Review Summary: ELO hits the big time with a sweet, slickly produced Top 40/album-rock crossover LP that leaves a bit of a saccharine aftertaste
ELO's sixth studio album
A New World Record brought the band with big fiddles into the big leagues as it joined the pantheon of corporate rock gods that were packing sports arenas, making entirely too much money for their own good, and inadvertently laying the groundwork for a punk rock revolution. Almost four decades later, it's hard to deny that punk pretty much won that argument -- groups such as the Clash, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols would pave the way for new wave and alternative rock and have since proven to be far more influential than the monster stadium bands of this era such as Styx, Kansas, Boston and, yes, ELO. Nonetheless
A New World Record deserves some credit for delivering some well-crafted guilty pleasures, with the emphasis on the guilty.
The album starts off well with "Tightrope," which has ELO doing its customary Beatles tribute to good effect. It also ends well -- very well, actually -- with "Shangri-La," a mournful ballad with an outro with vocals by English operatic soprano Mary Thomas that lend a bit of gravitas to the piece. Both songs could probably do with a bit less melodrama; by this time, bandleader Jeff Lynne had jumped with both feet into the hit-making fire and was laying things on a bit thick. Nonetheless, these are the standouts on this record.
Honorable mention goes to "Mission (A World Record)", one of the more adventurous tracks that you'll find here. This song is ignored by most, but it scores points for having just the right amount of bleakness, a touch of funk (or at least as much as Jeff Lynne could muster) in the bridge, and the chance for drummer Bev Bevan to play the occasional drum roll. Even at its most progressive, ELO has never given much for percussion fans to chew on, so we have to take what we can get.
A New World Record produced four singles, although it could have done without three of them. The catchy but cringe-worthy "Telephone Line" with its doo-wop-inspired chorus recounts the woes of a rejected lover who intends to let his unanswered phone calls ring "forevermore." The tune gets some respect for being a solid pop record, but it's more than a bit too sappy and makes you appreciate that we now have call blocking to deal with characters like this.
"Rockaria" is a punny title for a single that features Mary Thomas once again, this time as she drops a bit of a faux-opera vocal (see, there's the "aria" part) on top of a standard rock riff borrowed from the fifties. (Yes, the 50s again -- you should be noticing a pattern here.) "Rockaria" was a hit at the time, but it doesn't really work today as anything more than a nostalgia piece.
Perhaps most inexplicable is "Do Ya," the popularity and durability of which admittedly baffles your humble reviewer. Originally recorded by Jeff Lynne for the final Move album
Message From the Country and included in ELO's live act ever since, this trite three-chord misadventure only serves as a reminder that the Electric Light Orchestra is no Led Zeppelin and that Jeff Lynne is no Jimmy Page. Lynne learned to speak Beatles fluently, but flunked out of hard rock class.
That leads us to "Livin' Thing," a hit single about lost love that might be better remembered today for its various misinterpretations (environmentalists thought it was about saving the whales, pro-lifers embraced it as a statement against abortion) than for its bouncy strumming and catchy chorus. But this should be respected for the quality pop record that it is, and it is one of the bright spots of this album.
A few years and a couple of albums after this one, the band's music would take a substantial turn for the worse, and early signs of the coming ELO apocalypse are noticeable here. "So Fine" isn't actually all that bad if you can cope with the woo-woos and the instrumental bridge that takes you on the express train to Funkytown, but its deeper dive into disco does serve as an omen by revealing that Jeff Lynne's interest in the latest dance craze was not just a passing phase. "Evil Woman" had been the gateway drug to this addiction, and the worst was yet to come.
And there was that aforementioned ever-creeping 50s habit, which also made a full-fledged appearance here in the form of "Above the Clouds." This is the only recorded instance of ELO successfully tackling the genre, including well-structured harmonies that allow bassist Kelly Groucutt to put his vocal talents to good use, but the band's future trips down Fifties Memory Lane would not be journeys worth taking. Still, Lynne had one final decent album up his sleeve, and it would be a big one: the double LP
Out of the Blue.
Recommended tracks: "Shangri-La", "Tightrope", "Livin' Thing", "Mission (A World Record)"
Author's note/ shameless plug: This is one part of my ongoing series of reviews of most of ELO's original studio releases, with albums reviewed in chronological order. If you found this commentary to be somewhat informative, interesting, intriguing, intelligent, indefensible, insufferable, infuriating, incoherent, inane, incomprehensible or insulting, or if you just want to take pity on a guy who is masochistic enough to write these things, then please take a look at the other reviews and add your own thoughts. Thanks.
