Anthology: the Moody Blues

Album Review

One of a burgeoning array of Moody Blues compilations, Anthology was well-intentioned and marked the first attempt to assemble the group's hits and most popular tracks going back to the original lineup in 1964 and "Go Now" (which wasn't even included in the group's four-CD box set), up as far as the mid-'90s. The sound is a match for the remasterings on the individual CDs that Polydor brought out in the late '90s, and most of the important bases in their psychedelic and post-psychedelic history are covered. Those buying this set will be assured of hearing 99 percent of the Moody Blues' tracks ever heard on the radio, but there is still a flaw in the programming. It was nice of the makers, and even unexpectedly ambitious and generous of them to reach back to "Go Now," but they should also have taken the trouble to include the original group's second biggest hit, "From the Bottom of My Heart," which was a Top 40 single in England. Unlike "Go Now," "From the Bottom of My Heart" was an original by Mike Pinder and Denny Laine, and was one of the greatest singles of the entire British Invasion. That would have plugged a serious hole in the group's best-of discographies, would likely have amazed fans of the better-known "Mark II" group (Justin Hayward et al.), and made the jump from the original band's R&B sound to the later group's psychedelia a little easier to understand.