Side One as a suite bookended by Ocean Breakup (which, in the book of Genesis, happened on the third day.). The second track (Bluebird is Dead) is interesting in light of what comes later. The vocals swing into falsetto in a way we haven't heard before but would become a big part of their sound, and Tandy's keyboard is producing some amazing music. Bluebird is Dead leads into Oh No Not Susan, followed by New World Rising, which is a storm of classical instrumentation and electronic keyboarding. The suite is unified in such a way that you don't know when it's transitioning from one song to the next.
"Oh No Not Susan" contains the most eloquent use of the f-word, even UK radio censors missed it back in 1973!
_________________ Rick Vendl II
One day you're a hero. Next day you're a clown. There's nothing that is in between. Now you're a 21st Century Man.
A couple of things about The Electric Light Orchestra II (as it was called in America) (I was very into the history of this band for awhile):
The album had different cover art in the US.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
The album had a different title: it was called ELO 2 in the UK, and Electric Light Orchestra II in the US.
After this album, "The" was dropped from the band name.
The UK version of "Roll Over Beethoven" is over a minute shorter than the version released in the US.
The track "Momma" was renamed "Mama" for the US release.
On the 2003 First Light Series album, a 30th anniversary reissue, Carl Wayne of The Move sings lead on 3 of the bonus tracks, including a version of "Mama".
On the same reissue, Marc Bolan of T. Rex plays lead guitar on 3 tracks, including an early version of "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle".
Marc Bolan was a friend and fan of Jeff Lynne, Marc played uncredited on both "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" and "Dreaming of 4000" upon On the Third Day's original 1973 release, Jeff plays with the same no credit on "Solid Gold-Easy Action" by T. Rex in 1972!
_________________ Rick Vendl II
One day you're a hero. Next day you're a clown. There's nothing that is in between. Now you're a 21st Century Man.
Last edited by TrekkiELO on 05/15/2016 16:02; edited 1 time in total
Is the Electric Light Orchestra a light orchestra with electric instruments? Or an orchestra made of electric lights? Or an electric orchestra, but with fewer calories (No. That would be an electric lite orchestra.)
In 1971, The trio of Roy Wood, Bev Bevan and Jeff Lynne, who had previously recorded as "The Move" (and would release a couple more singles with that name before the end of the year), decided to start over with a new band name. This was not completely unprecedented in 1971 (Eric Clapton used to do it all the time), but the same three guys who recorded "Message From the Country" by The Move recorded
BEA ranks: 1971: 114th, 1970's: 1,077th, All time: 6171st.
Ranked highest by TrekkiELO, 12th All Time
The first track, "10538 Orchestra" has such good instrumentation, the guitar work the cellos, the drumming, that Lynne's tight-throated vocals sort of diminish the over all effect they were going for. (The cellos in particular sound like they were borrowed from Strawberry Fields Forever).
The exceptions are "Mr. Radio" which adds some reverb to the vocals to create the effect of old-time radio rather than the 18th century,
Listmeister Ranks. 1971: 3rd. 1970's 35th. All Time: 107th.
Cello rock can trace its beginnings back to the 1971 self-titled debut, known in the US as No Answer, by The Electric Light Orchestra which featured rock songs arranged for cellos, and the subsequent tour consisted of a standard rock band augmented by four cellos. Jeff Lynne made a return with this format using three cellos for their 2001 comeback album Zoom and its subsequent, but cancelled tour.
_________________ Rick Vendl II
One day you're a hero. Next day you're a clown. There's nothing that is in between. Now you're a 21st Century Man.
I had some trouble with this one. Spotify never heard of it, and YouTube has copyright-blocked it. So, I had to do the next best thing, and find the songs, live, individually. So I find myself in the awkward position of having to review an album that I haven't actually heard.
So, making the best of it, instead of the actual album, what I ended up doing was watching videos of live performances of the songs on the album.
The first thing you notice in their live performances is the cellos. I'm not used to (maybe you are) seeing cellist sitting down, stradling their instrument, to play rock and roll. The first two tracks, Daybreaker and Showdown, were from a concert in Hamburg in 1974:
Day Tripper, a cover of a Beatles song, was one that I was really looking forward to. Luckily, there was a single from this album that was released to promote it. Someone found it and put in YouTube. It is, in a word, awesome. The Beatles' song we all know and love, with ELO's touch and classical colorings painted in the margins... wonderful.
