Electric Light Orchestra - The Studio HD Album Collection 1971-1986 (2015/2018) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/192kHz]

The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1970. The band lead by songwriters/multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne. Their music is characterised by a fusion of Beatlesque pop, classical arrangements and futuristic iconography. During ELO's original 14-year period of active recording and touring, they sold over 50 million records worldwide, and collected 19 CRIA, 21 RIAA, and 38 BPI awards. For a period in the mid 1970s, the band saw more success in the United States, where they were billed as "the English guys with the big fiddles". From 1972 to 1986, ELO accumulated twenty seven Top 40 songs on the UK Singles Chart, and fifteen Top 20 songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. The band also holds the record for having the most Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hits (20) without a number one single of any band in US chart history. In 2017 the classic ELO line-up have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.



"The Electric Light Orchestra" is the debut studio album by English rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in December 1971. In the US, the album was released in early 1972 as "No Answer", after a misunderstood telephone message made by a United Artists Records executive asking about the album name. The caller, having failed to reach the ELO contact, wrote down "no answer" in his notes, and this was misconstrued to be the name of the album.

Although ELO quickly became Jeff Lynne's baby, it was launched as a collaboration between Lynne and his bandmates in the Move, multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood, and drummer Bev Bevan. Indeed, the label on ELO's first album reads "Move Enterprises Ltd. presents the services of the Electric Light Orchestra," and most histories claim that the initial idea for the spin-off group combining rock and classical music was Wood's, not Lynne's. Wood and Lynne split the songwriting duties on Electric Light Orchestra, much as they did on late-period Move albums, but it seems like their visions of what ELO was were widely divergent. Wood's songs are clearly more classically influenced, with the string and horn sections driving the songs rather than merely coloring them, as they do on Lynne's tunes. The difference between Wood's baroque "Look at Me Now" and Lynne's hard rocking "10538 Overture" is obvious, and Lynne never wrote anything as purely classical as Wood's "The Battle of Marston Moor (July 2nd, 1644)" in his entire career. (The Gershwin-like piano jazz of "Manhattan Rumble (49th Street Massacre)" is Lynne's equivalent piece, and suggests an intriguing avenue he unfortunately never explored further.) This dichotomy makes Electric Light Orchestra in some ways much more interesting than later ELO albums. When Wood left to form Wizzard after the release of this album, the tension generated by that clear difference between his and Lynne's songwriting styles was gone. Later ELO albums were much more commercially successful, but they were also considerably more stylistically attenuated. As good as they are, all of the later ELO albums sound pretty much exactly alike. Electric Light Orchestra sounds like nothing either Jeff Lynne or Roy Wood did before or after, and therein lies its fascination.

Tracklist:

01 - 10538 Overture
02 - Look at Me Now
03 - Nellie Takes Her Bow
04 - Battle of Marston Moor (July 2nd, 1644)
05 - First Movement (Jumping Biz)
06 - Mr. Radio
07 - Manhattan Rumble (49th Street Massacre)
08 - Queen of the Hours
09 - Whisper in the Night

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"ELO 2" is the second album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in 1973. In the US the album was released as "Electric Light Orchestra II" and is sometimes known as "ELO II". It was also the last album to be released by the band under the Harvest label, and the last where the band used the definite article The on its name.

Cut during the fall of 1972, Electric Light Orchestra II was where Jeff Lynne started rebuilding the sound of Electric Light Orchestra following the departure of Roy Wood from the original lineup. It was as personal an effort as Lynne had ever made in music, showcasing his work as singer, songwriter, guitarist, sometime synthesizer player, and producer, and it is more focused than its predecessor but also retains some of the earlier album's lean textures. Lynne, drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Mike D'Albuquerque, and keyboardist Richard Tandy comprise the core of the band, with two cellists and a violinist sawing away around them. There were holes in their sound that made the group seem somewhat ragged, as on the pounding "In Old England Town (Boogie #2)"; Lynne's singing would also have to develop, and some of the material also showed the need of an editor. On the other hand, "From the Sun to the World (Boogie #1)" was a succinct progressive rock workout, and "Kuiama" was a decent showcase for the different sides of the group that worked about as well as any 11-minute progressive rock track of the period. But the very fact that the group's cover of "Roll Over Beethoven" was the hit off of this album also showed how far Lynne had to go as a songwriter – there's nothing else here one-half as good as that as a song, and the fact that the band attacked it like a buzzsaw made it one of the most bracing pieces of progressive rock to make the charts. As a patchwork job, the album holds up well, and it and the single did go a long way toward getting them the beginnings of an audience in America.

