E.L.O. Classic or Dud?

i remember being captivated by the track "The Whale".. that trippy stereo separation really caught my five year old imagination..

I also love those backing singers on 'sweet talkin woman' - they sound so severe and scary.

If you really wanna know how terrible I think they are,
search the ILM.

'Discovery' however, is a complete dud ('Horace Wimp' especially), but as it's the album that sent me into the arms of The Jam I suppose I should be grateful to it.

..OK, occasional moments of entertainment.. "Do Ya" can hang.. That's about it for a complete song though.

Ok, Classic, and Discovery may have spelled the beginning of the end for them, but at least it had "Shine a Little Love" and "Don't Bring Me Down" which were both fab singles. As a special treat, I'm going to sing the backing vocals on "Don't Bring Me Down" for you: "Ooh. Ooh. Oohaahoohaahoohaahoohaah, Woooooh!!"

Does anyone rate "Zoom" particularly?

Lynne is brillinat.

single worst ELO (or even Beatles) article I have ever read

Fun fact: at least I learned that "Evil Woman" has a line snatched from "Fixing a Hole". I never made that connection!

Classic, by the way. First live show I ever saw. (Pontiac, MI, 1978. They got sued by the promoter for "cello-synching".)

Also agree w/pretty much every xpost that "Discovery" was the shark-jumping album.

^probably. i don't own it but i thought some ilxors fuck w/ Time

one of my best hauls ever was finding every ELO studio album except the debut & everything that came after Xanadu on pristine vinyl and paying <$2.00 for the whole shebang

Also, RIP Kelly Groucutt. Dug his background box.

"vox"

They were big childhood favorites, including their half of Xanadu, and Time, which at the time I thought was the most awesome album ever. I always was shaky on the disco-y Discovery, and disinherited the band in h.s. But I came back around as an adult and re-acquired everything up to '86, and my wife even has several of their songs on her daily workout mix. And as cheesy as it is, I've always liked "Horace Wimp," and the rest of Discovery sounds good to me now too. It may be part nostalgia, but there's other bands from my youth that I don't like anymore.

"Discovery" really isn't bad at all. Love "Horace Wimp". E.L.O. is definitely a band my wife and I can agree on, which is a real bonus for road trips etc. (though this may be a big detriment to other readers ....) They certainly mystified me when they came on the radio when I was 5 years old, just seemed to come from another world altogether at times. Pretty much never stopped loving them, but really I only ever owned albums in the last 10-15 years, so the band really opened up for me once I heard a lot of the deeper cuts on the records.

Lynne was the producer of choice for post-Beatles' solo projects: George Harrison's Cloud Nine, Paul McCartney's Flaming Pie, and numerous Ringo Starr projects. He even ended up replacing George Martin as the Beatles producer for the final singles Free as a Bird and Real Love.

"Nevermind those other eleventy-five albums the solo Beatles made, Lynne produced this handful! That proves my thesis!"

Yeah, that was a worthless read (even the two paragraphs I made it through)

as a crimbo treat to myself i picked up the recent boxset that puts all the remastered editions together in a nice little box.
bar the odd sidestep here and there, its pure joy from start to finish.
and i have to say, Disco-very has aged really well i think.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41qvHqZkvXL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

why would he spend all that time and money recording exact carbon copies of his own songs

i agree.
apparently though there are subtle differences which according to jeff makes these better.
but hey, even as a fan, i aint falling for it.
i have the boxset of the original albums - and thats all i need ...

one song has a noticeable difference

one

I assume he did it for the same reason Squeeze did?

squeeze did the same thing?

god

Haha, yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_the_Difference

The songs are arranged as similarly as possible to the original recordings, being done in such a way to invite the listener to 'spot the difference'.

. . . Chris Difford went on to explain in an interview in the Huffington Post (6 August 2010) the reason for the release: "Well, Squeeze has never owned our own copyrights because, obviously, they're owned by a major record label. We thought it might be fun to re-record our songs to make it possible for us to own a little bit more of our own history. So, Glenn went in the studio, and did most of the work. I have to bow down to his achievements as a producer because he's done a great job of making them sound pretty much like the originals"[3]

i mean one could generate equivalent sales without painstakingly producing a highly detailed photostat of one's own 40 year old output. record a once-only gig at edgbaston or something xp

ahhhhh, okay. is that why new order did that hideous

http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/n/new-order/album-the-best-of-new-order.jpg

as well?

