May 11, 2009
I’ve listened to a lot of rock & roll in my time, but I’m not very big on “guilty pleasures.” During the Seventies, when I knew guys who were slobbering over Kiss, Rush, and Boston, my closest friends and I were into the Beatles, Springsteen, Dylan, and Randy Newman. A traditionalist at heart, I also dabbled in Phil Spector and classic doo-wop. Although I’d occasionally get suckered in by some big dumb fish of a hit single, I feel safe in my belief that I mostly focused on The Good Stuff. That’s not to say, though, that everything I listened to was earth shattering in its depth and originality.
There was always the Electric Light Orchestra. Led by singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer Jeff Lynne, ELO was part two of an attempt to take up the gauntlet thrown down by John Lennon when he shat out “I Am the Walrus,” aka the biggest load of twaddle the Fab Four ever turned into a counterculture event. Grating, poorly recorded, and filled to bursting with utterly meaningless surrealistic jibber-jabber, “I Am the Walrus” is the sort of thing that makes pop fans feel intellectual because there’s little precedent for it and it’s stridently pointless. You know— it must be art or something.
A lot of people fell for the charade, though, including Lynne, who first tasted success in a self-consciously “heavy” British band called the Move. Although the Move could rock & roll in the standard manner, its leader, Roy Wood, slowly started forming the idea of incorporating “Walrus”-style violins and cellos into a four-on-the-floor rock format. In the meantime, he and his mates chugged enough like the Who to garner a string of hit singles in Europe (America apparently had other things to do.)
Over time, the Move evolved into ELO, with Wood and Lynne serving as co-leaders. But it wasn’t long before Wood wanted to add jazz saxophone solos (!), so he packed his pretensions in his old kit bag, making Lynne ELO’s sole Big Kahuna.
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Initially, ELO’s albums were burdened by sawing classical interludes that wavered uneasily between mind numbing and completely idiotic. About four records into the breach, however, Lynne’s pop instincts finally took over, and ELO became the most successful band on the planet, releasing a series of sonically inventive singles that sparkled brightly on Top Forty radio, like ABBA with a Chuck Berry bent. Wood’s string section was still there, but it supplied hooks rather than the impetus to take a long nap, and Lynne obviously learned a thing or two from the Beatles when it came to writing melodies. In a word, ELO’s best songs were catchy, the way a radio song should be.
As popular as they were, it’s hard to find a decent picture of the band onstage. To millions of listeners, ELO was merely a cool (albeit corporate) logo and a studio-thickened sound…and a lot of people hated them for their commercial-driven facelessness. Admittedly, any band that can record a song called “The Diary of Horace Wimp,” or a cheesy synthesizer opus called “The Whale,” deserves its fair share of ridicule. But the hits were the hits, and I still hear the hitness in them when I play them on my iPod.
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In recent years, Lynne has obviously been renting out ELO’s catalogue to any movie or TV commercial producer who comes knocking. So it’s surprising that, as far as I know, no one has gotten around to co-opting what I consider to be the band’s most successful single, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” (it was originally released on blue vinyl, not that you could tell while listening to it.)
"Sweet Talkin' Woman"
The biggest breakthrough on “Sweet Talkin’ Woman,” when measured against ELO’s previous hits, is the vaguely satirical sound of the string quartet that briefly opens the tune. Once the band kicks in, all jingle-jangle and sparkles, the strings become just another part of the effervescence.
The melody, featuring a gorgeous slide into a minor key, is almost damnably catchy— the first time you hear it, it’s bound to rent office space in your brain for a while. And the arrangement, which sports a driving piano figure and human voices blurting out the “bass” line (a dead lift from the Beatles’ “I Will”), leaves space for individual instruments to stand out while still creating the illusion of a Wall of Sound.
Listen to “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” in the car, in other words, and it’s a blast. Put on a good set of headphones, and it’s even more enjoyable. This is the ol’ pure pop for now people, a bouncy, shiny thing that glistens from every angle. It sold like hotcakes, and still sounds surprisingly warm and good-humored for what amounts to a piece of product.
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Lynne eventually started pandering to the disco crowd— there’s a lot of mechanized foolishness on the band’s last couple of records, and he’s responsible for the execrable soundtrack to “Xanadu.” But ELO’s beautifully re-mastered greatest hits package, “All Over the World,” and a few cuts from “A New World Record” (1976) and “Out of the Blue” (1977), are first-rate Seventies pop. Luckily, modern-day downloading enables you to avoid the dross.
"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle"
Start with “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle,” the band’s earliest hit. A down-and-dirty stomper that even features the sound of Lynne spitting on the ground during the opening guitar riff, it’s an atypical tune for these guys, sort of a cross between Cream and Led Zeppelin, but with cellos and a sense of humor.
"Livin' Thing"
Then there’s “Livin’ Thing” a plucked-violin confection that suggests it has Linda McCartney on backing vocals (Beatlemania is one thing, but you really have to be into McCartney to systematically duplicate vocal stylings from “Ram.”)
"All Over the World"
And, just to be fair, “All Over the World” is both a disco tune and a cut from “Xanadu,” and it’s full of playful life, a really enjoyable song.
That should get you started. But, really, dig through the samples on the albums I mentioned. You’re bound to find things that are to your liking. And some that definitely aren’t.
Oh, by the way…
I still have this belt buckle in a box somewhere.
Download: "Sweet Talkin' Woman" by ELO. Album: “All Over the World: The Very Best of the Electric Light Orchestra” (released in 2005). Then hit the other tunes mentioned in this article, and keep an eye open for both "Do Ya" (on "A New World Record") and "Sweet is the Night" (on "Out of the Blue") while searching for nuggets that suit your particular sweet tooth. "Strange Magic" is nice, too. Sorry. They're just sort of popping up in my head.
Paul Tatara
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taser8:
ELO's album "Time" was my absolute favorite album my first year in college; I love listening to it still, with all its "futuristic" references, like "Remember the good old 1980's, when things were so uncomplicated...". And 2001's "Zoom" was actually a really good ELO album as well!
xacerb8:
I have a vague memory of seeing ELO in concert in Indianapolis at some point during my high school career. There was a robot. And smoke.
I don't think I'll ever be able to hear "Don't Bring Me Down" without massive flashbacks to the local roller rink and my feathery bangs.
Dana