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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Album Review: Electric Light Orchestra - A New World Record (1976)

I've just finished listening to ELOs landmark 1976 record, A New World Record.  And boy has this album blown me away. ELO themselves have long impressed me with some of the hits they managed to produce in their history - some of which are of course here on this album, but this album has gained the honor of being one of the very, very few albums that I can listen to comfortably from start to finish.  If you extract the best known hits - "Livin' Thing", "Rockaria" and "Telephone Line", you're left with an album replete with songs that in no way could ever be called fillers.  They are masterpieces in their own right.  The album itself, upon playback of the opening track, "Tightrope", comes across as a concept album, although it isn't one, and every song seems to fit in harmoniously with one another, as if the entire track list were one.  It really is a magnificent piece of work, and should be rated far higher than it is.  "So Fine", "Do Ya" and "Shangri-La" are just three of the nine great songs that make up this classic album.  Mixing rock, pop and classical never sounded "so fine" to me.  Magnifique!  A


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