Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue (1977)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2007 reissue.

It was the best of albums, it was the worst of albums. (OK, I'll admit that statement may be a little extreme, but I just couldn't resist showing off that I skimmed the Cliffs Notes for Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities when I was a freshman in high school.) What was the first half of this two album set is classic ELO while the second half is mostly unremarkable filler except for the best ELO song ever released, Mr. Blue Sky. Nonetheless, this is essential ELO listening.

Woulda made a helluva single album if Lynne had edited it to a single 40 minute LP as follows:

Side 1:

1. Turn to Stone
2. It's Over
3. Across the Border
4. Sweet Talkin' Woman
5. Jungle

Side 2:

1. Mr. Blue Sky
2. Night in the City
3. Starlight
4. Wild West Hero

Press of the time:

• Billboard: "a truly spectacular, multi-track extravaganza"
• CashBox: "their musical art is more of the enduring than the ever-changing quality."
• Rolling Stone: "perfectly hollow and bland rock Muzak."
• Record World: "Jeff Lynne's material maintains his usual high standard"
• Stereo Review: "First-rate pop"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #4
• CashBox: #5

Tracks: see above

Bonus tracks: Meh. Then again, totally unnecessary bonus tracks are the lifeblood of CD reissues, so you can't really blame 'em for trying.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Sweet Talkin' Woman reminds me of a hot West Texas summer in 1978 while Mr. Blue Sky reminds me of a wet, cold high school band bus in Austin for the UIL State Marching Band Contest in November, 1980. That song was a welcome relief from all the misery implied in the words "wet, cold high school band bus."

Previously revisited for the blog:
Alone In The Universe (2015)
Zoom (2001)
Time (1981)
Xanadu Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)
Discovery (1979)
ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)
A New World Record (1976)

Jeff Lynne's ELO - Alone In The Universe (2015)

At age 67, Lynne proved he can still give ELO fans what they want. The name has slightly changed, but the spaceship logo and music haven't. At first listen, I thought "meh - this is just more of the same." Then I slapped myself as I realized that more of the same is exactly what I wanted - I'm back in the late '70s again and lovin' it. Lynne returns to his familiar melodic tropes to the point where I could hum along to melodies I'd never heard before. Lyrically, too - it wouldn't be an ELO album unless song titles included words like "sun" "rain" and "night". My only complaints would be the lack of variety (we're treated to a lot of midtempo stuff), and the length; even with two bonus tracks, the album is over and done in 38 minutes. Metacritic has this album rated at 75, which seems about right to me.

Bonus points for the lenticular 3-D album cover (which, sadly, doesn't translate well to digital blog images).

I completely understand the name change: 1) Lynne needed to distance himself from Bev Bevan, who uses the name ELO Part II, and 2) just check the credits:

I prefer my ELO in the spring and summer, so I'll be putting this on the shelf for a few months before adding it to my CD rotation.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #23

Tracks: My picks are When I Was A Boy, When The Night Comes, All My Life, and One Step At A Time. Lately, I've been skipping the title track. The two bonus tracks are both good, one a rockabilly romp, the other recalls Roy Orbison.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Zoom (2001)
Time (1981)
Xanadu Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)
Discovery (1979)
ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)
A New World Record (1976)

Electric Light Orchestra - A New World Record (1976)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2006 reissue with 6 bonus tracks.

This was ELO's sixth studio release and arguably their best album - it's succinct, full of hooks, and there are no tracks I want to skip. According to the excellent liner notes included in this reissue:

It's hard to believe now, but it only took a few weeks to record and complete whole album. The songs started to flow and most of them came quickly to me. To have all those hits, it was just ...I mean amazing really. Going from doing okay for probably three or four years to suddenly being in the big time, it was a strange but great thing. --Jeff Lynne

Sure, ELO tried to copy The Beatles (and why not?), but I also hear some Procol Harum, Yes, and Moody Blues in these tunes. The production, orchestration, and arrangements, however, could only be Jeff Lynne. Certainly a defining work for the band.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone: "By Christmas, A New World Record should be a staple in a million homes"
• Stereo Review: "it makes sophisticated stereo equipment worth having"
• Robert Christgau (B+): "they've gone all the way and made a Moody Blues album with brains, hooks, and laffs galore."
• CashBox: "studies in superb pop crafting and accessible musical complexities"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #5
• CashBox: #10

Tracks:  In addition to the Top 40 singles, Livin' Thing (#13), Do Ya (#24), and Telephone Line (#7), I like Tightrope and the cheesy Rockaria!, but like I said earlier, there's nothing to skip here until we get to the...

