On November 13th, Jeff Lynne, the founder of the 70’s UK symphonic rock band Electric Light Orchestra, will release the first album of new ELO music in 14+ years – and the first to contain anything recorded in a studio by Jeff in three.
In a recent interview with Mikael Wood in the LA Times, Lynne, 67, discusses the re-birth of the group – now known as Jeff Lynne’s ELO – and the evolution of their new album called Alone In The Universe.
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The last release of original music by the Electric Light Orchestra was on June 12, 2001 with the band’s twelth studio album titled Zoom.
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About the new album, Lynne said in The Times interview:
“Learning those songs was a bit like going to university. I had to sit and play them hundreds of times to get the chord changes and the bass parts and everything.”
And that, he added, led him to try different things with his own songs:
“They’re a little bit more adventurous; they go to places I haven’t been before.”
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This new work also follows two solo album releases by Jeff Lynne – Armchair Theatre and Long Wave in July, 1990 and October, 2012, respectively.
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‘Alone In The Universe’ comes on the heels of this past September’s release of the DVD Jeff Lynne’s ELO: Live In Hyde Park (Post of September 11, 2015) filmed during their performance at BBC Radio 2‘s ‘Festival In A Day’ on September 14, 2014 before 50,000 live fans in London and 1 million watching on the telly.
Many thought it was the success of that performance which prompted Lynne and company to go back into the studio to record some new music, but in The Times article he clarifies that notion:
“I was going to make an album anyway. But, I mean, 50,000 people all going mad and singing along with every song – that was pretty nice.”
Source: LATimes.com
Read the Full Article
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ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY *
The Electric Light Orchestra (1971)
ELO 2 (1973)
On The Third Day (1973)
Eldorado (1974)
Face The Music (1975)
A New World Record (1976)
Out Of The Blue (1977)
Discovery (1979)
Time (1981)
Secret Messages (1983)
Balance Of Power (1986)
Zoom (2001)
Alone In The Universe (2015)
* The 1980 soundtrack album Xanadu contained music by Olivia Newton-John on side one and by Electric Light Orchestra on the other.
Thanks to Margaret Cybulski Murray for research assistance.
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