Dag Juhlin Does It With The Light On: An electric light oratory I’ve been a fan of the Electric Light Orchestra since about 1976, after borrowing a since un-returned copy of the group’s then latest—and best, but more on that later—album, “A New World Record” (Thanks, Jim Burkman). Falling in love with a group who’ve already got a decent sized catalog under their belts can be a great thing: all of a sudden a light goes off (as it were) and you’re wandering around Willie Wonka’s factory with free reign of the place, with a treasure awaiting you at every turn. So with ELO, falling in love with one record (“A New World Record” was their sixth LP) meant I had a bunch of albums to seek out, and I ravenously did so. I fell off the wagon (I suppose saying that I fell off the spaceship is a better metaphor) with the release of “Discovery” in 1979. As was the practice back in the day, a local radio station (The Loop? WMET?) broadcast the album in its entirety as its ‘Midnight Album’ on the day of its release. So, I stayed up late and laid the plastic microphone of the portable cassette recorder across the top of the clock radio and rolled tape. It was an immediate disappointment. Gone, it seemed to me, were the ethereal touches of beauty, the glorious Technicolor chord changes, the occasional weirdness, the underlying melancholy—all replaced by hemorrhaging synthesizers, relentless sheets of castrati backing vocals, and songs that just seemed like unimaginative babble. Slouching in to school the next morning to compare notes with the other ELO-loving members of my tribe, I most certainly had a cloud over my head—though that could have been from lack of sleep. It was then that I uttered my now-famous review of the record. “Discovery?” I said. “More like ‘disco, very’.” I never purchased the record, or the three studio albums that followed until the group fizzled out sometime in the ’80s. New Wave had set in with me, anyway: trouser legs were tightening, collars were thinning, thrift store neckties were tying on button-collared shirts, hair was cut shorter, and the music got more urgent and a little rougher. More approachable, younger sounding music had replaced the “hair-in-a-body-wave/satin-baseball-jacket-draped/flare-panted/pinkie-ringed” sounds of the ‘70s, and I was on board. Sorry, Jethro Tull; sorry, ELO; I am going to be hanging with these dudes called Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, The Specials and Nick Lowe for a while. Truth be told, however, I never *really* lost the flame for ELO. You can’t. You mustn’t. If you sign on with an artist, you should hang with them through thick and thin. ELO may have let me down with the release of “Discovery”, but the record did in fact have a few things on it that I sincerely liked. However, it was only a couple of years ago that I came to the realization that their music had been fairly ridiculous all along. And I say that in the most loving way possible. This realization would have saved me countless hours of heartbreak had I come to it earlier in life, but as they say, too late smart. Or, too young serious, or something like that. But doing things in an over the top fashion had been part of ELO’s DNA since day one, whether it was the insanity of their string arrangements, their combination of choirs and stomping rock, their nine-minute opuses, or their cellists spastically careening about the stage on “The Midnight Special”. It was all fairly mad from the get-go. So, in fairness, nothing should have really surprised me in terms of the massive over-processing of their sound. But what does a 17-year-old boy know about any of this? Or any of anything, really, in my case. So, then, having fully accepted the notion of ELO as ridiculous (but again, in the good way), and the group’s catalog finally getting the deluxe remastering treatment, I began snapping up all the records I had avoided in the ’80s and turning the light back on, if you will. It’s been bliss, and I’ve even learned to love all the thumping disco stuff that so repelled me back in the staunchly non-disco days of my youth. But, sweet Jesus, has it really been 30 years? I was delighted, then, that my bandmates let me walk them through the ELO catalog on our recent trip. We only made it as far as “Out Of The Blue”, their dazzling double LP from 1977. I thought the remainder of the catalog was best left to hardcore fans like myself, the going being slightly rougher than the records I did share with them. And since my bandmates were such gracious captives (and happen to be so musically omnivorous and always curious), I must thank them for the cathartic pleasure I had. And for you ELO curious, here’s my off-the-cuff rundown of their records. “No Answer” (1971) – Made by the trio of refugees from The Move, Roy Wood, Bev Bevan and Jeff Lynne, “No Answer” combines lovely, sepia-toned Beatle homages with shrieking strings, outlandish longer pieces, and whimsy to spare. The sometimes-jarring production has been saved by the tremendous CBS remastering job. In fact, the first three records in this reissue campaign feature the best remastering/repackaging