Title: Alone in the Universe
Artiste: Jeff Lynne's ELO
Year 2015
Nationality: British
Familiarity: 100% Are you kidding me? ELO were the first band I ever got into, and I have all their albums, even the really bad ones!
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Expectations: As much as I wanted to hate Jeff Lynne for releasing
Zoom in 2001, when he was the only member of the band still around and involved in the project, I had to admit it was a fantastic album. To be fair, ELO's output had begun to slip after
Secret messages and their last proper album, 1986's
Balance of Power was overall pretty disappointing, so maybe it was time for them to disband.
Zoom however breathed new life into the band, even if it was technically a Jeff Lynne solo album (he was the driving force behind the band, after all) so I'm interested to see if he can maintain that high level of quality with this, the first album released under what is a more appropriate name, perhaps a concession to the fans who jeered at him over 2001's title.
1. When I was a boy: One thing that can't be denied is that Lynne knows how to write catchy songs, many based around the Beatles style, and this, opening on soft piano thanks to Richard Tandy, the only remaining original member other than Lynne, has a really, really Beatles sound merged with a basic melody that plunders Procol Harum's hit “A whiter shade of pale”, which is a little disappointing, as I would have rather heard something more original. However it has the very distinct ELO motif about it, and if you heard it on the radio, you'd know in an instant who it was. It's also quite reflective with its opening line “When I was a boy I had a dream”. Indeed.
2. Love and rain: And this one has echoes of “Evil woman” in it, as well as some others off
Secret Messages I can't place at the moment. Nice female backing vocals from his daughter Laura. I miss Hugh McDowell's cellos though. There's something about this that makes it more Electric Light
sans the Orchestra.
3. Dirty to the bone: Kind of get a feeling of the Traveling Wilburys here, which he was of course involved in. He's got a very distinctive voice certainly, but this just does not sound to me that much like an ELO song. It's good, but not ELO. Not for me.
4. When the night comes: Sort of a semi-reggae feeling mixed in with soulish motownish. Meh, it's okay.
5. The sun will shine on you: Okay well this one sounds much better, more like a classic ELO song. There's something totally self-indulgent though in having the backing vocals being, well, him as well. A nice ballad, one of the things Lynne does almost better than anyone else I know. Nice dreamy feel to this.
6. Ain't it a drag: Nice rock and roll bopper. One thing Lynne has learned over the years is not to outstay his welcome. Good or bad, these songs are all pretty short, with nothing over four minutes, and some in the two-and-a-half range. This one's okay, but nothing terribly special.
7. All my life: Another nice ballad based around again a very Beatles sound, and it comes across as very familiar indeed. Strings would go so well in here, but, what can you do?
8. I'm leaving you: A song that finally nods back to the likes of
El Dorado and
On the Third Day with echoes of
Secret Messages too. Sort of balladish in form, with some nice rolling percussion and piano; sense of strings in the synth but it's just not the same as the real thing.
9. One step at a time: This kind of continues the link back to the “old” ELO, though I feel Lynne is aiming specifically to have a dancefloor hit here. Maybe he will. It's certainly uptempo and fun enough, with some almost Santanaesque guitar.
10. Alone in the universe:Hopefully there's a big finish, because generally speaking this has been pretty light forgettable fare. Well it rises on a marching beat which has a certain sense of finality about it, and once again I can hear the classic ELO in this, without as I say the cellos. It's a nice sort of dark ballad and ends the album better than I might have expected.
Final result: Given that I'm such an ELO fanboy, it's a measure of how weak this album is that it doesn't receive one single Blue, and not too many Greens either. After taking fourteen years to craft his follow up to
Zoom (and let's be honest: that was his first real album as the “new” ELO, ie Jeff Lynne on his own), I feel the creator of the first band I was ever into has come back with a weak, limp excuse for an album. It has some good tracks, but few if any great ones, and it's a pale, pale shadow of 2001's effort. I also question the refusal to give Richard Tandy a credit even though he played on the album: it's shown as “all instruments and vocals by Jeff Lynne”. Ego much? After this, I have to sadly admit that the ELO I grew up with and loved is well and truly buried.
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