The Daily Spin, November 28
Electric Light Orchestra | Time
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: Time (1981)
Artist: Electric Light Orchestra
Link:
Their ninth record and second concept album, Electric Light Orchestra’s Time is reminiscent of a lot of retrofuturistic artists that we’ve examined - the sort of mother album to it all, but a legacy does not a ten make.
An album centered around a man who time traveled to the year 2095, this is ELO’s first album to really jump away from the string-heavy orchestral pop that had become their hallmark and their calling card, instead tending to lean really heavily on synthesizers when speaking to the instrumentation of this record, all while keeping much of the same focus on the vocals that had floated the group to such heights as we saw with Out of the Blue last week.
It’s a lot like Out of the Blue - replace the strings with synthetic strings and a few 16-bit moments and you’ve more or less got the gist of it. The guy goes to the future and spends most of it whimpering about how much better 1981 was, and while I respect the commitment, it also doesn’t do a whole lot for me - okay, boomer.
I think this album has an undeniable legacy, and I can absolutely see the direct line to a group like Daft Punk from this, but I also think, as is the case with many evolutions, that there is a little more time necessary to really cook a concept like this to fullness.
Rating: 7.6/10
Best Tracks: Hold On Tight
Worst Tracks: Ticket To The Moon