Tracklist:

01 - In Old England Town (Boogie #2)
02 - Mama
03 - Roll Over Beethoven
04 - From the Sun to the World (Boogie #1)
05 - Kuiama

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Thirs ELO's album, "On the Third Day" was released in 1973 and failed to enter the UK charts at the time, although it did reach the US charts at number 52. Side two of the album was recorded during or shortly after the sessions for ELO's LP "ELO 2", but unlike its predecessor it contains shorter tracks. By contrast, the four songs on side one of the album were linked into a continuous suite. Violinist Mik Kaminski made his debut on side one of this album replacing Wilf Gibson, although Gibson plays on side two. Also, cellist Colin Walker left the line up around the same time, leaving Mike Edwards as lone cellist.

Electric Light Orchestra's third album showed a marked advancement, with a fuller, more cohesive sound from the band as a whole and major improvements in Jeff Lynne's singing and songwriting. This is where the band took on its familiar sound, Lynne's voice suddenly showing an attractive expressiveness reminiscent of John Lennon in his early solo years, and also sporting a convincing white British soulful quality that was utterly lacking earlier. The group also plugged the holes that made its work seem so close to being ragged on those earlier records. "Showdown" and "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" (the latter featuring Marc Bolan on double lead guitar with Lynne) became AM radio fixtures while "Daybreaker" became a concert opener for the group and, along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King," kept the group's FM/art rock credentials in order.

Tracklist:

01 - Ocean Breakup / King of the Universe
02 - Bluebird Is Dead
03 - Oh No Not Susan
04 - New World Rising / Ocean Breakup Reprise
05 - Showdown
06 - Daybreaker
07 - Ma-Ma-Ma Belle
08 - Dreaming of 4000
09 - In the Hall of the Mountain King

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"Eldorado" (subtitled as "A Symphony by the Electric Light Orchestra") is the fourth studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). It was released in the United States in September 1974 by United Artists Records and in the United Kingdom in October 1974 by Warner Bros. Records. This is the first complete ELO concept album; bandleader Jeff Lynne conceived the storyline before he wrote any music. The plot follows a Walter Mitty-like character who journeys into fantasy worlds via dreams, to escape the disillusionment of his mundane reality. Lynne began to write the album in response to criticisms from his father, a classical music lover, who said that Electric Light Orchestra's repertoire "had no tune". The influence of the Beatles is prevalent, especially in the melody of the verse of "Mister Kingdom" which to some degree resembles the Beatles' "Across the Universe".

This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he'd wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group's music had been self-contained – Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra – it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time. Indeed, Eldorado was strongly reminiscent in some ways of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not that it could ever have the same impact or be as distinctive, but it had its feet planted in so many richly melodic and varied musical traditions, yet made it all work in a rock context, that it did recall the Beatles classic. It was a very romantic work, especially on the opening "Eldorado Overture," which was steeped in a wistful 1920s/1930s notion of popular fantasy (embodied in movies and novels like James Hilton's Lost Horizon and Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge) about disillusioned seekers. It boasted Lynne's best single up to that time, "Can't Get It Out of My Head," which most radio listeners could never get out of their respective heads, either. The integration of the orchestra would become even more thorough on future albums, but Eldorado was notable for mixing the band and orchestra (and a choir) in ways that did no violence to the best elements of both.