Bonus tracks:  Of the six bonus tracks, the only one worth listening to more than once is Surrender. The remainder are alternative versions of Telephone Line and songs that they cleverly label "Instrumental Early Rough Mix" instead of calling them what they are: backing track demos.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD:  I had heard this album on various formats throughout the years, but never owned a copy until I recently spied this CD in the clearance rack of the local music store. The nice thing about loving music from 1976-85 is that you can easily pick up new CDs of music from that era for $3 these days. And I do. Often.

Livin' Thing reminds me of the movie Boogie Nights.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Zoom (2001)
Time (1981)
Xanadu Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)
Discovery (1979)
ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)

Electric Light Orchestra - Zoom (2001)

Note: the CD I listened to was not the 2013 reissue.

This is essentially a Jeff Lynne solo album, but that really doesn't matter. The retro-futuristic-Beatleseque-time-warp ELO sound had made a 21st century comeback. Sure it's overproduced and formulaic, but it's enjoyable. Unfortunately, there really wasn't much of a market left for a '70s group that hadn't released an album since 1986 and hadn't released a decent album since 1979 (not counting the wonderful half-album of ELO magic that is Xanadu). There's no standout lead single, but even if there had been, where would it have it gotten airplay? Lynne's songwriting skills benefited from the time away from the band: music from this album would have fit well around 1978 between Out Of The Blue and Discovery. Bottom line: if you liked ELO in the '70s, you'll like this group of songs.

Rolling Stone, August 16, 2001, p. 105

You might also want to check out L.E.O. - Alpacas Orgling (2006).

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #94

Tracks: highlights include Alright, State Of Mind, It Really Doesn't Matter, and Lonesome Lullaby. Ballads have never been Lynne's forte and there's quite a few slow tunes here; I'm always tempted to skip Just For Love, In My Own Time. The song Melting In The Sun shows that all hours working with Tom Petty have rubbed off on Lynne.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD:  This album went out of print not long after its release. I found this CD on eBay last year after reading about it while looking at online reviews of the aforementioned Alpacas Orgling CD.

I want credit for never using the phrase "ELO has been recharged" in this post.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Time (1981)
Xanadu Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)
Discovery (1979)
ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)

Electric Light Orchestra - Time (1981)

Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by the 2001 remastered CD with bonus tracks.

More hype from the CD's back cover:

A time-travel, concept album gem from ELO...originally released in 1981, Time is a futuristic journey through a richly imagined world, powered by the sonic force of ELO's musical artistry. Weaving fantasy and introspection, whimsy and drama, up-front guitars and electronic effects, Jeff Lynne's full-length tale of space age mystery captivates from beginning to end.

By the time I became an ELO fan in 1979, they were moving past their prime. I think this LP was meant to be a concept album about time travel, but it doesn't quite hold up all the way through. At the time of this album's release, I was so distracted by the production and space age electronic whirrs and bleeps that I paid little attention to how bad some of the songs were. The strings that gave this group their distinctive sound (not to mention the group's name) are MIA here, replaced by synths. Jeff Lynne's previous songwriting was heavily influenced by the Beatles; here it is more like the Alan Parsons Project (Smash Hits says Elton John while Billboard says Moody Blues). I stayed with them through this release, but then I was done with them (although I was glad to see Lynne appear later as a Traveling Wilbury). Judging from their subsequent record sales, I wasn't alone in abandoning them. Still, like most bad '80s CDs, I enjoy listening to this occasionally for nostalgia's sake. Very occasionally.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone (★★★): "near-perfect Top Forty spurts"
• Billboard: "continues its immaculate fusion of classically influenced rock with mainstream pop"
• CashBox: "brilliantly produced avant pop effort"
• Stereo Review: "furshlugginer sound spectacular with a wimp in the middle of it"
• Smash Hits (5 out of 10): "I really can't fault it, but thank God I don't have to like it."
• Record Mirror (★★): "I can't wait for Tony Curtis to open the stage show."
• RPM Weekly: "An exciting and unique concept album that has all the musical surrealism of what life could be in the 21st century."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #16
• Billboard Rock: #10
• CashBox: #9
• Rolling Stone: #9

