The 1980s saw a lot of rock and roll stalwarts trading in their electric guitars and drum sets for synthesizers and drum machines. Not even hair metal heroes like Van Halen were safe from the new wave revolution.
Even so, it stung a little harder when Electric Light Orchestra traded in their strings and horns for analog synthesizers.
However, it’d sting a whole lot more if the songs weren’t so damn catchy.
The way the legend is told, it took Jeff Lynne some time to properly align his project with his imagination. It wasn’t until this, his fourth album, that the Electric Light Orchestra actually used an orchestra in its recording. The result is ELO’s first great record. While Lynne’s songcraft and pop mastery have always been apparent, the addition of an orchestra brought the lushness that would make ELO legendary.
I’ll admit: in the several years I’ve owned and loved it, I never realized that Out of the Blue was not ELO’s most acclaimed record. Longest, most ambitious, and most impressive, undoubtedly. But best? This is a question I never knew I had to ask before, but A New World Record, their breakthrough, is bringing that to the forefront.
Strange that as long as I’ve loved ELO’s Out of the Blue, I’ve never considered looking into any of their other albums. What a fool I have been! While not as refined as the symphonic pop of Out of the Blue, Face the Music showcases a Jeff Lynne with an absolute mastery of pop songcraft in a variety of genres.
What is pop music? Is it vapid, unchallenging, artless? Few would make an argument that most pop music is not those things. But can pop be more than that? Can pop music be ambitious? Sophisticated? Enduring? Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra make a certainly convincing argument for that stance on their magnum opus, Out of the Blue.