Tracklist:

01 - Eldorado Overture
02 - Can't Get It out of My Head
03 - Boy Blue
04 - Laredo Tornado
05 - Poorboy (The Greenwood)
06 - Mister Kingdom
07 - Nobody's Child
08 - Illusions in G Major
09 - Eldorado
10 - Eldorado Finale

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"Face the Music" is the fifth studio album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), and features a new line-up following their previous studio album, "Eldorado". The singles "Evil Woman" and "Strange Magic" were the most commercial songs they had recorded up to that point. "Evil Woman" was a big hit in the UK and the US, embracing disco rhythms while still embodying ELO's classic sound. The chords and melody of this song were composed in merely six minutes, making it the fastest song Lynne has ever written.

Electric Light Orchestra's more modest follow-up to Eldorado is a very solid album, if not as bold or unified. It was also their first recorded at Musicland in Munich, which became Jeff Lynne's preferred venue for cutting records. At the time, he was also generating songs at a breakneck pace and had perfected the majestic, quasi-Beatles-type style (sort of high-wattage Magical Mystery Tour) introduced two albums earlier. The sound is stripped down a bit on Face the Music, Louis Clark's orchestral contributions generally more subdued than on Eldorado, even when they compete with the band, as on "Strange Magic." The soulful "Evil Woman" was one of the most respectable chart hits of its era, and one of the best songs that Lynne ever wrote (reportedly in 30 minutes), while "Strange Magic" showed off his writing in a more ethereal vein. "One Summer Dream," which is written in a similar mode, also has a touchingly wistful mood about it but is a somewhat lackluster finale compared to the albums that preceded and followed this one. The requisite rock & roll number, "Poker," is a quicker tempo than anything previously heard from the band, the guitar is pumped up louder than ever. And "Down Home Town," an experiment in achieving a country & western sound, is fresh at this point and more interesting than the equivalent material of Out of the Blue.

Tracklist:

01 - Fire On High
02 - Waterfall
03 - Evil Woman
04 - Nightrider
05 - Poker
06 - Strange Magic
07 - Down Home Town
08 - One Summer Dream

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"A New World Record" is the sixth studio album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). It was released in September 1976 on United Artists Records in the U.S., and on 19 November 1976 on Jet Records in the United Kingdom. "A New World Record" marked ELO's shift towards shorter pop songs, a trend which would continue across their career.

Jeff Lynne reportedly regards this album and its follow-up, Out of the Blue, as the high points in the band's history. One might be better off opting for A New World Record over its successor, however, as a more modest-sized creation chock full of superb songs that are produced even better. Opening with the opulently orchestrated "Tightrope," which heralds the perfect production found throughout this album, A New World Record contains seven of the best songs ever to come out of the group. The Beatles influence is present, to be sure, but developed to a very high degree of sophistication and on Lynne's own terms, rather than being imitative of specific songs. "Telephone Line" might be the best Lennon-McCartney collaboration that never was, lyrical and soaring in a way that manages to echo elements of Revolver and the Beatles without ever mimicking them. The original LP's second side opened with "So Fine," which seems like the perfect pop synthesis of guitar, percussion, and orchestral sounds, embodying precisely what Lynne had first set out to do with Roy Wood at the moment ELO was conceived. From there, the album soars through stomping rock numbers like "Livin' Thing" and "Do Ya," interspersed with lyrical pieces like "Above the Clouds" (which makes striking use of pizzicato bass strings).

Tracklist:

01 - Tightrope
02 - Telephone Line
03 - Rockaria!
04 - Mission (A World Record)
05 - So Fine
06 - Livin' Thing
07 - Above the Clouds
08 - Do Ya
09 - Shangri-La

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"Out of the Blue" is the seventh studio album by the British rock group Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in October 1977. Written and produced by ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, the double album is among the most commercially successful records in the group's history. It was selling about 10 million copies worldwide.

