ELO! S&D!

Also search "Time" for sci-fi-driven concept-album delirium, early 80's synths, and again - those wonderfully campy choral arrangements. Air are definately the heir apparent to this album.

I wuv em but it used (aged 16) to piss me off mucho that they weren't an ORCHESTRA. Two vs and a c ain't an orchestra, it's a TRIO.

I really did only just get that joke. I put this down to my immense and vastly superior sense of humour rather than my tiny IQ as revealed on ILE.

Destroy Secret Messages and Balance of Power and the wretched live LP

You can take or leave the rest, but Discovery is mostly soppy, cod disco although it does contain the mighty Don't bring me down.

A word of warning the first two LP's (and the first one in particular) aren't at all typical of there sound, being a mish mash of Beatles, Prog and mediaeval music!

Will have to check out Time, what with all the praise being heaped on it.

I can't believe you've never seen that before, M*rk.

Walking back the tube station wearing an 'Out OfThe Blue' sweatshirt afterwards three punks saw me and started laughing and sneering. What do they know about good music, I thought. I was only 14 at the time. About a year later I realized they knew a lot more than me.

Still, as a pop band ELO produced some gems, The 'New World Record' album is their best, 'Out Of The Blue' is terrific of course but not as concise. Everything after that stinks to high heaven, but maybe that's just because my tastes had moved beyond them by that time.

Time sounds great remastered. I can't verify the actual quality of the material anymore...I realize that most of my fond memories of the album are really nostalgia for that period in my life. I'm enjoying this a lot, but I'd probably be embarassed if others were around.

Long live ELO.

now people are gonna think im some weird ELO fangeek for owning it on LP and CD. [wait, i am.]

I liked them a lot as a kid, then fell off bigtime, and rejoined bigtime. Favorite albums are Electric Light Orchestra [No Answer], Face The Music, A New World Record, and best of all, ELO's half of the Xanadu soundtrack.. The problem is that for every great track, there are two that are just ok.. but these great and ok tracks differ from person to person.

At this point, the only album until Secret Messages that has yet to get a reissue, AFAIK, is Out Of The Blue which I'm guessing is going to get a deluxe treatment of some kind for its 30th anniversary next year.

"Yours Truly, 2094" thematically defined Daft Punk.

Btw. Search at least everything from "On The Third Day" up to and including "Time". After that they kind of lost their momentum, while their first two albums are worth investigating only a bit different than the rest.

"Do Ya" is by The Move isn't it?

So I'll just insist that Secret Messages is actually really good and leave it at that.

"...But it NE-ver EE-ven CROSSED! MY! MIIIINNNND! She was a CHEE!! TER!!"

I've only listened to the former so far. Not sure the remastering has made much, if any, difference. I still had to turn up the treble on the hi-fi to compensate for that muddy production of a lot of 70s ELO. (The previously unreleased bonus tracks - presumably newly mixed - have a much better sound.)

The music's fantastic, of course.

"Calling America" and "So Serious" were great singles from "Balance Of Power" though.

RIP dude

terrible story -- r.i.p.

Based on his amazing stripped down "Xanadu", I'm looking forward to the ELO remakes.

http://youarethewildones.blogspot.com/2012/08/elos-jeff-lynne-returns-with-new-album.html

for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs_k9zkeG3k

It's one thing if he's re-working "Xanadu," but there are few of the band's hit I think Lynne can "improve," as he's threatened to do.

“There was a big reason I wanted to re-record these ELO songs,” says LYNNE. “When I listen to the old versions they don’t sound the way I thought they did when I first wrote and recorded them.

"Also," it can be assumed Lynne added, "I gain the total rights to all the new recordings of the songs."

I just think of them as alternate versions. I LOVE *both* versions of "Xanadu" of course.

"Also," it can be assumed Lynne added, "I gain the total rights to all the new recordings of the songs."

Good point, he probably wants all the money from an even ad-friendlier "Mr Blue Sky".

don't see how that improves in any way on the ONJ version. makes xanadu sound like a terribly dreary place.

hey, this is great! geir was right...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyFsYzXse6k

xpost -I like how it's a sweet longing for a place that can never be again - a sweetly sad and reflexive take on a track (and a time) which Lynne disavowed for years and it's achingly beautiful.

well, shit, i love that interpretation. i'm listening again as a result, but i still can't hear it. maybe if it was slower and just vox and acoustic guitar? i mean, it's not bad, and OLJ isn't great on the original, but i don't really feel the reflexive resignation and longing you're talking about. would love to have heard roy orbison sing it, though...

fwiw, i'm going through the whole catalog tonight, as it's been a while. in reverse, cuz it's the 80s stuff i really needed a refresher on. spotty, but damn, i sure do love the high points.

