Octave The Moody Blues

BUY THIS ITEM

  • $52.99 Online price
    $47.69 Member price
    Join Now
    • skip to cart
  • Add To List uiAction=GetAllLists&page=List&pageType=list&ean=4988005532299&productCode=MU&maxCount=100&threshold=3

DELIVERY & GIFT DETAILS:

Usually available in 1-2 weeks
Will not arrive by Dec. 24
Visit our Gift Guide or send a Gift Card

Delivery Time and Shipping Rates

Eligible for gift wrap & gift message.

CD

  • Release Date: 10/22/2008
  • Original Release: 1978
  • Sales Rank: 111,272
  • Label: UNIVERSAL JAPAN
  • UPC: 4988005532299

Listener Rating: (2 ratings)

See All Detailed Ratings

More Formats 
CD$9.69

Customers who bought this also bought

 
  • Overview
  • Tracks
  • Editorial Reviews
  • Customer Reviews
  • Details & Credits
Track List
Click on LISTEN or link to hear an audio clip.
To listen to samples you'll need a Windows Media Player

Octave

1LISTENSteppin' in a Slide Zone 5:28
2LISTENUnder Moonshine 5:00
3LISTENHad to Fall in Love 3:38
4LISTENI'll Be Level with You 3:47
5LISTENDriftwood 5:02
6LISTENTop Rank Suite 3:40
7LISTENI'm Your Man 4:20
8LISTENSurvival 4:09
9LISTENOne Step into the Light 4:28
10LISTENThe Day We Meet Again 6:18

About this Artist

Editorial Reviews

The Moody Blues' resumed work together after a four-year hiatus and delivered Octave in 1978, which quickly became a hit but has also proved to be a very problematic album. Picking up where he left off on Seventh Sojourn, bassist/singer John Lodge generated a hit single (and also a solid album opener) with the surprisingly edgy (for this band) rocker "Steppin' in a Slide Zone." And Justin Hayward's "Had to Fall in Love," "Driftwood," and "The Day We Meet Again" -- the latter their best album closer since "Watching and Waiting" -- are also up to the standard one would wish for (and a bit of a surprise, coming in the wake of two major solo projects that should have depleted his songbag). Additionally, Graeme Edge's "I'll Be Level With You" gives the album some harder rocking moments, but that's not what one bought Moody Blues records for -- rather, it was (and is) the sweep, the overall body of music and vision, psychedelic and romantic, punched up with some solid rock moments, and it's that larger arc of the music that is missing here. Ray Thomas's two songs are lackluster compared with his earlier work; and Mike Pinder's "One Step Into the Light" is so limited in its scope, compared to his earlier album-defining mystical explorations, that he is barely a presence on the album (and he did quit the band in the course of completing, or not completing, this record). As well as not quite offering an album's worth of good songs, the whole album lacks the depth and scope of preceding releases; 1978 would have been a little late for an album steeped in psychedelia, but they didn't quite have anything to replace the latter element in the mix that constituted their appeal. Octave has its moments, and even a few very good ones -- and two great ones, on "Steppin' in a Slide Zone" and the place where the chorus comes in on "The Day We Meet Again" -- but they're not supported by enough that's worthwhile. Additionally, for CD listeners, the good moments are all the more difficult to appreciate, as a result of the inferior CD mastering on this release -- as of the fall of 2004, where the group's earlier albums were all upgraded long ago, Octave (along with their other later releases) was still available only in an old, substandard late-'80s CD edition, lacking in clarity and volume. Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

  • Listener Rating:
  • Ratings: 2Reviews: 2

A Time, a Place, a Truely Captivating Memeoryby Anonymous

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

January 31, 2003: My best friend Billy passed on his Tape collection to me a week or two ago, he's a CD ONLY guy now. The collection stretched from 1981 to 2001 and I had been sifting though it slowly over the last 14 days, coming acoss many 'old' favorites until I came across OCTAVE. I was 17 all over again. I nearly cried with the emotions this brought back. Steppin'..., Had To Fall, Driftwood et al, songs that were just distant memories came flooding back into my room for the first time since '78. God-damn, how I missed those days and memeories. If YOU liked it back then and haven't heard it since, go and get it. Refresh those memories, you won't be disappointed. Thanks Billy, you'll never really understand the value of the gift you've just given me.

This review was written about the CD edition.

Octaveby Anonymous

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

April 22, 2000: The Moody Blues eighth studio album, Octave, was released in 1978, nearly six years after the release of their seventh studio album (Seventh Sojourn). At the time of its release, fans anticipated a Moody Blues album very much like their popular albums from the sixties ? one that would contain both up-tempo and tranquil songs that were always melodic and always contained the patented Moody Blues? `cosmic? lyrics. For the most part (the lyrics were not that `cosmic?), Octave did not disappoint. Produced again by Tony Clarke, it was, pretty much, what die-hard Moody Blues? fans wanted. Each member of the band had a hand in the songwriting and the songs provided by John Lodge, Ray Thomas, Mike Pinder, and Graeme Edge had the classic Moody Blues? sound. Lodge?s `Survival?, Thomas? `I?m Your Man?, and Pinder?s ?One Step Into the Light? are highlights. Justin Hayward, however, takes center stage. He continues, here, to take his music in the direction that he pointed to with his first solo album, Songwriter, a year earlier. With `Had to Fall in Love?, `Driftwood?, and `The Day We Meet Again?, he introduces jazz-tinged melodies with emotional lyrics that are quite a departure from the his prior work with the band. And his song, `Top Rank Suite?, is perhaps the most unusual of all Moody Blues songs at that point (both musically and lyrically). It is a frolicking, saxophone-filled rock-n-roll number that contains, believe it or not, a reference to a `good bowl of chili? (now does that sound like the Moody Blues to you?). Overall, especially for Moody Blues? fans, Octave is a satisfying album. It is the last Moody Blues album having Mike Pinder at the keyboards (an `end of an era? as he was replaced by ex-Yes keyboard player, Patrick Moraz, soon after the release of this album). The next Moody Blues? album would be Long Distance Voyager in 1981 ? a #1 album that, arguably, represents the pinnacle of the band?s career. Soon afterwards though, like so many bands from their era, the Moody Blues become just another retroactive band- one that sells out concerts but can?t get airplay or sell recordings like the good ol? days.

This review was written about the CD edition.