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article/hello-mr-radio?page=0,1

I thought, “I’ll just have a go at ‘Mr. Blue Sky,’ see if I can get it any better, and try again from scratch. I started out with a click, recorded “Mr. Blue Sky” from scratch in analog, and then ran it through ProTools.

this guy and protools

Does he even need ProTools? E.L.O. records had that ProTools sheen 30 years before it was invented.

love the dude, but sometimes u must let go

how many anthologies have they had, for god's sake

A very great band. If you don't believe me, then go ahead and listen again to "Turn To Stone".

Camper Van Beethoven:

A compilation of greatest hits, Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty, was released by Cooking Vinyl Records in June 2008. As band relations with Virgin Records were poor, they were not granted access to any material from the two Virgin LPs for this compilation. Thus, the band re-recorded five songs from these albums to include on the collection.

lol listening on spotify now and these sound nothing like the originals. impressive that he got as close as he did though.

listen again to "Turn To Stone".

which one

btw please tell me that 'jetfan' refers to winnipeg rather than nyj

Camper Van Beethoven:

A compilation of greatest hits, Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty, was released by Cooking Vinyl Records in June 2008. As band relations with Virgin Records were poor, they were not granted access to any material from the two Virgin LPs for this compilation. Thus, the band re-recorded five songs from these albums to include on the collection.

See also, Cracker:

Plenty of bands aren't happy with how their catalog is treated by former record labels, but no artists have confronted their old label the way Cracker does with the 2006 release of Greatest Hits Redux. As Virgin prepared its second Cracker compilation, Get on with It: The Best of Cracker, for release in early 2006, the band caught wind of the project, and when the label would not allow them to participate, they retaliated by re-recording a bunch of their signature tunes and releasing this new album, Greatest Hits Redux, on the same day Virgin's comp hit the stores.

god that squeeze one is awful. I hope these guys don't seriously think their voices sound the same as they did 30 years ago.

cheers josh and lump

something about ELO melodies and production excess that never fails to hit the spot ..

truly brilliant band.

f*ck the hate.

nobody can deny the majestic pre-chorus of "living thing"

so many of their songs qualify for classic status..

cannot list as i would just end up listing full albums !

eldorado overture however ....

on the eldorado reissue they released the whole orchestra suite for eldorado .. damn .. its brilliant ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUY4d3IQfGA

telephone line chorus will always be my magical musical elixir of joy/melancholy

DOO WOP

DOOBE DO DO WOP

DOO WAH DOO LAAAAAAAAANG

Oh, no doubt!

I think that's actually a pre-chorus.

elo . . . rules

4 eva amen

I count "Can't Get It Out of My Head" as one of the most beautiful non-solo-artist hits of the '70s. Weird distinction, I know, but Top 40 beauty tends to come via solo artists rather than bands. At least I think so--would probably need to research that.

f*ck the hate.

― mark e, Friday, April 4, 2014

who hates? my only thing is that i focus on the singles so much, it's hard to get through full albums (and, for some reason, i suspect some of their album-cuts are total filler).

a lot of my real world friends hate elo with a passion and so i get a lot of grief re my love for them ..

we're yr friends now mark

I'm going to throw sound judgment and concern for backlashing retribution to the four winds and say "classic"

Totally classic, although I still harbor a slight grudge against them because on the Out of the Blue tour, the show in Pittsburgh didn't get the spaceship stage.

magical musical elixir of joy/melancholy

wonderful description of a lot of the brilliance of elo ...

sums up so much of why i love the music

(even now, i rarely go a week without an ELO session .. )

New World Record was one of the first LPs I ever bought for myself and is still IMO abso killer front to back.

DOO WAH DOO LAAAANG

*hi-five*

Bllllack nigh-eee-ights

(even now, i rarely go a week without an ELO session .. )

the live show a few weeks ago was pure brilliance.
jeff = god.
simple as.
i think simon 'i love the manics me' price summed up my whole groove perfectly re this whole situation.

Classic!

just heard that jeff got his star added to the 'walk of fame' last week.

sweet sweet is the night when you are here
dark dark were the days they disappear

"Long Black Road"... crazy to think it was some barely-known B-side before American Hustle. Killer riff.

http://jefflynneselo.com/news/258463

Jeff Lynne’s ELO has signed a global deal with Columbia Records and is set to deliver a new album which will be the first new ELO music in 15 years. As with ELO’s previous chart-topping albums, Lynne continues to serve as ELO’s producer, songwriter, arranger, lead singer and guitarist.

As opposed to Bev Bevan's ELO.

didn't lynne win the rights to the name though? is he just being all peacock about it?

