I am a huge ELO fan. Discovery is the first album I ever bought, and Xanadu is the first soundtrack I ever purchased. Sadly I never saw them in concert. For me, Jeff Lynne was the band. I heard some of the music played by ELO Part 2 but it was never the same.
I have also enjoyed some of Lynne's work as a producer, including the Traveling Wilbury's and his work with some of the members' solo efforts, including Tom Petty and Roy Orbison.
Jeff Lynne's ELO (as it's now called since he's the only one left, but to be fair IS actually ELO anyway) is currently doing a tour, and it's excellent! He's doing the UK at the moment and the US later. I never thought I'd ever see him live, and boy was it worth the wait. Note perfect and EVERY song a classic. It included three off the new album, and unexpected songs like Steppin' Out (from Out of the Blue) and the title track from Secret Messages. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.
Even the modern young support band, The Feeling, were really good.
Jeff Lynne's ELO (as it's now called since he's the only one left, but to be fair IS actually ELO anyway) is currently doing a tour, and it's excellent! He's doing the UK at the moment and the US later. I never thought I'd ever see him live, and boy was it worth the wait. Note perfect and EVERY song a classic. It included three off the new album, and unexpected songs like Steppin' Out (from Out of the Blue) and the title track from Secret Messages. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.
Lucky bugger, I'm jealous.
I think I would enjoy the live shows much more than the last couple of studio albums because, in a weird way, it would reinforce in my mind the idea of an actual working band and the aspects of Lynne's "do-it-all-myself" reality would be pushed way into the psychological background.
(Of course if I had my druthers: retain Tandy, get Bevan back, get De Albuquerque back, get Kaminski back and for the other live strings, Gale & McDowell--if they feel like doing it--and hit the concert halls. They are all still alive. It's very silly for them to stay estranged because of stupid grudges from 20-or-so years ago.)
Yes it would be great if they could get together onstage. If there's a negative side to Jeff it's that I feel that as opposed to a genuine band of equals, it does seem a little as if he hired and fired members as needed. It started with three, Jeff, Bev and Roy Wood, and ended up as three with keyboard player Richard Tandy instead of Roy. At it's peak there were seven of 'em. Tandy is the only band member that's still there with Jeff.
I did like ELO Part Two. Basically Bev did an album and tour with a bunch of new people, with some of the old gang joining when they could. The first of the two albums is great, sort of soft rock, with the track Honest Men being the biggest nod to the Jeff Lynne sound. Kelly Groucutt and Mick Kaminski were there in time for the second album, and I caught up with them by the time they'd morphed into 'Orchestra' at Sheffield City Hall. A great night it was too.
Jeff Lynne did a solo album in 1990, which really showed that the true ELO sound still rests with him. Zoom in 2001 was the first new ELO album where it's really a Jeff Lynne album with the ELO name, which is where we're at with the new one Alone in the Universe. Now calling the outfit Jeff Lynne's ELO tells us that that it's none of those other inbetweener outfits. He does have the right to call it ELO, infact Bev Bevan sold his half of that right when he retired. He was of course one of the founder members back at the start with Roy Wood.
I think one reason why I like Jeff's work so much is that the ELO sound is not so distant from a film music. With the strong orchestral side it's as immediate in it's effect as my favourite film scores. Of course Lynne's only major stab at a film was the famous musical flop, Xanadu. But for all it's faults it did give ELO their only UK no 1 chart hit.
I do remember when I first discovered ELO properly.
It was the early 90s, and I was starting to explore other pop and rock from my favourite period in the 70s and 80s (influenced, no doubt, by my dad's musical taste). The name "Electric Light Orchestra" had fascinated me for a while -- being both interested in electronic music and orchestral/rock fusions like the "LSO Plays Classic Rock" albums, but I was not familiar with their actual music. So there was a sale in my hometown's record store, and I picked up some titles for the listening station. I think it was a "Best of" album by Jethro Tull and then the 1994 'Best of' CD by ELO (which apparently is rare these days):
Anyway, my dad came into the store and said I shouldn't buy the ELO (he was never a big fan, and found them too "lightweight", I think), but rather the Jethro Tull. Well, for once I trusted my own taste and picked up both. Never regretted it since.
Over the next few years, I would listen to that ELO CD a lot. It became one of my "soundtracks" as I read my way through various Stephen King books. That's why, when I listen to it today, uneasy memories and moods from THE SHINING and other King stories appear in my mind. Weird association.
I like Jeff Lynne's contributions to the 'Electric Dream' soundtrack.