jobs of the whole catalog. Features the tremendous ‘10538 Overture’, ‘Mr. Radio’ and Wood’s blatant ‘Classical Gas’ rewrite, ‘Jumpin’ Biz’. (The keen-eyed among you will remember ‘Jumpin’ Biz’ as the soundtrack to the student film that Al Lubeck and I made for senior year film class about the guy who suddenly develops the confidence to talk to girls after finding a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Anyone? No? Really? This surprises me.) “ELO II” (1973) – Their second album, as hinted at by the title. Roy Wood had left the group (though he makes several un-credited musical appearances), and this was all Jeff Lynne in terms of songwriting. Just five songs, it features the group’s worldwide smash, their hyperactive reworking of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. Covering this song makes so much sense, if you think about. It was a genius choice in terms of announcing the band and their newfangled ‘rock meets classical’ style to the world. The album also divides the remaining material rather evenly: a pair of lush and lovely numbers (‘Mama’ and ‘Kuiama’) with a pair of blatantly insane items, steeped in dissonance and roughly churning cellos, ‘From The Sun To The Moon (Boogie #1)’ and ‘In Old England Town (Boogie #2). (Is anybody else out there old enough to remember when people boogied? Boogie was quite big back then. Boogie. Was it a dance? A musical style? A randy euphemism? Okay, let’s boogie to the next record, shall we?) “On The Third Day” (1973) – Things begin to take shape here. The songs tighten up a bit (well, a lot, actually) and there are some sweet gems (‘Bluebird is Dead’, ‘Oh No Not Susan’, ‘New World Rising’) as well as a bona fide hit (‘Showdown’) amongst some still-massively overblown, but better engineered epics. “On The Third Day” is my pick for Lost ELO Classic. “Eldorado: A Symphony” (1974) – A concept album (because concept albums were the law back then) about a workaday loner who fantasizes of more exciting life, this is perhaps the true start of the classic ELO sound. And by this, I mean not only the peerless pop of things like ‘Can’t Get It Out Of My Head’, but the band’s trademark of beginning their records with ominously swirling, pseudo-mystical overtures or, in the case of “Eldorado”, dramatic spoken word pieces. (“The dreamer, the unwoken fool…In dreams, no pain can kiss the brow…” etc. Yikes.) Like the word ‘boogie’ before it, these openings are definite museum pieces nowadays, but if you’ve already surrendered to the ridiculousness of ELO, this isn’t a real problem. It’s also the first record to feature and actual orchestra, not just a relentlessly overdubbed string section. And the records continue to sound better. “Face The Music” (1975) – You know what? This record is awesome. It’s got the great ‘Evil Woman’ on it, as well as the superior ‘Strange Magic’, ‘Waterfall’, and ‘One Summer Dream’, all absolutely haunting. ‘Night Rider’, another classic. Only eight songs, including the instrumental ‘Fire On High’ which you might remember as the opening music from the CBS Sports Spectacular, if you are of a certain, shall we say, well-seasoned age group. From start to finish, “Face The Music” is a keeper. “A New World Record” (1976) – Their artistic high point, and the one that launched them fully into The Big Time®. Features smashes like ‘Telephone Line’, ‘Living Thing’ and their successful reworking of The Move’s ‘Do Ya’. (Imagine my thrill when, as a young guitarist learning the ropes by playing along with records, I discovered that the first three chords to ‘Do Ya’ are D-A-G. I felt the bond between fan and band cemented at that point.) There’s also the beautiful ‘Shangri La’, ‘Mission (A World Record)’, ‘Above The Clouds’ and my all-time favorite ELO track, ‘So Fine’. If you only go for one, this is it. It’s a tremendous batch of songs, set in a wonderful musical atmosphere, and unquestionably their best work. “Out Of The Blue” (1977) – This one is a stellar work in its own way, and if the songs don’t quite have the magic of the previous record, then, like admiring a towering structure or a fine technological breakthrough, you’ve got to at least appreciate the architecture and science behind this thing. In other words, the star of this show is not the songs, but the production. But don’t get me wrong. This double LP (I can still see the poster on my bedroom wall, the portrait of Jeff Lynne looming larger than all the other band members) has no shortage of excellent songs. And, like the children of massively wealthy yet generous parents, each one of these songs is indulged, pampered, given a pony, an X-Box and stuffed with marzipan and chocolate chip cookies until they can hold no more. Every possible idea, every possible backing vocal, every possible instrument is wedged into each number, and listening to too much can spoil your dinner. It’s dizzying at times, but if you’re the type who sees a buffet as not just a meal, but a challenge, then this one is for you. Features ‘Turn To Stone’, ‘Sweet Talking Woman’, and ‘Mr. Blue Sky’. (On a technical/fanboy note, the recent reissue is a bunt, not