Artist.......: Electric Light Orchestra
Album........: Balance of Power
Label........: n/a
Genre........: Progressive Rock
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Feb-20-2007
str.date.....: 000-00-0000
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: http://www.elomusic.com/
track title time
01. Heaven Only Knows 02:57
02. So Serious 02:44
03. Getting To The Point 04:31
04. Secret Lives 03:32
05. Is It Alright 03:27
06. Sorrow About To Fall 04:05
07. Without Someone 03:51
08. Calling America 03:31
09. Endless Lies 03:00
10. Send It 03:10
11. Opening 00:24
12. Heaven Only Knows - Alternate Version 02:35
13. In For The Kill 03:16
14. Secret Lives - Alternate Version 03:27
15. Sorrow About To Fall - Alternate Mix 03:51
16. Caught In A Trap 03:47
17. Destination Unknown 04:10
Runtime 56:18 min
Size 75,6 MB
Release Notes:
The Electric Light Orchestra, also known as ELO or
E.L.O., were a successful rock music group of the
1970s and 1980s from Birmingham, England that was
originally intended to be a side project of
established rock band The Move; however, the
departure of founding member Roy Wood saw Jeff
Lynne finally achieve the success and recognition
that had eluded him from his days in the Idle Race.
It was in the United States that the band was first
warmly received, billed as The English guys with
the big fiddles [1]. They soon gained a cult
following despite lukewarm reviews back in their
native United Kingdom. They were managed by
no-nonsense businessman Don Arden (the father of
Sharon Osbourne).
By the mid seventies they had become one of the
biggest selling Rock music bands in the world.
Under Lynne's leadership the group scored twenty
top-20 UK hit singles, as well as fifteen top-20
appearances in the US Billboard chart, The band
also hold the record for having the most Billboard
Top 40 hits of any band in US history, without ever
having a #1 single [2]. The band proved to be an
excellent vehicle for (self confessed Beatles fan)
Lynne's semi-classical Beatlesque compositions,
steering a fine line between an album-oriented rock
outfit and a hit-making machine.
The group's name is an intended pun based not only
on electric light (as in a light bulb as seen on
early album covers) but also using "electric" rock
instruments combined with a "light orchestra"
(orchestras with only a few cellos and violins that
were popular in Britain during the 1960s).
Formed in October 1970 by Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and
Bev Bevan (the remaining members of the 1960s rock
group The Move), the band used cellos, violin,
horns and woodwinds to give their music a classical
sound. This was an idea Roy Wood initially had
while with The Move to take rock music in a new
direction.
In January 1970, when Carl Wayne left the The Move,
Jeff Lynne, front man with fellow Brum band Idle
Race, responded to Wood's second invitation to join
the line-up with the lure of starting the new band.
To help finance the fledgling project, two more
Move albums were released during the recording of
their eponymous first album in 1971, which produced
the UK hit "10538 Overture".
In the US, this album was released with the
mistaken title of No Answer, due to a mix-up with
an uncompleted telephone call to the American label
and subsequent secretarial message. [3]
However, tensions soon surfaced between Roy Wood
and Jeff Lynne. With most of the media attention
focused on Wood, differences in musical direction
and a disastrous first live outing followed by an
uneven tour of Italy took a toll on the Wood-Lynne
friendship. The band went through the first of its
many line-up changes as Wood took cellist Hugh
McDowell and horn player Bill Hunt with him to form
Wizzard
Despite the music press's predictions that the band
would fold without Wood, who had been the driving
force behind the creation of ELO, Jeff Lynne
stepped up to lead the band, with Bevan remaining
on drums, bassist Richard Tandy switching to moog
synthesizer, Mike de Albuquerque taking over on
bass, Mike Edwards and Colin Walker adding cello
and Wilfred Gibson replacing Steve Woolam on
violin. They released ELO 2 in 1973, an album begun
before Wood's departure, from which came their
first U.S. chart hit, a hugely elaborate version of
the Chuck Berry classic "Roll Over Beethoven".
During the recording of the third album, violinist
Gibson was dismissed, allegedly due to a payment
dispute, and replaced by Mik Kaminski. The band
released On The Third Day in 1973 featuring the hit
"Showdown", with Mike Edwards playing all the cello
parts due to Colin Walker leaving the band. Second
lead guitar on two tracks on the album ("Ma-Ma-Ma
Belle" and "Dreaming of 4000") was contributed by
Lynne's friend Marc Bolan. Later that same year saw
the return of Hugh McDowell, who had jumped ship
the year previous, to replace cellist Colin Walker.
In 1974 Lynne hired a thirty-piece orchestra, choir
and Louis Clark, then began work on the next LP
Eldorado, A Symphony by the Electric Light
Orchestra, a concept album about dreams, scoring
their first U.S. Top Ten hit with "Can't Get It Out
Of My Head" in 1975.
