Dorks And Losers

To cel­e­brate the 35th anniver­sary of Elec­tric Light Orchestra’s found­ing by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood, Epic/Legacy is releas­ing expanded edi­tions of seven of the band’s albums, start­ing with No Answer and ELO II. Founded in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, the band re-energized music by fus­ing orches­tral rock with clas­si­cal music.

Orig­i­nally released in 1973, ELO II fea­tures the band’s first U.S. chart hit “Roll Over Beethoven” — a cover of Chuck Berry’s pop­u­lar rock & roll tune mixed with Beethoven’s “Fifth Sym­phony.” Epic in scale, “Roll Over Beethoven” effort­lessly zigzags between Chuck Berry rhythm and Beethoven melody, becom­ing an ele­gant blend of pure instru­men­tal com­po­si­tion and clas­sic 50s rock.

Lynne loved to work in the stu­dio and exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent sounds and styles. In “Mama,” ELO mixes R&B with its orches­tral rock sound, cre­at­ing an easy going, soul­ful num­ber. Soul is a huge part of ELO’s sound, despite the band’s dom­i­nant elec­tric tones. Lynne sings heart-wrenching lyrics in “Kuiama” that com­bines soul and coun­try rock, resem­bling Cree­dence Clear­wa­ter Revival and even Led Zep­pelin at times with its long instru­men­tal solos.

ELO is a band that doesn’t put lyrics cen­ter stage in its songs. The instru­men­tals are the dom­i­nant and most impor­tant aspect of its music. ELO jux­ta­poses com­plex rhythms and beats into a mys­tic jum­ble of har­mo­nious enchant­ment. The start­ing instru­men­tals set the mood and pace of the songs. In some cases, the mood and pace changes through­out the song like in “From The Sun To The World (Boo­gie No. 1)” [Real Media stream, Win­dows Media stream] where it shifts rhythm and style many times, even­tu­ally slow­ing to a bal­lad march before speed­ing into a full boo­gie medley.

This album is an expanded edi­tion with four never-before-released tracks. There is an instru­men­tal ver­sion of “In Old Eng­land Town” [Real Media stream, Win­dows Media stream] that sounds very incom­plete with­out any lyrics. There is a ses­sion out­take of “Baby I Apol­o­gize,” which is a rein­vent­ing of band’s own sound. It has more vocals and is more upbeat than any other song. “In Old Eng­land Town” and “Roll Over Beethoven” receive alter­nate mix ver­sions, and sound darker than their orig­i­nal coun­ter­parts. “In Old Eng­land Town” has heav­ier gui­tar riffs while “Roll Over Beethoven” is longer and more elec­tric — it seems to have lost its clas­si­cal spirit.

Elec­tric Light Orches­tra is a rev­e­la­tion in clas­sic rock with many bands owing much to its orig­i­nal sound. Bands like Trans-Siberian Orches­tra prob­a­bly wouldn’t exist with­out ELO’s exper­i­men­tal cre­ativ­ity. The band let their hands and hearts tell the story.
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Track list:

1. In Old Eng­land Town (Boo­gie #2)
2. Mama
3. Roll Over Beethoven
4. From The Sun To The World (Boo­gie #1)
5. Kuiama
6. In Old Eng­land Town (Boo­gie #2) (Instru­men­tal)
7. Baby I Apol­o­gize
8. In Old Eng­land Town (Boo­gie #2) (Take 1, Alter­nate Mix)
9. Roll Over Beethoven (Alter­nate Mix)

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