feeling a strong trevor horn influence on secret messages. works surprisingly well with jeff's approach.

had a good time going through all this stuff back to back. didn't do much to shake up my view of the band, but i came up with a three-and-a-half hour playlist of ELO songs i dig, quite a few more than i expected. first and third albums are surprisingly good (surprising to me, anyway - i didn't like them at all as a kid).

the syrupy, string-laden, mid to late 70s pop albums are clearly their peak, but 1981's time is my personal favorite. tons of catchy tunes, clever production, buggles-like combination of futurist optimism and nostalgic regret. secret messages is a guilty half-pleasure. lot of dumb, formulaic songwriting, but it got burned into my head way back when.

Out of the Blue and New World Record are all time. Rest can pretty much be distilled down to the hits.

both great, but to me, they're a singles band. tbh, i don't think they ever made a perfect album. 2nd half of out of the blue drags, and while new world record is more concise, "mission" and "so fine" don't do much for me. elorado's kind of a sleeper. short on smash hits, but even the middling tracks are pretty engaging.

'Mr Blue Sky' is here http://vimeo.com/50058590 Don't really get what Lynne's playing at it's so similar to the original version that it makes me wonder why he bothered.

blimey it is very very similar.

here is the reasoning as per an interview in the new mojo ?

'when i used to hear those songs on the radio i'd go fuck, that aint right, i thought it was better than that. so i tried 'mr blue sky' as an experiment to see if i could get it better. and i found that i could'

'it's a better sound, better bass sound, better piano sound, better guitar sound, better drum sound, better harmonies sound. its all better. because i know more. i know what i did in the old days, and i know what i did now, so i know how much better they are. thats what i'm saying, and i'm sticking to it'

actually, i know its not been announced anywhere, but is this a similar situation that the songwriter is redoing a catalogue in order to gain some form of control a la simply red/squeeze.

i mean i have never read anything that suggests that jeff is unhappy with the way that the elo catalogue is being maintained, but it does make you wonder if the end results of these new versions are as similar as this track.

also, frontier ?

an italian hard rock label ?

oh how the mighty have fallen.

before google revealed the truth, i actually thought this was a self release label, which i would have understood, but as it is, this is an even weirder choice to release this collection and his new solo album on - is there really that little interest in his new material ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb5TV7JUvzo

My favorite song on Time -- Buggled to the max.

Those remakes are intriguing insofar as they're the work of an obsessive craftsman who in revisiting his work in the name of "improving" it hasn't ended up making it worse.

Yeah, that track is just uncannily Buggles in an incredibly strong way. Anyone have Time on vinyl? I'll bet it sounds great.

I always thought that parts of Time owed a big debt to Ultravox's Vienna. "Another Heart Breaks" is nearly a mash-up of "Vienna" and "Mr. X," and "From the Sun to the World" lifts the prominent synth rhythm from "All Stood Still."

Here's a cassette I made probably in 1985, emphasis on my favorite fast ones:

-Side 1-
Fire on High (Face the Music)
Four Little Diamonds (Secret Messages)
Rockaria! (A New World Record)
Last Train to London (Discovery)
Night in the City (Out of the Blue)
Boy Blue (Eldorado)
Ma-Ma-Ma Belle (On the Third Day)
Twilight (Time)
Livin' Thing (A New World Record)
Summer and Lightning (Out of the Blue)
All Over the World (Xanadu)

-Side 2-
King of the Universe (On the Third Day)
Tightrope (A New World Record)
Poor Boy (Eldorado)
Secret Messages (Secret Messages)
Jungle (Out of the Blue)
Don't Bring Me Down (Discovery)
Poker (Face the Music)
Do Ya (A New World Record)
Illusions in G Major (Eldorado)
Yours Truly 2095 (Time)
On the Run (Discovery)
New World Rising (On the Third Day)

Wanna know what was on my Supertramp tape?

i have time on vinyl.

it sounds lovely.

Been going thru a killer latter day Move/early ELO phase and feel compelled to put in a good word for "In Old England Town (Boogie #2)." The hyper-aggressive textures and vocal, pounding stops and starts and winding, dissonant melody are all really hitting the spot right now – and the track in many ways represents something of a bid adieu to his era with Roy Wood (who plays cello on this). Pretty amazing stuff.

Regarding the Jeff Lynne's ELO Live at Hyde Park blu-ray that's only available in the UK. Do Blu-ray discs have that region bs, or will it play on my Yankee player? :)

i know nothing re blu-ray.
it is available on standard DVD i think yes ?
i.e. have not bought it yet, but am thinking of doing so for a friend.
p.s i seem to believe that there is audio out 'there' in high quality, should you not wish to see the drummers arse crack throughout the show.

