The Daily Spin, November 16
Electric Light Orchestra
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.
Album: Out of the Blue (1977)
Artist: Electric Light Orchestra
Link:
Brilliantly over-the-top, the Electric Light Orchestra’s addictive blend of Beatles-style pop with their typical airy orchestral arrangements, tinged with the forward-looking disco of the late seventies reaches its best and arguably most fruitful evolution with 1977’s Out of the Blue.
This is a record that is absolutely at its best when everything clicks - but I would argue that there are a few too many hands in the pie for it to really ever come together as well as it should. Part of this is producer Jeff Lynne’s liking for hundreds of tiny tracks comprising arrangements - very much like Jacob Collier - and in both cases, it rarely pivots quite so strongly as it should. If it’s not tuned to utter perfection it winds up feeling rather mediocre, and this album’s greatest failing.
There’s something fantastic about the moments where it all does - and it’s so easy to see how one could be inspired by this sort of sound - but similarly, it makes the moments where it doesn’t really click all the more evident.
Rating: 7.8/10
Best Tracks: Sweet Talkin’ Woman; Summer and Lightning; Turn to Stone
Worst Tracks: Starlight; Across the Border; Birmingham Blues