Out of the Blue

YES

Have you ever found yourself wondering: What would it have sounded like if the Beatles kept making music together in the 70s? This album is the answer.

It was fun enough but I found nothing extremely exciting about it to be honest. It was pretty ok.

Miiisteeer Bluueee Skyyyyy-ayyyy

Fun fun fun! Breezed through this

I have enjoyed every ELO single I’ve ever heard but had never listened to any of the albums. I was excited when this one came up, but then felt disappointed the first time through. I had actually expected it to go much harder in the weird prog rock outer space direction than it does. Folks expressed so much adulation for Jeff Lynne’s songwriting, though, that I decided to go back and listen a few times over the weekend.

I think that this time through, I got the gist. I buy everything about ELO being a kind of continuation of the Beatles and especially McCartney style songwriting. I ended up humming bit of “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” and “Starlight.” Cool, okay, glad I tried it again.

Yet it’s still a four for me because as much as I love the tunes, I just don’t believe enough in the idea that every rock song would be better with strings attached. There’s no question that the sound Lynne created works on ELO’s biggest hits… I had to warn my wife in advance that I’d be singing “Mr. Blue Sky” all weekend. But to me it limits my overall enjoyment. There’s a specific mood in which I turn to “Mr. Blue Sky” or “Living Thing” and sure, now I might turn to this album instead. Yet it doesn’t feel like it re-programmed my brain in the same way some of the other five star albums have done.

I’m glad it’s there, it makes me smile, but that’s about it. “Hey you with the pretty face…”

Hey look it's the Disco Space Beatles throwing everything at the wall and having a real good time - even if over half the ideas are hitting the floor with a big poopy splat. That's still a 50% chance of a good time though.

Buckle up, it's time for an incredibly Jeff Lynne experience!

1001 Albums Vol. 0011: Out Of The Blue
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Introduction: Well, I'm pretty sure this is going to break the streak of 9 and 10's I've been giving for the past five to six albums. I don't think this album will be bad by any means. I, in fact, believe that I will probably give it around a 7 or 8, yet I've already heard quite a bit of this album due to a specific person in my life. They're a huge fan of rock and its subgenres. They especially love rock that feels and sounds ambitious and big. I listened to the first few seconds of Turn to Stone and immediately knew that I had heard it before. Some other notable melodies came flowing back to me after those first few seconds. From my memory, most of what I heard was pretty decent to pretty good. There are some examples of songs that I remember as being great. I think that everyone should know at least one song that I find great. Anyway, bias and history aside, this album was released in 1977 by ELO or Electric Light Orchestra. I'm honestly kinda glad I know what to expect from this album, as the Wikipedia rip this website decided to use literally says nothing about the album other than it was extremely successful. Now, this success is for pretty understandable reasons. Firstly, this album is pop rock at its core. Audiences love pop. Secondly and more importantly, this album has a very unique tone to it. If I'm remembering correctly, this album contains an oddly futuristic tone that almost makes each song sound as if you would hear them while on a high-tech space-station. There's just a lot of sonic experimentation, altering production, and unique instrumentation that provide this feeling of a high-tech futuristic world akin to what you would see on Star Wars. Kinda funny that we went from a bleak and depressing future in our previous album to the exact opposite. I guess an optimistic future might have just been a product of the 70's. The time before it seemed like AI was going to take over. Anyway, I'm getting very off topic, the point is, this album has a futuristic tone to it that sounds very distinct to ELO. Other than that, I don't really have anything else to say about this album. Let's just get into it.
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Track 1: Turn to Stone Score: 10/10
Track 2: It's Over Score: 7/10
Track 3: Sweet Talkin' Woman Score: 9/10
Track 4: Across the Border Score: 7/10
Track 5: Night in the City Score: 8/10
Track 6: Starlight Score: 7/10
Track 7: Jungle Score: 5/10
Track 8: Believe Me Now Score: 6/10
Track 9: Steppin' Out Score: 8/10
Track 10: Standin' in the Rain Score: 9/10
Track 11: Big Wheels Score: 9/10
Track 12: Summer and Lightning Score: 9/10
Track 13: Mr. Blue Sky Score: 11/10
Track 14: Sweet Is the Night Score: 8/10
Track 15: The Whale Score: 9/10
Track 16: Birmingham Blues Score: 6/10
Track 17: Wild West Hero Score: 6/10
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Conclusion: Some of what I remember of this album was correct, yet a lot of what I imagined was completely incorrect. There wasn't as much of a futuristic vibe as I thought there would be. I would even call some songs...Jungle...as sounding pretty damn primitive. There were certainly some songs that fit my prediction of this album pretty well, yet the majority were completely different from what I was expecting. There were a lot of songs that I could swear I never heard before as well. I guess I may have just heard a compilation release by the band before or something as I know I've heard a few songs before. That aside, this album has its ups and downs. I will not be the first person to say that Side C of this album is absolutely incredible. It's some of the best pop rock songs I've ever heard, yet the rest of the album is pretty mixed. Musically, this album has a very, very distinct vibe from what you would hear from most other artists. The instrumentation, the odd vocals, the distinct quick violin, the orchestral and progressive structure of many songs, and so much more make ELO have such a distinct and easily recognizable sound. Speaking of progressive, almost every song on this album is progressive in some form. I'm a big fan of progressive tracks when done right, yet many songs on this album sometimes feel a bit too overbearing for their own good. There is a clear chorus and clear verses in most songs, yet the amount of instrumentation introduced creates songs that sound almost completely different when at their end then at their beginning. It almost feels as if I'm listening to songs that completely break typical song structure. The best comparison I can make is comparing many of these songs to Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) or Long Hot Summer Night both by Jimi Hendrix. It will almost certainly require multiple listens for one to simply grasp the basic structure of a singular song off this album. What is the chorus, what is a verse, that kinda thing. Nevertheless, there are many, many moments of musical genius on this album. I could list an endless amount of moments, yet I'll point to the most popular song on this album: Mr. Blue Sky. This song has such an overwhelmingly happy tone to it. It maintains the progressive, orchestral, grand, and alien-like feeling of the album all the while. I mean, the songwriting, instrumentation, vocals, are all perfectly executed on the song to create something that honestly couldn't be reorganized to create anything any better. Listening to this album in its entirety gave me a completely new perspective on this song as well. I knew the song was about happiness, yet a lot of the lyrics didn't make sense while out of context of the three previous tracks. Like I briefly mentioned above, I consider Side C of this album to be a masterpiece. This one side of the album decided to do something completely unique from the other three. It decided to have a general concept. This is a bit of a weird inclusion in an album in which three other sides are unconnected tracks, yet this is the best part of the album so I'm not complaining. This side of the album touches on the theme of depression and the escape from it. It begins with Standin' in the Rain, a track that describes someone in a deep state of sadness, and ultimately concludes with their escape into happiness with Mr. Blue Sky. This side uses weather as a metaphor for their depression as well. Like I said, this side of the album is a masterpiece. It's some of the best pop rock I have ever heard. With that out of the way, I guess I'll touch on the album's vocals. The lead singer is alright. He's not too distinct in his voice. He sounds great, yet I wouldn't call him my favorite singer of all time by a lot. Now, the backup singer's voices are something completely different. I don't know if any effects were used on their voices, but they sound amazing and distinct. Their high-pitched and almost slurred tone is simply iconic. The robotic voice that occasionally shows up throughout the album is incredible as well. The way it alternates in pitch so rapidly combined with its slight echo create yet another iconic element of ELO's music. It's great for the most part. Lyrically, this album is pretty good as well. I wouldn't go so far as to call every line incredible. It's just barely above average for the most part. With all that said, despite having many ups and downs, I find this album to be overall pretty enjoyable. It's certainly far from my favorites of all time, yet it's an album that I guess I might come back to from time to time...probably not....Anyway, it's still good. It's one of the only pop rock albums from this era of music that I could honestly even label as good.
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Out Of The Blue Score: 8/10
Song Average: 7.9/10