After that re-working the greatest hits things, I'm guessing he wants to consolidate his power and bring in some bucks to bolster his "Full Moon Fever" points.

I love ELO but can we talk about the time Bev Bevan joined Black Sabbath? With Ian Gillan up front?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HtRcRXs_ro

P.S. What is Roy Wood up to these days anyway?

They appropriated disco very effectively

i wonder how much disco is due to ELO. those strings!

https://youtu.be/ebbcPIsv-Ds?t=52s

Would have been cool if they properly toured the U.S. (played Hollywood Bowl and Radio City Music Hall last year), but I settled for the blu-ray. And also a pretty good performance by Strange Magic: The ELO Experience on AXS TV's World's Greatest Tribute Bands ;)

Also, was looking for footage on YouTube of this: August 26, 1978, Anaheim, CA: This show started with a lot of theatrics. First, just before the start of the show, skywriters wrote "ELO - THE BIG NIGHT" across the sky for the audience to see. Tony Curtis came on stage to introduce the band, when he found himself in a Star Wars style laser battle with Stormtrooper-style stuntmen who supposedly parachuted in and fought a mock battle with the actor. The audience was then treated to a fireworks show before the spaceship finally opened and the show began.

https://youtu.be/ebbcPIsv-Ds?t=52s

― MaresNest, Sunday, 9 July 2017 03:40 (eighteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

geoblocked to the uk apparently. for those who can't access it it's 'asia no junshin (true asia)' by puffy amiyumi, which is either an elo pastiche or rip-off.

When she was in high school, Ami sang for a band called 'Hanoi Sex'.

Didn't the guy from Jellyfish write songs for them? Would explain the ELO pastiche elements.

oh yeah, andy sturmer's mentioned in the wikipedia page. holy shit, i have to listen to more of this now.

A quick way to sample a lot of Puffy--The Puffy AmiYumi Song Finder, Pt. 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6hogTM0qvE

"Asia No Junshin" isn't Andy Sturmer, but he's written and produced probably 1/3 or more of their stuff.

There are heavy Beatles, ELO and similar influences (especially early on), singles released in mono and other geekery. The cutesy duo format can be off putting but they kicked a lot of arse, and were insanely popular.

There was no skywriting, saucers or Tony Curtis on the Time tour, but they did have a surprisingly simple and effective method of hyping the audience before the show--a digital clock readout over the stage which counted down the seconds from 5:00 minutes until showtime. Each minute closer it got, we went crazier; by the time it reached 1:00 the whole arena was counting along. Then they started slowing down the clock.

Stage fog built up until it reached 0:00, then flashed E:LO and an R2-D2 wannabe rolled out and delivered the vocodered intro to "Twilight."

i’ve come back to ‘time’ for the first time in ages, and have played it all the way through five times in the past three days. yes it’s ridiculous, but it’s also insanely accomplished and perfect in some ways. currently undecided between this and ‘elo 2’ as their best album.

Between 'Time' and 'ELO 2', not to be confused with Kurt Vonnegut's 'Between Time and Timbuktoo."

Also, Jeff Lynne must have been listening to the Ultravox 'Vienna' album a whole lot when he made 'Time.'

it is striking how stridently this is album is 1981. it almost couldn’t be from any other time.

the production and mixing absolutely blow me away. every track is as dense as a rainforest, but all the levels and timings are perfect. lynne must have agonised over this.

https://pitchfork.com/news/jeff-lynnes-electric-light-orchestra-announce-new-album-share-song-listen/

Jeff Lynne’s ELO—the latest incarnation of Jeff Lynne and his band Electric Light Orchestra—are releasing their first new album in four years: From Out of Nowhere is out November 1 (via Columbia). Below, listen to the title track.

you could say this album came...

...

...out of the blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5dRg2bq4oc

I was in Target the other day and heard "Mr. Blue Sky" come on, and it was almost immediately apparent that it must have been the re-recorded version (which I had never heard before). At the least what they played sounded faster and lacked the coda. A box store edit, perhaps? Or maybe it was the remarkably faithful/lazy Weezer version?

wait did i post about ELO i have been listening to ELO tonight and have drafted some posts about how Don't Bring Me Down began the 1980s I may have posted them

He re-recorded a bunch of stuff in 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blue_Sky:_The_Very_Best_of_Electric_Light_Orchestra ostensibly as he thought it sounded better, but suspicion was that it was because he got all the publishing etc from it.

In much the same way Squeeze re-recorded their songs and Taylor Swift is going to next year.