This Is the Moody Blues

This Is The Moody Blues is a two LP (later two CDs) compilation album by the Moody Blues, released in late 1974 while the band was on a self-imposed sabbatical. Though all of the songs were previously released on albums (with the exception of "A Simple Game" which was a 1968 B-side), several of them are heard here in distinctly different mixes. Like the Moody Blues albums of the time — but unlike most compilation albums, including later Moody Blues compilations — the songs on this album segue seamlessly, without a gap of silence. On the original LP, this was true of the songs on each side; when the album was remastered for CD, each disc was also blended, so that "Legend of a Mind" segues into "In The Beginning", and "Watching and Waiting" segues into "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)". The album is particularly notable for being the first release to provide a separate name for "Late Lament", the symphonic coda and spoken poem that closes "Nights in White Satin". This Is the Moody Blues was a commercial and critical success, reaching #14 in the United Kingdom and #11 in the United States before 1974 was out.