The last ELO album to make a major impact on popular music, Out of the Blue was of a piece with its lavishly produced predecessor, A New World Record, but it's a much more mixed bag as an album. For starters, it was a double LP, a format that has proved daunting to all but a handful of rock artists, and was no less so here. The songs were flowing fast and freely from Jeff Lynne at the time, however, and well more than half of what is here is very solid, at least as songs if not necessarily as recordings. "Sweet Talkin' Woman" and "Turn to Stone" are among the best songs in the group's output, and much of the rest is very entertaining. The heavy sound of the orchestra, however, as well as the layer upon layer of vocal overdubs, often seem out of place. All in all, the group was trying too hard to generate a substantial-sounding double LP, complete with a suite, "Concerto for a Rainy Day." The latter is the nadir of the album, an effort at conceptual rock that seemed archaic even in 1977. Another chunk is filled up with what might best be called art rock mood music ("The Whale"), before you finally get to the relief of a basic rocker like "Birmingham Blues." Even here, the group couldn't leave well enough alone – rather than ending it on that note, they had to finish the album with "Wild West Hero," a piece of ersatz movie music that adds nothing to what you've heard over the previous 65 minutes. In its defense, Out of the Blue was massively popular and did become the centerpiece of a huge worldwide tour that earned the group status as a major live attraction for a time.

Tracklist:

01 - Turn to Stone
02 - It's Over
03 - Sweet Talkin' Woman
04 - Across the Border
05 - Night in the City
06 - Starlight
07 - Jungle
08 - Believe Me Now
09 - Steppin' Out
10 - Standin' in the Rain
11 - Big Wheels
12 - Summer and Lightning
13 - Mr. Blue Sky
14 - Sweet Is the Night
15 - The Whale
16 - Birmingham Blues
17 - Wild West Hero

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"Discovery" is the eighth studio album by British symphonic rock band, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). Discovery was the band's first number 1 album in the UK, entering the chart at that position and staying there for five weeks. The album contained five hit songs in "Shine a Little Love", "Don't Bring Me Down", "Last Train to London", "Confusion" and "The Diary of Horace Wimp", many of which were heavily influenced by disco.

Electric Light Orchestra continued on their winning Top 40 ways with the release of Discovery. Now pared down to the basic four-piece unit, Jeff Lynne continued to dominate the band and they still got their hits (this time around it was the smash "Don't Bring Me Down"). Elsewhere on the disc there was, of note, "Last Train to London" and "Confusion." Though Discovery charted well, it was becoming obvious that ELO were starting to run themselves out of useful Beatles hooks with which to fuel their hit-making machine.

Tracklist:

01 - Shine a Little Love
02 - Confusion
03 - Need Her Love
04 - The Diary of Horace Wimp
05 - Last Train to London
06 - Midnight Blue
07 - On the Run
08 - Wishing
09 - Don't Bring Me Down

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"Time" is the ninth studio album by Electric Light Orchestra (credited only as ELO on the album's packaging) released in 1981 through Jet Records. It is a concept album which tells a story of a man from the 1980s finding himself in the year 2095 and trying to come to terms with being unable to return and adjusting to his new surroundings.

Time takes its cues more from such bands as the Alan Parsons Project and Wings than from Jeff Lynne's fascination with Pepper-era Beatles. Sure, all the electronic whirrs and bleeps are present and accounted for, and Time did spawn hit singles in "Hold on Tight" and "Twilight," but on the average, ELO had begun to get too stuck on the same structure and content of their releases. "The Way Life's Meant to Be" echoes very early ELO hits like "Can't Get It Out of My Head," and the "Prologue" and "Epilogue" segments try and bring about a unifying concept that doesn't quite hold up upon listening all the way through. Time proves to be competent ELO but not great ELO.