Old England Town really sounds like something from one of Roy Wood's solo albums, rather than ELO. It's in the bass and cellos and yeah, the vocal delivery.

I'm going to argue that ELO's 80s synth pop phase is very underrated – Time, Secret Messages and Balance of Power. The former gets a lot of (deserved) love here but there id excellent stuff across all three of these records. Big fan of the title track, "Danger Ahead" and, of course, "Four Little Diamonds" on Secret Messages. Balance has "Getting to the Point" as well as "Calling America," and "Caught in a Trap"/"In For the Kill" (aren't these both bonus tracks? why are they the same song?).

The guys melodic touch is completely undiminished on these records. There's even something about his robobilly during this period that I find kind of adorable as well.

Also, and I realize I'm probably one of about 25 people who care about this, the 80s era of ELO sounds strikingly like the 80s era of Robin Gibb.

i love the electro era elo.
even though i now have the full set, "time" is still one of my fave elo albums.
it's such a complete package : the songs, concept, sound, cover art.
it's a perfect album.
new mojo has a big interview with jeff (he comes across as the best person to have a pint with - but then i would say that), and this era is given little time.
apparently they were rattled off just for contractual reasons and he was paid massively for them.

Just threw on Balance of Power and Secret Messages on Spotify today while I was working. Both of these records--particularly once you throw in the bonus tracks--are pretty dope. Lynne's rep for innovative arrangements may have taken a bit of a hit with the somewhat cookie-cutter productions of his Wilburys-era work (tho I like those).

But like Time, the sound of these records is lush without being overstuffed -- completely of their era without feeling dated. And yet, almost every one of the tunes on these three records could be rearranged and sound exactly like something off of Eldorado or Out of the Blue. Lynne may be the most consistent pop artist of the last 40 years.

do people here rate the idle race?

OK, have there been any other concept albums that have been turned into a fucking novel?

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1431053545l/25502804.jpg

"Jeff Blue--the victim of a time-travel conspiracy--wakes up trapped in the year 2095. The only familiar face is J0; a robotic copy of the wife he left behind in 1981. But can she be trusted? J0 could be the only key to unlock Jeff's journey home, but it will require her to do something against her programming--something human. During Jeff's perilous journey through the future, he will have to discover the truth about J0's origins, and solve the mystery behind how he wound up in 2095, in order to uncover the reality of his own destiny. Armed with a one-way ticket to the moon, Jeff must race against the clock to seize what might be his last chance to return home to his time. A time without hover cars, Justice Computers, or TeleSkins--a time over one hundred years ago."

It's not a great book, but not bad either. I totally enjoyed all the references to lyrics to ELO songs spanning their career, and characters named after band members. The story does fit quite well with Time (which I thought was the best album ever when I was 11). So is this the rumblings of a new kind of fan fiction in tribute to bands and albums? I kinda like that idea, like an alternate 33-1/3 series!

The blu-ray Hyde Park has no region codes, but now it's available domestically. Mine was supposedly delivered at work today, but it's locked up in the mailroom :( I'm also going to check out the new ELO album soon.

On the best of ELO

hope this won't bring me down

doowwwwwwwwnnn

So much of Lynne’s work presaged the dork futurism of Gary Numan and Trevor Horn’s use of call and response harmonies singing at the top of their range while pianos tinkle and a singer tries keeping his equilibrium in a world intent on banishing his awful hair to obsolescence.

I can hear this being narrated

by Jeremy Irons

Maybe more singles-heavy than I would have expected, but I'm a fanatic, so take that with a grain of salt.

Was just going to post the tracklist of my 1985 "Best of ELO (No Ballads)" mixtape, but I see I already posted it above 4 years ago.

I tend to forget how good "Calling America" is.

this thread title just makes me think of trump now. FAKE BEATLES!

I know Lynne produced the Wilburys and all but listening to something like "Living Thing" through the rearview of the Wilburys, you can really hear how close the arrangements and compositions really are

"Your line's engaged "

I tend to forget how good "Calling America" is.

this thread title just makes me think of trump now. FAKE BEATLES!

God, “Livin’ Thing” is such an amazing song.

Why is there no extended mix (and I have to play the track 4x in a row)

Poor Jeff, hope he can recover. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/12/jeff-lynne-elo-cancels-final-live-show-health-concerns

The final Electric Light Orchestra show is going ahead, except it's going to consist of Roy Wood performing a solo cello rendition of "The Battle of Marston Moor (July 2nd 1644)"

I would attend that.