On the record, those three tunes occupy side one. You flip the record over, track one is the 105378 Overture. Best I could find of that was a concert in Guildford in 1972. That's Roy Wood with the long white hair playing the fourth cello.
The spotlight turns on Mik Kaminski, violinist, for the next track. This video is considerably longer than the track on the record (which is under three minutes), and I have no idea how close this video is to the track on the album. By the time he gets to Orange Blossom Special (around 4:53), the crowd is really into it. This video was from the Face the Music tour, 1976, at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco.
That eerie classical piece "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is the showcase of the next piece. It sounds even scarier here than on the studio album. Mik and the Cellists are dancing around in the video, and it's more movement than I've seen in any of the previous videos. Suddenly, at 5:19, without warning they start singing Great Balls of Fire. This is fun to watch. The audience doesn't seem to know what to make of it. Toward the end, a couple of the cellists pick up their instruments and start Chuck Berrying.
And speaking of Chuck Berry, the album closes with Roll Over Beethoven. If you had any doubt that classical instruments could be used to play rock and roll, watch this video, and then I will accept your apology.
All of these songs sound great live, so it's hard to see how the album could miss. According to the Wikipedia article, they used a bad copy of the concert for the master, so the sound is muddy. They fixed it in the 1990 CD release.
Since I didn't actually hear the album, I'm not going to rank this one.
p.s. I got a chance to hear the actual album. The only thing I will add is (a) Mik's Solo is not as spectacular on the album (it's a bit shorter). The tracks hang together, flow from one to another, really really well.
Last edited by Listmeister on 05/28/2016 00:34; edited 1 time in total
The sound problems with the album weren't just from the tapes...it was a real challenge miccing the stringed instruments. The album was also only released in a few select countries, and wasn't released in the UK until 1985, and it necver did have an official release in the US. _________________ May we all get to heaven
'Fore the devil knows we're dead...
It's title lampoons The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia by Vicki Lawrence from 1973.
I thought about mentioning that, but who remembers that song? (I mean, I do, but I'm a pop music nerd). Even Vicki Lawrence won't have anything to do with it.
BEA ranks: 1974: 559th; 1970's: 5808th; All Time: 50,975th.
Originally intended to be a double album, the other disk was going to be done in a more jazz-rock style. The Label asked them to release the disk of rock-and-roll stuff when the jazz-rock disk wasn't finished yet, and didn't look like it was going to be. Eventually, in 2000, the jazz-rock bit was released as Main Street. We'll get there.
My usual practice is to review the album as I'm listening. Unfortunately, when I went to post my review, BEA suddenly forgot that I had logged in. Usually I'll do a ctrl-C to copy a post just in case this happens, but this time I didn't. So, I'm going from memory here.
Each song is a pastiche of a musical styles from the early days of Rock-and-Roll (1955-1963)s, which I will identify if I can remember. It starts out with an Intro (a band comes on stage) followed by "Eddy's Rock", an instrumental heavy with guitars and saxophone. "Brand New 88" is a car song that emphasizes piano (88 keys, get it?). "You Got Me Runnin" is good doo-wop. "I Dun Lotsa Cryin' Over You" is Elvisian rockabilly, "This is the Story of My Love" is sort of mid-60's California sound.
My favorite was "Everyday I Wonder" which specifically remakes "Runaway" by Del Shannon. Same opening riff, similar synth bridge, same idea in the song. "Crazy Jeans" is a heavy rocker like from Jerry Lee Lewis; "Come Back Karen" sounds a lot like Neil Sedaka's "Oh Carol" (1959).
He pulls out all the stops in "We're Gonna Rock 'n' Roll Tonight", compressing everything we've heard so far into one 3 minute song.
There was a wave of nostalgia for the music of the late 50's. This was first noticed with the monstrous hit soundtrack to American Graffiti. I mean the soundtrack was a monstrous hit, monstrous as in huge, not that the hit soundtrack was a monstrosity. "41 Hits from the Soundtrack of American Graffiti" is one of the best compilation albums ever.
But I digress. Rock stars, it turns out, are human beings, and human beings are subject to the pull of nostalgia. These rockers, having grown up in the 1950's, wanted to try to reproduce the music they had grown up with.
I was looking forward to this album. Roy Wood had peppered all his earlier albums with some old-fashioned rock-n-roll, and this album was going to be a whole album of it. It was marvelous.
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