Tracklist:

01 - Prologue
02 - Twilight
03 - Yours Truly, 2095
04 - Ticket to the Moon
05 - The Way Life's Meant to Be
06 - Another Heart Breaks
07 - Rain Is Falling
08 - From the End of the World
09 - The Lights Go Down
10 - Here Is the News
11 - 21st Century Man
12 - Hold on Tight
13 - Epilogue

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"Secret Messages" is the eleventh studio album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in 1983 through Jet Records. It was the last ELO album with bass guitarist Kelly Groucutt, conductor Louis Clark, and real stringed instruments, and the last ELO album to be released on Jet Records. It was also the final ELO studio album to become a worldwide top 40 hit upon release.

Originally conceived of as a double album, and wisely whittled down to one on release, Secret Messages was routine, formulaic Electric Light Orchestra. Lynne's hooks and dense production were still in force, but it sounded more mechanized and heartless than usual, due in part to the surfeit of synthesizers on some tracks. It did include the Top 20 hit "Rock & Roll Is King".

Tracklist:

01 - Secret Messages
02 - Loser Gone Wild
03 - Bluebird
04 - Take Me On and On
05 - Four Little Diamonds
06 - Stranger
07 - Danger Ahead
08 - Letter from Spain
09 - Train of Gold
10 - Rock 'N' Roll Is King

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A 35th anniversary edition of "Sectret Messages" was released by Legacy Recordings on double LP and via streaming services on 3 August 2018. It closely matched the format and length originally conceived by Jeff Lynne for the 1983 release though one track remains unreleased ("Beatles Forever"). Other alterations from the original 1983 release include the album's outro being moved from the end of "Rock 'n' Roll Is King" to "Hello My Old Friend" and an edit of "Rock 'N' Roll Is King" B-side "After All".

The record was originally going to be a double album, but this plan was thwarted by Jet's distributor, CBS Records, claiming that producing a double vinyl album would be too expensive; as a result, leader Jeff Lynne would have to reduce it to a single album. This version of the album was digitally recorded and would have been ELO's first compact disc. Six of the songs from the intended double album appeared as B-sides and reappear on the Afterglow box set in 1990. These include a string-laden, eight-minute long tribute to the band's home town (Birmingham), titled "Hello My Old Friend". Some of the tracks also appear on the 2001 re-issue of the album. "Endless Lies", which had been altered for its inclusion on the subsequently-released "Balance of Power" album, appears in its original 1983 form on the 2001 remaster of this album.

'Secret Messages' was the first and last time I ever used a digital multi-track tape recorder. We tried out a different place to record. It was Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum, Holland. The sound of the room was just how I liked it. I enjoyed recording there so much, I wrote enough tunes for a double album! Anyway, this will be the first time 'Secret Messages' has escaped intact. Thanks to all you great fans who've been asking to hear the original double album for a very long time. – Jeff Lynne

Tracklist:

01 - Secret Messages
02 - Loser Gone Wild
03 - Bluebird
04 - Take Me On And On
05 - Stranger
06 - No Way Out
07 - Letter From Spain
08 - Danger Ahead
09 - Four Little Diamonds
10 - Train Of Gold
11 - Endless Lies
12 - Buildings Have Eyes
13 - Rock 'N' Roll Is King
14 - Mandalay
15 - Time After Time
16 - After All (Shorter Version)
17 - Hello My Old Friend

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"Balance of Power" is the eleventh studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) released in 1986. "Balance of Power" was the last studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra before their disbanding (the band would later reform in 2000 & 2015).

After mining the Beatles gold mine for all those catchy hooks, by the time that Balance of Power was released, Jeff Lynne and company had pretty much found that once-rich vein going dry. This album did contain yet another Top 40 hit with "Calling America," but by the mid-'80s, ELO were finding their audience and their inspiration on the wane. Not truly memorable, but passable.

Tracklist:

01 - Heaven Only Knows
02 - So Serious
03 - Getting to the Point
04 - Secret Lives
05 - Is It Alright
06 - Sorrow About to Fall
07 - Without Someone
08 - Calling America
09 - Endless Lies
10 - Send It

Note: This release contains elements of analog and 44kHz tracking, mastered to 192kHz/24bit.

Digitally Remastered.


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