Electric Light Orchestra – A New World Record (1976)

My father was a big fan of Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. As a child, I heard a lot of their music and I really liked their melodic and energetic sound. A bit later on I felt like this band was a bit embarrassing, but now as I've grown up and look back to this music, they actually have some great stuff on their albums. As you might have guessed, this is again one of the vinyl albums I've gotten from my father. At some point I actually had two copies of this album. One came from my grandmother's house where I suspect one of my uncles had left it there. This second copy has now found a good home with one of my friends. I very rarely listen to ELO at home, but whenever I do, there's something I really like about it, even if it's not the most exciting band out there. Their vocal harmonies and melodic and catchy songs work every time.



Peculiarly, I actually feel like ELO made better albums in the 80's than in the 70's. I don't know if there's any other band out there who would have done the same. I guess they just became more ambitious. Also their album covers are a lot nicer in their 80's albums. I have, however, mostly just those 70's albums myself. This was the first album to have the official logo on the front cover.

I don't think I've ever seen an ELO music video, but of course now with this project I'm required to watch at least one on youtube. Livin' Thing music video has great kaleidoscopic images and crazy disco outfits. This is one of my favourite songs on the album, so i was quite pleased to find a video of that song.

The last song on the album, Shangri-La, is an amazingly ambitious song with some excellent guitar playing. The ending has amazing string arrangements with melancholic vocals singing 'I will return'. This line in this melody sounds really familiar from other contexts as well, but I can't get my head around where else have I heard it.

ELO is originally from Birmingham. There aren't that many great bands coming from that area (except of course Black Sabbath and Dexy's Midnight Runners), so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they're from there.

I wonder if the title of the album is a really bad intended pun. I mean, a new record in the world and so forth... If so, I tip my hat off to whoever came up with such a bad pun.

I mostly like the very symphonic songs of ELO with string arrangements and great vocal harmonies, but greater masses usually know them from their simpler rock songs such as Do Ya. This song has definitely played a lot in my father's stereo back in the day. It brings so vivid memories to me.

I don't know if ELO will ever be that important of a band to me personally, but it has definitely had an impact in my life as I grew up with their music. It's fun to return to these albums and really listen to them through carefully.

Listen to the album on Spotify.