("The Other Side Of Life", "New Horizons", "Have you Heard/The Voyage"), others are done in other "well known" group styles ( the '67 Pink Floyd styling of "Legend Of A Mind"), some are done in interesting ways (the middle eastern flavor of "Twilight Time, or the "Canterbury" style of "The Actor"), some are bizarre ( the bouzouki fueled "Zorba the Greek" version of "Lazy Day"), or simply god-awful ("Lovely To See You...").If I had the time... or a gorgeous secretary to dictate to... I'd do a song - by - song breakdown... but I don't. What I'd like to see, is Mellow Records offering excerpts of each song to listen to at it's web-page, so people could make up their own minds whether to spend over $30.00 for this set.

 

As for "production values", what I'd like to see here, would have been for one producer (someone like Tony Clarke) to be responsible for the multi-track mixing of this set. This would have eliminated a lot of problems with dynamics, vocals jumping out at the wrong time, the wrong instruments featured at the wrong time, too much... or too little... effects, etc. One of the most disappointing mixes was with "The Other Side Of Life" preformed live, by "Time Traveler", a Moodies tribute band. Instead if the mix being recorded off the board, the band was recorded "bootleg" style with a couple of mics, in the middle of what must have been a school gym, with the expected results.

 

The best song in the entire set, is Ryan Guidry's version of Justin Hayward's song: "London Is Behind Me" In my opinion, if Justin were to retire from the Moodies tomorrow, Guidry could step in and take his place (at least vocally) with a minimum of fuss. Worst song in the set is "Lovely To See You..."... just plain "gawd-awfull"... nothing remotely good about it.

 

So... do I recommend spending over $30.00 for this set? Let me put it this way: in the days since I received this set, the good songs have grown on me... while the bad songs haven't gotten any better. Mellow Records could have made this a 2 CD set (by dropping the songs I rated "below average" to "bad"), and I for one, would have liked it better. So if this review interests you enough to consider buying this set... try to listen to it first before you buy it. You'll be happier that way.

 

That's it.

 

J.P.

 

MicroTron 001 ... can we put on the new Anekdoten live CD now? Four word review: IT"S GREAT... BUY IT!!!