Blue Sky," which sounds like a weird musical genetic amalgam of various Paul McCartney songs from "All Together Now" through "Another Day" - and even it gets too pretentious in its final minute. All in all, the group was trying too hard to generate a substantial sounding double LP, complete with a suite, "Concerto for a Rainy Day." The latter is the nadir of the album, an effort at conceptual rock that seemed archaic even in 1977, and which is more a vehicle for Jeff Lynne the producer than Jeff Lynne the musician, with the band practically disappearing under the orchestra and overdubs on songs like "Summer and Lightning." The "suite" would be unsalvageable except for the catchy "Mr. "Night in the City" would be a solid enough rock number without the extensive orchestral overdubbing or the synthesizer effects being as invasive as they are "Jungle," which might have been a decent little rocking number, just seems pretentious here with its thickly layered vocals, and "Believe Me Now" scarcely benefits from its synthesizer voice. Those digressions and the heavy sound of the orchestra, as well as the layer upon layer of vocal overdubs, however, also often seem out of place. And much of the rest is very entertaining - "Across the Border" sounds like what would result if the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" and the Beach Boys' Heroes and Villains" had somehow produced an offspring, with some synthesizer digressions and phased drumming typical of mid- to late-'70's progressive rock.
"Sweet Talkin' Woman" (which is a worthy successor to the previous album's "Livin' Thing") and "Turn to Stone," are among the best songs in the group's output. And well more than half is very solid, at least as songs, if not necessarily as recordings. The songs were flowing fast and freely from Jeff Lynne at the time, however, and the idea of a double LP was probably tempting as a chance to release an album that was irrefutably substantial. For starters, it was a double LP, a format that has proved daunting to all but a handful of rock artists. The last ELO album to make a major impact on popular music, Out of the Blue was of a piece with its predecessor, A New World Record, as the most lavishly produced album in the group's history, but it's a much more mixed bag as an album, suffering from overkill in several departments.
0 kommentar(er)