After the release of Eldorado, A Symphony, bassist
and vocalist Kelly Groucutt and cellist Melvyn Gale
joined, replacing de Albuquerque and Edwards
respectively. At this point the line-up would be at
its most stable and enjoy worldwide stardom
throughout the remainder of the decade. In 1975,
Face The Music was released, from which the major
singles were "Evil Woman" (whose instrumental
string hook was sampled in 2006 by Pussycat Dolls
to form the basis of their hit "Beep") and "Strange
Magic", marking a shift to a more "radio friendly"
sound, helped along the way by renowned German
producer and engineer Mack. From the same album,
the instrumental "Fire On High", with its mix of
strings and blazing acoustic guitars, saw heavy
exposure as background music on CBS Sports
Spectacular montages, though most viewers had no
idea of the song's origins, the song features a
famous deliberate backward message, where a
mysterious deep voice reverses to "The music is
reversible, but time is not, turn back! Turn back!
Turn back!"ùostensibly Jeff Lynne's shot at
backmasking hysteria, after completely false
satanic allegations were made against their song
"Eldorado" by Fundamentalist Christians leading up
to the 1980s American Congressional Hearings, ELO
then answered similarly with Secret Messages in
1983.
The band concentrated most of their touring efforts
in the United States at this point and were a star
attraction on the stadium and arena circuit, as
well as regularly appearing on The Midnight
Special, although surprisingly they were still
largely ignored in the United Kingdom. The
multi-platinum album A New World Record was
released in 1976 and became the band's first true
breakthrough album on a global scale, finally
giving them their first top ten LP in the UK. It
contained hits such as "Livin' Thing" (remade by
The Beautiful South in 2004), a re-recording of The
Move's "Do Ya", "Telephone Line" and "Rockaria!".
The songs "Livin' Thing" and "Telephone Line" were
prominently featured in the films Boogie Nights and
Billy Madison, respectively.
That was followed by the platinum-selling double-LP
Out of the Blue in 1977, although the record's
success was soured somewhat by a lawsuit filed by
the band against their former distributor, United
Artists, who they claimed had flooded the US market
with substandard pressings of the album. The double
set featured the singles "Turn to Stone", "Sweet
Talkin' Woman", "It's Over", "Mr. Blue Sky", and
"Wild West Hero". The band then set out on a
92-date, nine-month world tour, with an enormous
(and hugely expensive) space ship stage set in tow,
complete with fog machines and a laser display.
On the UK leg of the world tour the band played at
the Wembley Arena for (a then record) eight
sold-out nights, the first of these shows was
recorded and televised and later released on video
and DVD. In the United States the concerts were
billed as The Big Night. The 44-date 'Big Night'
tour played to Stadium audiences, including their
biggest-ever headlining gig at the Cleveland
Stadium to 80,000 people. It was during the famous
spaceship tour the band were criticized for
allegedly playing backing tapes. [4] By the end of
1978 they were the biggest live draw in the USA,
averaging fifty thousand people at their shows.
In 1979, Lynne set out to capitalize on the growing
popularity of disco with the album Discovery (or
"Disco very" as has been quoted). The album
generated their biggest hit "Don't Bring Me Down"
(the first ELO track not to feature strings), along
with "Shine A Little Love" (sampled in 2005 by
Lovefreekz for a dance hit called "Shine"), "Last
Train to London" (sampled in 2003 by Atomic Kitten
on their hit "Be With You"), "Confusion" and "The
Diary of Horace Wimp". Also that year Randy Newman
wrote "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band", an ELO
tribute song about "The English boys from
Birmingham", including the lyrics,
ô I love their Mr Blue Skies, almost my
favorite is Turn to Stone and how 'bout Telephone
Line? I love that E.L.O.! ö
This song appeared on his Born Again album.
Although there would be no live tour associated
with the Discovery album, the band did record the
entire album in video form. Not long after this,
the violinist Mik Kaminski and the two cellists
Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale were considered
surplus to requirements and dismissed. The
Discovery (music video)'s would be the last time
the original late 1970s line-up would be seen
together. The Electric Light Orchestra finished
1979 as the biggest selling act in the UK.
[edit] The '80s and decline
Soon after, in 1980 ELO was enlisted to provide
half of the soundtrack for the musical film Xanadu,
the other half provided by Olivia Newton-John, who
starred in the movie along with Gene Kelly. The
movie bombed, but the soundtrack did very well,
with hit singles from both Newton-John ("Magic" and
"Suddenly" with Cliff Richard) and ELO ("I'm
Alive", "All Over The World" and "Don't Walk Away")
as well as the title track to the movie, performed
by Newton-John with ELO, which was #1 in the UK.
The Electric Light Orchestra Story, Bev Bevan's
memoirs from his early days and throughout his
career with The Move and ELO, were also published
this year.
In 1981, ELO's sound changed again, moving away
from disco and into the 1980s, with the
science-fiction concept album Time (singles: "Hold
On Tight", "Twilight", "Rain Is Falling", and "Here
Is the News" / "Ticket to the Moon"), in which
synthesizers largely replaced classical strings.