Oh dear if you’d asked me before this i’d have said this was a really good if not great album, however outside of sweet talkin woman and mr blue sky it’s just a bit overblown and samey for me.

I should caveat this by declaring i was not in the best mood when listening to it, but this did nothing to change that.

Big wheels feels at times like a first draft of Mr Blue Sky, which would be bad enough if MBS was two tracks later.

ELO: a band my Mum loves so much, she regularly goes to see an ELO tribute band.

I'm certainly not going to go those extremes but I did enjoy this. There are some interesting instrumental choices, with really different changes of direction at random points in songs. I love the multilayer vocals.and the piano.

The strings/guitar on Night In The City sound almost exactly like the Orchestra version of Pinball Wizard at one part, which I found a bit distracting (parts of Standing In The Rain also reminded me of Tommy). It's too long (though I'm sure that if I were an ELO fan I'd be wishing it was triple album).

I'm a fan of a lot of weird, goofy, theatrical artists (TMBG, Barenaked Ladies, Will Wood, Bear Ghost) and I'd be genuinely amazed if they weren't all big ELO fans. I was wavering between a 3 and a 4 throughout this listen, but I'm settling on a 3 as I don't like the more plodding ballardy tracks anywhere near as much as the upbeat ones. It was so close though.

3/5

pa u stvari dosta dobro. ugodno iznenađen

Electric Light Orchestra is such a good name for their giant sounds produced by synth and rock instrumentation. The subject being frivolous just adds to the fun.

Not the Beatles or Pink Floyd. But listening to it.

Straddling the line between hella catchy and hella cheesy

ELO...just fun music. Used to be a guilty pleasure, but who really cares anymore? Just a pleasure now. 4/5

ELO is so underrated

Lush and otherworldly as always. ELO is one of my faves.

If Beatles were to continue being together, they'd sound like ELO, maybe, according to some. Just fantastic.

Just pure 70’s greatness. What a vibe

I particularly enjoyed the high energy opening track Turn to Stone which has an gorgeous pairing of basic, bubbly electronics with neat pop rock instrumentation and fun, flirty vocals. The following track It's Over also stands out in a dreamy, sophisticated and nostalgic kind of way.

I'd love to be able to say that there is a track which usurps Mr. Blue Sky, but it stands head and shoulders above the rest - truly iconic.

Its a strong album which is a touch too long. You could happily lose 10 minutes collectively from sides B and D.