Tracks: The best tracks here are Twilight, The Way Life's Meant to Be, The Lights Go Down, and Hold On Tight (which recently appeared in a Honda Accord ad). Yours Truly 2095 is painful to listen to now (see below). Other clunkers include Another Heart Breaks, From The End Of The World, Here Is The News, and 21st Century Man. The 3 bonus tracks were all b-sides of 45s and, upon hearing them here, they were obviously b-sides for good reason.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: My sophomore year in high school, I was part of the company for the school's one act play. Somehow, the song Yours Truly 2095 became a sing-along on bus rides to and from performances. Imagine 30 overly dramatic teenagers singing a bad ELO song at the top of their lungs on a big yellow bus. The horror. It was if David Lynch directed an episode of Glee.

In high school band during my senior year, we put on a marching show with a magic theme. The director must have liked this album because the show began with the Prologue from this album. The voice over lyrics were greatly altered to fit the magic theme (I think they were in verse). Seems cheesy now, but we enjoyed it back then.

I miss Scott.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Xanadu Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)
Discovery (1979)
ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)

Xanadu Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)

Note: this release was originally purchased as a LP, later replaced by a CD.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree." When Coleridge wrote those lines in 1798, he had no idea that he'd be giving us the names of the 1980 movie Xanadu and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 1984 album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome. We'll get to FGTH later, but today it's all about Xanadu.

Ah, Olympian muses, roller skating discos, Gene Kelly, a Don Bluth animation sequence, and LA's Pan-Pacific Auditorium (see pic below). Such is the magic of Xanadu, one of life's true cheesy pleasures. The movie, which is fun to revisit every few years, received a fantastic succinct movie review from Esquire magazine: a single sentence that read... "In a word, Xana-don't"!

While, admittedly, this roller disco movie was bad, the soundtrack brings back good memories for those of us that were ELO fans around that time. I'm not certain, but I'm fairly sure I had the soundtrack before I saw the movie at Bay Cinema 4. The LP had an ONJ side and an ELO side, but there are plenty of guest appearances as well. While I remember all the songs and sing along with all of them, some of them aren't very good. They probably weren't good in 1980, either, but what did I know then? Now, looking at the album as a whole, there are about 5 decent songs out of 10.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone: "the last word in 'toy music,' the mechanized kiddie pop that Abba established as a worldwide Top Forty staple."
• RPM Weekly: "They haven't abandoned disco totally"
• Smash Hits (6 out of 10): "Very much soundtrack music."
• Rolling Stone: "the soundtrack of Xanadu is the last word in "toy music," the mechanized kiddie pop that Abba established as a worldwide Top Forty staple." [ed: the writer means to insult, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with worldwide Top Forty staples.]

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #4
• CashBox: #1
• Rolling Stone: #12

Tracks, in order of my preference:

1. Magic - ONJ: A great summer song. All of ONJ's songs were written by her longtime collaborator John Farrar. This is one of his better songs. The third biggest single of 1980.
2. Xanadu - ELO & ONJ: While the song is good, you have to listen to it in the context of the movie's finale. Gene Kelly on rollerskates!
3. I'm Alive - ELO: Solid ELO effort. The first song heard in the movie when the muses in the mural come alive. I'm told that included in the song's closing coda is Morse code which spells out ELO, but I don't know Morse code so I can't confirm that.
4. Suddenly - ONJ with Cliff Richard: Great ballad. I can sing both the melody and harmony parts if you need that sort of thing.
5. All Over The World - ELO: Classic ELO track with disco strings, bad backup vocals, and Jeff Lynne's falsetto.
6. Suspended in Time - ONJ: A fairly bland ballad along the lines of Hopelessly Devoted To You from Grease. This song brought the pacing of the movie to a screeching halt (as if that movie needed any help with that).
7. Whenever You're Away From Me - ONJ with Gene Kelly: Poor Gene Kelly. This was to be his last movie. A better dancer than singer, he doesn't do too bad a job here with bad material.
8. Dancin' - ONJ with The Tubes: We really don't need a big band song that segues then meshes with a rock song. In 1980, I was still a year or two away of knowing who The Tubes were.
9. The Fall - ELO: Typical ELO filler track. Not much here to like or hate.
10. Don't Walk Away - ELO: A horrible, plodding song made worse by the memory that this is the background music for the awful animation sequence in the movie.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I remember wanting this album badly and mowed somebody's lawn for $10 so I could go and buy it. I probably rode my bike straight from the job to the music store or K-Mart (the only two places in town to buy albums).