a home run. The upgraded sound fails to add much to the original mix. And where is the second disc of demos, out-takes, alternate versions? Where is the extensive interview with Jeff Lynne giving the track-by-track rundown of each song? Where is the accompanying DVD? Where is the 5.1 remix? No album I can think of would benefit from an all-out 5.1 mix like this one. Come on, Epic. I ordered a hot spaceship and you served me a room temperature Frisbee!) “Discovery” (1979) – Well, this is where things changed, though in hindsight, it does what every ELO album before it does: it updates the sound, gets poppier and aims for bigger hits. I can’t fully express the incredulousness that oozed out of my pores (at least I think it was incredulousness; those were sketchy years for my pores) when I heard the sissified disco glitter of the album’s opening cut ‘Shine A Little Love’ shimmying out of the clock radio speaker on that fateful night. It sounds like it’s wearing a tube top while a tequila sunrise sloshes out of a glass it’s holding, saying COME ON, LIGHTEN UP, LET’S DANCE, OH YOU’RE NO FUN! Sheesh. What a let down. I’ve learned to like (I almost wrote ‘love’ there) this record over the years, and have always had a soft spot for ‘On The Run’, ‘The Diary of Horace Wimp’ and ‘Midnight Blue’ and a few others. Heck, maybe I do love this thing. You know what? I probably do. I probably love it. Yep. I do. Anyone else want a tequila sunrise? I’m buying. “Xanadu” (1980) – Let me get this straight: you did the soundtrack to a movie about disco roller skating starring Olivia Newton John, and now you want me to buy the thing? What do you want me to do, put on some rainbow suspenders and some too-short shorts with white piping? Do you want me to just surrender my genitals outright? I just found out where they are and how they work! No dice! Never bought this one. Never will. (Well, unless there’s a really good CD reissue at some point, obviously. But I won’t bring this to a clerk at a counter. It’s going to have to be an online purchase.) “Time” (1981) – Jeff Lynne tries to redeem himself after being lured into the disco, and he emerges with a new set of production chops that point the direction to all subsequent releases. It took me 20 years to get around to buying this one, and I’ll say of all the trio of records that closed out their career, it’s probably the best. There are quite a few good songs on “Time”, and once again it’s a concept album—something about a time traveler who goes into the future, falls in love with a robot (as we all will one day) but ends up missing the era he left behind. Of course, in 1981 that was how an artist naturally bounced back from an ill-advised disco misstep: a concept album. The first suspect glances at the band’s freshness date start here. “Secret Messages” (1983) – Again, another purchase well after the fact. Originally intended as a double album, it was pared down to a single due to the oil crisis at the time. (Twice as heavy to ship? Twice as much petroleum to manufacture? Fear of traffic jams as fans raced to their local Rose Records to snag this thing?) It would have made a good double, though, and it would have been nice for the CD reissue to replicate the intended track listing of the LP, but it doesn’t. (Is there a plastic shortage I don’t know about?) ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King’ is probably the only song you’ve heard off this, or ‘Four Little Diamonds’, if you have a really good memory. Strictly confection at this point. “Balance of Power” (1986) – Jeff Lynne laughingly refers to this as “Balance of Payment”, and it does smack of contractual obligation. It’s a good set of songs, produced with perfection by Lynne, one of the most visionary and influential producers of the past 30 years. There’s nothing truly vital on this record, but there’s nothing truly heinous either: it’s just an agreeable, state-of-the art collection of tunes from a band (well, three remaining members at this point) that had a good run. The last ELO record of all, until… “Zoom” (2001) – Hey! Who knew this was coming? Fifteen years after the fact, Jeff Lynne dusts off the spaceship and releases another ELO record. The thing is, though, it’s essentially a Jeff Lynne solo album, with a few guest appearances by George Harrison, Ringo Starr and ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy. The sound is stripped down (i.e. no real ‘Orchestra’ presence), the tunes are solid as heck, and “Zoom” proves to be the most repeat-listenable of theirs for years. It was certainly issued under the ELO brand name for sales purposes only (anyone out there got their Jeff Lynne solo album, ‘Armchair Theatre’ in heavy rotation?). Sales, which, due to the absence of a really strong hit single, never materialized. Still, though, an excellent record, but it begs the question: is it an ELO record, or a Jeff Lynne solo record—or were all ELO albums before it simply Jeff Lynne solo albums? That’s another topic for another day with another pot of coffee coursing through my veins. I believe the spaceship is back in storage now. Dag Juhlin 9 /24/08