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ELO - Out Of The Blue
Sony Legacy
How cool is it that I get to review a re-release of one
of my favorite childhood musical milestones: Electric Light
Orchestra's masterpiece Out Of The Blue? In a word: very! This
album, along with Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust, formed and forged
my pop music tastes as I grew from a young adolescent to a
teenager. Purchased by my parents as a companion to a new stereo
they had bought for me (Lowe's Labour of Lust is the first album
I purchased myself) the album made a deep impression upon me,
helped no doubt by the fact it was the only album I owned then
so I had nothing else to play anyway.
Regardless of that aspect, the album's deceptively
simple melodies and lyrics combined with every musical bell and
whistle imaginable really spoke to me as being a mirror of what
life was like for a teenager at the time. Relatively simple
tasks like getting up in the morning, going to school, and
playing sports became major life altering episodes when mixed
with all the complex emotions and physical changes happening at
the teennage stage of life. The alternately light-hearted
aspects of the album clashed with some of the darker apsects in
some of the songs, matching when the happier times in my life
clashed with some of my darker moods. This album had everything
for me, from upbeat power pop to moody classical interludes,
running the gamut from one extreme to the next, sometimes in the
same song. It had a musical scope I had never experienced
before, one which has really never been equaled today.
Atmospheric synth bands almost never rock out and the classical
interjections in rock have hardly worked for anyone, save The
Moody Blues and Colin Blunstone.
Truly, ELO has everything and were able to use it
effectively.
Founded by two veterans of The Move (Jeff Lynne and Roy
Wood), the band was originally only supposed to be a side
project Lynne and Wood were doing to re-charge their musical
batteries so they could bring some fresh ideas back to The Move.
After recording the first ELO album, however, the project was
deemed so much of a success The Move were disbanded and both men
focused their energies on their new band. Unfortunately for
Wood, his time in ELO was only to be temporary. As the leader
and visionary of The Move, Wood took the relatively green Lynne
(who had previously had a short stint in the band The Idle Race)
and mentored him, taking Lynne's fragmented ideas and expanding
them into full-fledged songs. As time went on, Lynne's
musicianship and songwriting skills progressed and Lynne
subsequently became more of an equal to Wood and started chafing
under Wood's control. As the recording sessions for ELO's second
album (ELO II) progressed, Wood and Lynne began to clash over
the direction of the band. Wood wanted to retain an esoteric
nature to the band and feature more progressive rock elements
while Lynne wanted to aim more for a pop sound and have some hit
records, something The Move could never accomplish. The rows
culminated with Wood leaving the band and Lynne becoming sole
leader and visionary of ELO. Needless to say, after a few albums
of finding his direction, Lynne soon began having hits with ELO
on a regular basis and the band quickly became one of the '70's
biggest album-selling bands and concert attractions. Upon the
band's final album in 1986 (excluding a so-called "re-union" in
2002 that resulted in the album Zoom which is, for all intents
and purposes, a Lynne solo album) Lynne became an in-demand
producer and worked on some of the biggest-selling albums of all
time in the late '80's and early '90's with the likes of George
Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty both seperately on their
solo albums and together when they formed the Traveling
Wilbury's with Bob Dylan.
A masterpiece in every respect, Out of The Blue is the
culmination of everything Lynne had learned as a songwriter and
musician. Flush after having several hits and a bunch of
successful albums, Lynne was starting to trust his songwriting
and production abilities and was ready to do something major. It
couldn't have ended up being any more major than this album. But
it wasn't an easy task by no means. Taking a vacation to get
away and write songs, the first two weeks provided nothing
worthwhile. Scared and doubting himself, Lynne woke up, looked
outside at the morning sky and within a few ours wrote the
eventual hit Mr. Blue Sky. After that songs flowed like a river
Lynne couldn't shut off. And what songs. The amount of hits and
classic songs on this disc is so amazing it could've been called
ELO's Greatest Hits all by itself. I mean, while only four
singles were released from this album I would defy any music fan
around at the time to listen to this album and not be able to
sing along word-for-world to at least ten songs. The album rock
stations played the shit out of this album and rightly so. Not
only did the band weave in the varied elements of futuristic
synths and juxtapose it with the instrumentation of classical
music, but they did it in a way that was rocking as hell. From
Mr. Blue Sky to Turn To Stone to Sweet Talkin' Woman, this album
is filled with some of the best pop rock going. Even the less
well-known songs like Jungle and Birmingham Blues are home runs
out of the park. Out of the albums you own how many do not have
any throwaway songs? Now, how about a double album like this
one? Not a throwaway song on it. Rouighly twenty songs and not a
bad one in the bunch.
Needless to say ELO fans are going to simply love this.
Not only is the remastered sound excellent and the liner notes
by Jeff Lynne very interesting (though a little too brief) to
read, but the album itself has always been a masterpiece and
Lynne has found three bonus tracks of similar quality to add to
this set. Those who are fans of orchestral pop as well as the
synthesizer-fueled musical flights of such bands as Air, High
Llamas, and Grandaddy will love this as well and should take
note at the innovations originated here which these newer bands
have taken and built upon for their own music. A statement from
a well-known rock critic said if the Beatles had stuck together
they would have sounded like ELO. While that may be too simple
an assessment, one can take a look at the classic pop melodies
contained herein and the use of the studio and other technical
innovations and draw parallel lines to what the Beatles were
able to accomplish on albums like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper.
While I would not place ELO on the same plane as the Beatles,
for me the impact of ELO was just as much as The Fab Four and I
am sure a lot of rock fans around in the '70's have many fond
places in their hearts for these songs. One of the greatest
albums ever made, bar none. Pick it up and see if you don't feel
the exact same way. - Scott Homewood
www.elo.com
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