Well, if you like that (I do too), you'd probably also like a lot of his other stuff (which is fairly similar in tone and style).
True. Though I think 'Video' and the others he did for ED were more like the last, contractual, ELO album Jeff did with just Tandy and Bev Bevan. All electronics (appropriately for ED).
My entry point, as fifteen year old recording the week's record chart off BBC Radio 2 on my little radio/cassette recorder, with ELO came with the single Livin' Thing, from A New World Record, when ELO tracks were equally full of strings via cellos and violins. ANWR and the double album Out of the Blue represent the peak of the mix of electric and classical sounds that many still associate the Electric Light ORCHESTRA with.
Before that it was more Beatle-y prog-rock-ish experimental (the very first two albums are heavy going for the uninitiated!), and immediately after with Discovery Jeff jumped on the disco bandwagon which for a while turned me off the band. I did like the one side of Xanadu, though, and things were back on track with Time. But by this point things were much more electronic, and the end was in sight.
Of course he would do excellent work with the Traveling Wilburies, and all his heroes both in that supergroup and elsewhere. I mean, The Beatles? He finally got to work with his ultimate heroes there. The very reason he and Roy Wood created ELO in the first place. And now he's back in the studio and on the road. Things now really are back on track!
When it comes to comparing how ELO started out to how it ended up it sadly became very clear to me that Lynne's whole mission (and Wood's, too, I guess) of creating these expansive, sweeping, orchestral epics was really an infatuation that could not help but have an expiration date. When he had the "I Am The Walrus" obsessions worked out of his system (bolstered, no doubt, by the creative freedom that the group's success afforded him), he was fairly quick to sack the orchestral conceit and get down to doing what he loved most deep down--the simple and spare rockabillyesque material that he grew up listening to. Del Shannon, the Shadows, etc. To plunk one of those types of songs in the middle of other stuff, like he did with "Illusions In G Major" on the 2nd side of "Eldorado", for instance, was delightful because it seemed so incongruous. But the exception became the norm and it became far less interesting to listen to. "Zoom" still all sounds the same to me. I keep spinning it every once in awhile, hoping to eventually prove myself wrong. But it ain't happened yet.
Some might say that the expanding list of synths available around the late 70's hastened the string section's demise, but they were using synths from the 2nd album onward and there was still room for the cellos. So I just don't know. To me, I loved them best as a really experimental group where the strings could and sometimes were as upfront as the guitars. From 1974 onwards, when the real orchestras were added on to merely embellish, the material really lost something. It doesn't mean the songs weren't still excellent, just that the concept was over. But that concept, to me, was enchanting and important.
Lynne can put out as many ELO albums as he wants, all with the twangy guitars and hyper-compressed snare sounds we've become used to (and, ironically, "Time" is still one of my favorites), but it's just not the same spirit.
He could have helped the surviving Beatles come up with something really amazing, but instead he perpetuated the good ol' roots-rocking sound of the Wilburys. As fun as those songs are, the whole enterprise didn't really have a whole Hell of a lot in common with "I Am The Walrus".
He does to me. I suppose I'm too much of a fan. All the albums have merit, but having discovered ELO and Lynne at the New World Record/Out of the Blue juncture, the earliest stuff was a bit of a slog. I appreciate them much more now, but the intro to Sweet Talkin' Woman and operatic touches to Rockaria are still more appealing than the lurches on the cellos on that first album. Have to admit that the likes of The Battle of Marston Moor are fun though!
And I do agree that ELO albums now are really Jeff Lynne albums. And certainly Balance of Power can be lumped into that category. All the things you describe that are always present in a modern Lynne track, including many he produces for others, are the tell-tale signs that it's Jeff and I might miss them if they weren't there.
Have been doing a lot of travelling recently and so did a playlist of every album the original ELO ever released.
I'd forgetter how brilliant Out of the Blue was. Simply stunning. Jeff Lynne is the Jerry Goldsmith of the pop world and this album is simply fantastic. It features my all time favourite ELO song Sweet Talkin' Woman.
Have been doing a lot of travelling recently and so did a playlist of every album the original ELO ever released.
I'd forgetter how brilliant Out of the Blue was. Simply stunning. Jeff Lynne is the Jerry Goldsmith of the pop world and this album is simply fantastic. It features my all time favourite ELO song Sweet Talkin' Woman.
Couldn't agree more. Been listening to those first two albums too recently and finally got into them now. From The Idle Race to Alone in the Universe I love everything Jeff's done. I remember buying Out of the Blue while visiting my sister in Canada, back when it was released and played it constantly. Stunning was the word on my lips too.