The band embarked on what would be their last world
tour, to promote the new LP. The live line-up would
have no cello players for the first time ever;
instead they recruited Louis Clark (who had
previously conducted the strings on their classic
'70s albums) and Dave Morgan to play the string
sounds on synthesizers; Mik Kaminski also appeared
with his famous "blue violin", and "Fred the Robot"
voiced the "Prologue" and "Epilogue".
By 1983 it was becoming clear that band leader
Lynne had grown tired of the project that he had
helped to create thirteen years before, when he
announced that there would be no tour to promote
the new album Secret Messages. This was coupled
with the news that drummer Bevan was to play drums
for Black Sabbath and of bassist Kelly Groucutt's
departure from the band. Rumours about the group
disbanding were denied by Bev Bevan. Sales of the
new album were relatively slow and most music
reviews further added to the problems. Secret
Messages was originally recorded as a double album.
However, the record company had different ideas,
citing that it would be too expensive (due in part
to ELO's declining popularity). Some of the songs
that did not survive the hatchet job cropped up as
single B-sides and on later box sets. However, the
tribute song "Beatles Forever" is still
unavailable. It has been reported that Jeff Lynne
is embarrassed by this song, hence its
unavailability. Shortly after this album, Kelly
Groucutt sued Jeff Lynne, Bev Bevan, and ELO's
management for alleged lost royalty fees. The
matter was settled out of court.
With Bevan expressing a desire to join Black
Sabbath permanently, Lynne and Tandy recording
tracks for the Electric Dreams soundtrack under
Jeff Lynne's name, and Groucutt having departed, it
appeared that ELO was no more by 1984. But Bevan
left Black Sabbath because of his objection to the
band performing in apartheid South Africa, and
Lynne needed to make one more ELO album to fulfill
his contract.
Lynne, Bevan and Tandy returned to the studio in
1985 as a three-piece (with Christian Schneider
playing saxophone on some tracks) to record ELO's
final album of the 20th century, Balance of Power,
released early in 1986. Though the single "Calling
America" placed in the Top 20 in the US (#28 UK),
subsequent singles failed to chart. The album,
jokingly called "Balance Of Payment" by Lynne, was
totally absent of classical strings (except on the
Secret Messages leftover track "Endless Lies") and
had minimalist album art, missing the customary ELO
logo that had appeared on every album since 1976.
Lynne re-formed the 7-piece Time Tour band (with
Martin Smith replacing Groucutt on bass) for a
small number of live ELO performances in England
and Germany, including the Heartbeat charity
concert (organized by Bevan) on March 15 in ELO's
hometown of Birmingham and ELO's last performance
(prior to re-forming) on July 13 in Stuttgart. A
hint of Lynne's future was seen when George
Harrison appeared onstage during the encore at
Heartbeat, joining in the all-star (including
Robert Plant and the Moody Blues) jam of "Johnny B.
Goode".
There was no announcement made of ELO's breakup
during the next two years, when Harrison's
Lynne-produced album Cloud Nine and the pair's
follow-up (with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom
Petty) Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 were released to
critical acclaim and commercial success. Only when
Bevan approached Lynne to make another ELO album in
1988 was it declared that ELO had ceased to exist.
In 1990, Bevan's version of the band, titled ELO
Part II, released their debut album Electric Light
Orchestra, Part Two.
Reformation in 2000
Jeff Lynne's comeback with ELO started in 2000 when
he acquired full use of the ELO name as well as
rights to the ELO Part II name from Bev Bevan. He
then started work on a retrospective box set
Flashback, remastering many tracks, most notably a
new version of Lynne's only UK number one hit
"Xanadu". Also that year Lynne started to write new
songs which would appear on the Zoom album in 2001.
On completion of the album Lynne reformed the band
with completely new members including his
then-girlfriend Rosie Vela (a popular `70's/`80's
Vogue model who had released her own album in 1986)
and announced that ELO would tour again. Former ELO
member Richard Tandy rejoined the band a short time
afterwards for two television live appearances
including a VH1 Storytellers and a PBS concert
later titled Zoom Tour Live that was released
shortly after the planned tour was aborted due to
poor ticket sales. Zoom was made after Lynne had
collaborated with the Traveling Wilburys and took
on a more organic sound, with less emphasis on
strings and electronic effects. Guest musicians
included former Beatles Ringo Starr and George
Harrison.
Harvest (First light series) and Epic/Legacy
released ELO's back catalogue from 2001 to 2007,
included amongst the remastered album tracks were
unreleased songs and outtakes, including a new
single "Surrender" which became a minor hit for the
band some 30 years after it was first recorded.
Today much of ELOs music is as popular as ever and
can be heard used in Hollywood movies and
advertisements. In 2005 the track "Twilight" was
used in the opening (animated) sequence of the
immensly popular Densha Otoko drama about a romance
between an Anime-obsessed geek and an up-town rich
girl.
Current releases
Although there has been no news on any forthcoming
new projects by band supremo Jeff Lynne, he
continues to remaster ELOs studio albums, the
latest and last in the Epic/Legacy series is Out of
the Blue and Balance of Power that are due for
release in February 2007. A lost track from 1977s
Out of the Blue sessions was released as a single
on February 6th titled "Latitude 88 North".