The Present (The Moody Blues, 1983)

The Present is sort of the "forgotten album" of the Moodies' 1980's output. The other three albums all had big-time hits to prop them up ("The Voice", "Gemini Dream", "In Your Wildest Dreams" and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere"), while The Present had to rely on tepidly received songs like "Blue World" and "Sitting At the Wheel". Deserved? Partly. The Present was trying to emulate the success of its predecessor, which it does with its eerily similar track listing, but the music itself is just a moderate reflection of what came before. It feels more processed and synthesized than the previous album, but nowhere near the "synth-pop" era albums that were to follow, which would relegate Ray Thomas to the ranks of band members that don't play a note.

I grew up listening to the Moody Blues, primarily through a cassette-tape dub of their 1970's double-album greatest hits package This Is the Moody Blues. When I started to collect for myself, I went after the "Core 7" albums, which is a much different band than what we have here, courtesy of long-gone keyboard player/mellotron guru Mike Pinder. My parents were more than happy to promote this interest (although when I asked for Metallica's Kill 'Em All for Christmas 1991 there were concerns). I trooped on through a couple of the reunion albums (Octave and Long Distance Voyager) but pretty much stopped there. The Present was a much later acquisition; I even skipped it to go after the highly-synthetic but energetic Other Side of Life. Lately I picked up 1999's Strange Times, which doesn't herald back to "Core 7" days, but sounds far more honest than some of the prior albums (and Ray Thomas kind of returns, which is nice). I'm still missing some of their later stuff, but I'm in no hurry to complete my collection. I'm actually spending more energy on the "Go Now" era (1964-1966) where there are a few songs still eluding me (the fifty versions of The Magnificent Moodies is making for problems).

Here's some killer old footage of the band from 1966, before the beards, baldness, and Justin Hayward. The studio version was later cut with the more familiar "Core 7" lineup.

There used to be some crazy-old footage of the band playing "Bo Diddley" but that doesn't seem to exist anymore.