Move (The Move album)

Art pop The album features ten Roy Wood compositions, along with three covers which had been a prominent part of the group's live act. Although scheduled for an earlier release, the album was delayed by the theft of the master tapes, which led to the tracks needing to be re recorded. The album was sporadically recorded between January 1967 and February 1968 at Advision, De Lane Lea and Olympic Studios in London, during gaps in their tight recording schedule when the group were not booked for any performances. Highly anticipated, the album featured two previously released singles: "Flowers in the Rain" and "Fire Brigade", both of which reached the top five in the UK Singles Chart. It was the only album by the Move to feature original bassist Chris "Ace" Kefford, who left the band shortly after the record was released in spring 1968, as well as being the only one to fully feature rhythm guitarist Trevor Burton, who left during the early sessions for their follow up Shazam. Move was also the only album by the Move to chart in the UK, reaching number fifteen on the charts during the early summer of that year.

The Move became a highly publicised band, signing to Deram Records in late 1966, and then released their debut single "Night of Fear" on 9 December 1966. This became their first chart hit, reaching number two in the UK Singles Chart. However, Secunda decided during the last second that this release would be cancelled, and instead apted the band to continue to perform publicity stunts which would put the band in the newspapers. These master tapes, containing ten songs, were stolen from a car which was parked on Denmark Street in the West End of London. They were later discarded by the thief, and were eventually found in a rubbish bin. The tapes were damaged beyond repair or use, and a new mix had to be performed by the engineers, further delaying the release date of the album by several months. During autumn 1967, the Move released another very successful single in Britain, "Flowers in the Rain". However, keeping up with this newfound popularity became hard, and the group had a tight performance schedule. Chris "Ace" Kefford was quoted saying "The pressure of being in the charts and having your clothes ripped and hair pulled out by fans in the streets I had scissors stuck in my eye but for the same money I got in The Vikings." Tying in with "Flowers in the Rain", Secunda performed another publicity stunt, by printing postcards depicting Harold Wilson (at the time prime minister and Labour Party leader) in bed with his secretary Marcia Falkender, Baroness Falkender. This prompted Wilson to sue the group, leading to all royalties going to a charity of Wilson's liking, to the loss of the song's composer Roy Wood. The scheduled follow up to "Flowers in the Rain" was "Cherry Blossom Clinic", which was backed by "Vote For Me", a satirical piece regarding corrupt politicians. This idea was shelved due to the court proceedings, as both the band and Regal Zonophone believed that it was unwise to release the potentially controversial song.

The first track recorded by the Move intended for an album release was a Wood composition, "Walk Upon the Water" which was taped in January 1967 at Advision Studios, London. These tracks, however, were not featured on the final album. These were not the first attempts by the Move to record potential album or single tracks. A year earlier, they recorded "You're the One I Need", was recorded at Ladbroke Sound studios. This song was also shelved, but gave Secunda an idea of how Wood composed songs, later stating "Roy showed me some poetry he'd written. I said 'You can do it! You can start writing'". The band then toured for several weeks, but they returned to Advision in March, and on the 23rd they taped three songs: the two Wood originals "Kilroy Was Here" and "(Here We Go Round) the Lemon Tree" and an Eddie Cochran track, "Weekend", which was the first cover to get recorded for the album. Their second single "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" was released the following week, on 31 March. The 23 March recording sessions was the last before the master tapes were stolen from their agent's car on Denmark Street.

The final master track of the album occurred on 20 February 1968 at Maximum Sound Studios, which was compiled by Denny Cordell and engineer Dave Hadfield. The final production of the master tape occurred on 7 March 1968 by engineer Ron Pender at EMI Studios, London. Four tracks were released from the album as singles along with their respective B sides. These were "Flowers in the Rain" along with "(Here We Go Round) the Lemon Tree", which first was released on 25 August 1967, and reached number two on the British charts. With a psychedelic album cover design by the collective The Fool (who previously worked together with the Beatles), Move was first issued in March 1968 by Regal Zonophone with the catalogue number of LRZ 100. Largely fueled by the success of recent singles, Move first reached the UK charts on 13 April 1968, at a position of 26. The following week, it reached its peak of 15, before ascending to 16 on 27 April. The following week, it was once again back at number 15 and by 11 May it started dropping off the chart, at a position of 17. On 18 May it was at number 30, before climbing to number 34 the following week. On 1 June, it was at number 40, a position it held for two weeks, before it dropped off the chart. In total, the album spent 9 weeks on the chart, of which 4 were in the top 20 and 6 in the top 30. He later regretted doing drugs, stating "Me and Trev [Burton] did loads of acid it screwed up my life man. Devastated me completely." Upon his departure, he attempted to record a solo album which ultimately failed, and would eventually form his own band, The Ace Kefford Stand, who released one single in 1969 before breaking up. Following Kefford's departure, Burton switched to bass before leaving himself in 1969, and was replaced by Rick Price.

Upon release, the album received primarily positive reviews. Bob Dawbarn of Melody Maker thought that there wasn't "one poor track" on it, positively noting the inclusion of the singles "Flowers in the Rain" and "Fire Brigade", and stated that it "should make everybody concerned very happy." It was ranked Melody Makers top album of the month. In a retrospective review of the album, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic states that the album sounds like the work of multiple musical ensembles, due to the fact that the songs all feature different lead vocalists. He states that with Move, they combined Pete Townshend esque art rock with older rockabilly three chord song, but that they were doing so in order not to fit in with any particular musical category, a fate which happened to multiple artists, including the Who and the Small Faces. He writes that they were almost as heavy as the Who at the time, but were at the same time more psychedelic than them and the Kinks. He writes that the album is a combination of contrasting genres which tend to "ping pong" back and forth.

All songs written by Roy Wood, except where noted.

After some unofficial releases, Move was reissued on CD, by Cube, with additional tracks, in 1994. It was reissued in a deluxe, two disc package in 2007 by Salvo. More re issues arrived in April 2016 from Esoteric Records, a label of Cherry Red Records: a 3CD remastered and expanded deluxe edition (Catalog ID: ECLEC32536) and a remastered and expanded edition (Catalog ID: ECLEC2537). According to Esoteric, these newly re mastered editions focus on the mono mix of the album. The single CD version includes five bonus tracks (none of them previously unreleased), and the 3 CD set includes 52 bonus tracks (five of them previously unreleased).

All songs written by Roy Wood unless noted.