NOSTALGIA TRIP: Electric Light Orchestra - "A New World Record"

 

I never thought of myself as a fan of Electric Light Orchestra.

As a child of the '80s (born in 1976), like many others I fell in love with music in tandem with the meteoric rise of music videos and, as such, my exposure to music pre-1983 or so was limited to chance encounters with a radio on in the background or hearing something my older siblings were spinning. That said, I'm pretty sure my first exposure to E.L.O. was in the form of 1979 single Don't Bring Me Down (though I couldn't tell you for the life of me when I actually heard it, since I was basically a toddler when it came out and my formative music years tend to blur together from this far away). Anyway, I remember hearing it way back when and then never really encountering the band's music on a meaningful level again, save for the odd single playing on the radio. By the time I was fully grown, I knew three of four of the hits and that was the extent of my "fandom".

That's because, by the time I was becoming a ravenous music consumer in the mid '80s, E.L.O.'s star had dimmed considerably, and the TV networks I was glued to had moved away from the bulk of those '70s bands and embraced new wave and hair metal as the music of my generation. When I started buying my own albums, I was fully entrenched in the popular music of the times, be it the sleazy goodness of Guns N' Roses or the poppy excesses of Roxette; so as to say, my tastes were expanding but not looking to the past beyond the absolute staples of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc. In my underdeveloped mind, E.L.O. got lumped in with the yacht rock of Journey and the like, which was even less cool than Roxette (hot take: still is).

At this point, it seems silly for me to fully recount my musical discovery journey over the near forty years that follow this story's current timeline, so let's save some of the storytime for another time, and skip to the pandemic. By 2020, I was a seasoned music lover well into his forties, with a still-evolving passion for discovering new music to experience. The thing was, rock music was starting to get a little stale (which gives me an idea for another column but, seeing as how this is my second post in the last couple of years, let's temper our expectations); the bands I fell in love with through my impressionable teen years had mostly died off and/or been putting out subpar offerings, the newer bands I had clung to during my second big wave of discovery (from, say, 2005 to 2010) had started showing cracks in their discographies, and the entire world was about to shut down for an indeterminate period of time.

So, with what turned out to be a couple of months off and not much of anything new to take in, I found myself with no choice but to go backward. Sure, there were a few bands of a more modern ilk that I found during this period, as well as a handful of fantastic new albums that came out at the outset of the pandemic, but more often than not I was taking it back to "the before times", looking for artists I hadn't given a fair shake to due to ignorance, happenstance, etc. I started rifling through old RPM Canada charts from long ago, perusing the charts and checking out hits of the olden days to bide the time. This is how I became a fan of Flower Traveling Band, a crew of Japanese ex-pats that brought their love of Black Sabbath to Toronto in the early '70s and released Satori, which deserves its own write-up if I ever get truly ambitious with this thing again. Stevie Wonder, whose entire career boiled down to one of his worst songs in my mind (having I Just Called to Say I Love You drilled into my 8-year old brain turned me off of his music from childhood), revealed his genius to me when I finally got to experience his God-tier run of incredible albums from Music of My Mind through Songs in the Key of Life.

So, by the time I got to go back to work in May 2020, my playlist had grown considerably in diversity and time periods covered. And, I noticed I had added a lot of songs by Electric Light Orchestra, huge hits that I had heard in passing through the years but hadn't registered as the bangers they were; this led me to checking out some of their full albums, one of which being the one I will finally discuss now after five paragraphs of preamble that, if we think about it, are more the point of this new column I'm calling Nostalgia Trip. 

The fast facts: releasing in October of 1976, A New World Record is the sixth E.L.O. album, coming less than five years after their first. It bears mentioning just how prolific artists used to be, no? Anyway, A New World Record marks a sort of shift in the band's discography, a moment that built on what came before perhaps more effectively than any of their other records while also signalling what was to come next more effectively as well. To this point in their career, E.L.O. had evolved from somewhat proggy beginnings into crafters of fine hooks and uplifting harmonies; you know, what we classically consider as the Jeff Lynne sound. See, the previous year had seen the band's first true taste of success, the platinum Face the Music, bolstered by its pair of monster singles in Strange Magic and Evil Woman. The rest of the album had its moments, of course, but the pop tendencies hadn't become the focal point. Yet.

A New World Record comes out of the gate in top form, with the lavish intro of Tightrope morphing into a glammy slice of pop bliss. It's followed by Telephone Line, which is about as Beatles as a non-Beatle can get without facing lawsuits; it's a timeless ballad that absolutely soars. Then, there's the juiced-up homage to old time rock n' roll that is Rockaria! (complete with an operatic intro that just fits), and the quasi title track Mission [A World Record] acting as the spaciest and perhaps most atmospheric song on offer here.

The album's B-side is also strewn with riches, with So Fine bringing some choogling energy and funk flourishes before the dramatic power pop perfection that is Livin' Thing; it's also deceptively experimental, like many of E.L.O.'s best songs; it's just so excellent at every whim it follows that it all feels natural and classic at this point. Above the Clouds can't possibly reach the same heights (pun intended), content to float by quickly and give way to the next smash hit. Do Ya, written by Lynne for his previous band The Move, is clearly distinguishable as a product of the early '70s with its glam riffage and thick harmonies smacking more of T. Rex than The Beatles, and it makes for a nice slab of pure rock satisfaction as we head toward the exits. Album closer Shangri-La, the only song that stretches past the five minute mark, is less Lennon-McCartney and more Harrison, and it makes for a fine dénouement for the album; think of it like a more sprawling, slightly weirder cousin to Telephone Line. 

As the more-or-less accepted turning point in E.L.O.'s discography, where the prog-rock influences give way to lusher instrumentation and sharper hooks, A New World Record was setting a benchmark that seemed quite lofty; they finally achieved platinum certification here (double platinum in Canada), and I'm sure some thought they could never top it. However, not only did they do the album one better the following year with Out of the Blue (thanks largely to the eternal smash Mr. Blue Sky), but they would close out the decade with Discovery, their most successful album and the home of the song that marked my first exposure to the band. They would enter the '80s as one of the biggest bands in the world, only to be all but forgotten in a matter of years thanks to video killing all of those radio stars.

It goes to show, life happens fast, especially in the world of music. Which is why I'm glad I was afforded some idle time to discover, listen, and appreciate some music that could have remained mere footnotes in my mind and been forgotten in the wastes of time. I suppose that's why I decided to write this column, to share that discovery with whoever may read this, and perhaps inspire some discovery of your own. If not this album or artist, maybe there's another you've had on your personal back burner, something you kept meaning to check out but never got around to.

Life's too short. Maybe now is the time to take that Nostalgia Trip. Thanks for reading.