![]() ![]() Eldorado Overture, with its fantasy intonations about mythical cities and its oceanic strings, tossed and tumbled into Can’t Get It Out of My Head, the album’s grand panning shot settling on Lynne, alone, adrift on some midnight shoreline as a vision of Neptune’s daughter “walking on a wave” imprinted on his memory forever. Hiring in a full orchestra gave ELO the authentic oomph the concept demanded, and instantly they blasted class. “I said, ‘Bastard! You rat! I’ll show you a tune!’” “My dad said to me one day: ‘The trouble with your tunes is they have no tune,’” Lynne said in 2012. On the Third Day refined the recipe by sifting Lennon tributes like Bluebird Is Dead and Oh No Not Susan from their take on Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, but it wasn’t until 1974’s Eldorado that Lynne struck on the magic formula, thanks in no small part to his father telling him he was crap. In 1973, after Wood departed to form Wizzard, ELO 2 upped the tune tally, but buried them within lengthy classical structures to mimic a five-movement pop concerto. Though the first ELO song, 10538 Overture, perfected the formula from the off, their 1971 debut album let the classical dominate pop hooks played second fiddle to lengthy baroque evocations of English civil war battles that couldn’t have been more prog if they’d pulled on a fox’s head 24 minutes in and announced supper. ![]() The Move’s Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne first conceived their side-project Electric Light Orchestra as a way to “pick up where the Beatles left off” by bringing classical instruments into their songwriting, but their early experiments lurched lopsidedly between the two. Like meringue mix and Outkast, symphonic pop requires a craftsman’s balance too much of either ingredient and you end up with a watery mess. ![]()
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