Around the time of its release, I won a KIOX radio trivia contest for naming 5 cities mentioned in the ELO single, All Over The World. I think I won a t-shirt that I never picked up.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Olivia Newton-John - Best of (2002)
Electric Light Orchestra - Discovery (1979)
Electric Light Orchestra - ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)

Electric Light Orchestra - ELO's Greatest Hits (1979)

GREATEST HITS WEEK (JANUARY 17-23, 2011)

My first ELO purchase was 1979's Discovery (or "Disco? Very!", as hardcore fans sometimes refer to it), but I was familiar with most of the songs on this compilation because they were all over the radio during the '70s. I'm disappointed that they chose not to include 1977's single Do Ya (#24, 1977), which is one of the band's better songs.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #30
• CashBox: #30
• Rolling Stone: #42

Tracks:

Song	Year	US	UK
Evil Woman	1975	10	10
Livin' Thing	1976	13	4
Can't Get It Out Of My Head	1974	9	52
Showdown	1973	59	12
Turn To Stone	1977	13	18
Rockaria!	1977	-	9
Sweet Talkin' Woman	1978	17	6
Telephone Line	1977	7	8
Ma-Ma-Ma Belle	1974	-	22
Strange Magic	1976	14	38
Mr. Blue Sly	1978	35	6

I was previously unfamiliar with Showdown, Rockaria!, and Ma-Ma-Ma Belle, probably because they weren't playing on my radio, but all the familiar hits are here. I can't explain because I don't feel this way today, but I never liked the song Telephone Line in the '70s, to the point I would change the radio station if it came on (and it came on a lot.) Mr. Blue Sky is probably my favorite ELO song, rivaling even music from the movie Xanadu. ;)

Exclusive CD longbox photo courtesy of
Dirk Digglinator of the Hambonian Archives.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Most songs remind me of dry, hot '70s summers in Odessa, except for Mr. Blue Sky, which always reminds me of a wet, cold high school band bus in Austin for the UIL State Marching Band Contest in November, 1980:

One of my earliest memories of mistaking lyrics (a mondegreen) comes from Evil Woman when I misunderstood the "E-evil woman" of the chorus. I thought they were singing "Medieval woman" which I suppose wouldn't be the stupidest lyric ever, but pretty close.

Electric Light Orchestra - Discovery (1979)

Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by a CD. This CD is not the 2001 remastered CD with bonus tracks.

I'm fairly confident this LP was the first one I purchased after a family move in late 1978. I had always enjoyed ELO on the radio, so I bought this based on the strength of Shine a Little Love, the first single. The whole album is heavily influenced by disco (particularly the bass lines), but Jeff Lynne's songwriting was still strong at that time. I didn't lose interest in ELO until after their release Time, but then appreciated Lynne's later work in The Traveling Wilburys and with Tom Petty. And, of course, I eventually dove into their back catalog. When I listen to ELO, I normally don't choose this CD, but that's because Xanadu is around. ;-)

Press of the time:

• Billboard: "another tasty collection"
• CashBox: "continue to break superb musical ground on this LP"
• Record World: "There's a bit of disco here but it seems a natural extension"
• Smash Hits (8 out of 10): "ELO fans will not be disappointed"
• Stereo Review: "a weak effort"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #5
• CashBox: #5
• Rolling Stone: #6

Tracks: Since I didn't have many LPs at the time (or much of a life, for that matter), this album was played daily in my room. To be honest, side one (tracks 1-4) was probably played with more frequency than side two. As a result, I am very familiar with all the tracks and the arrangements. If I had to pick my fav tracks, I'd go with Shine a Little Love and The Diary of Horace Wimp. I'm not fan of the ballads, but Need Her Love is much better than Midnight Blue. The single Don't Bring Me Down isn't my favorite, probably because it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the album. Stuck at the end, it seems like an afterthought.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: This is an album I associate with summer; specifically, summer in a new city in a new house. The summer I turned 13 was carefree, hot, and humid.

More recently, I attended an academic conference at The University of Sussex in July 2010. Once the conference ended, I took a train from Brighton to London. The song Last Train to London was an earworm from the time I entered the Brighton train station until I exited at Victoria Station.