DISCOVERY

Before you are shocked by the rating of this review, let me contextualize a bit... this time, I don't want to focus on the technical or the commercial lowlights that ELO proved to enact with this work, I'm going to talk about how I lived with this album since I was a kid.

It's probably one of the few reviews I'll do in this way, but I think it's the best way to do it.

When I was a kid, all my father made me listen to was 80s songs and hits, Queen, Dire Straits, Men At Work. As well as showing his admiration and always remarkable amazement for the symbols of prog, Yes, TAPP (Alan Parsons & Eric Woolfson), Vox Dei, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, and many more bands. I was always curious about a specific band; ELO was my first pure emotional approach to music. As a consequence of several moves, my father lost many records and vinyls throughout his life, today he probably doesn't have even half of his original number of records bought... But, thank God, he wasn't robbed of the record that I still identify with the most. Discovery was the first listen that made me cry, jump, laugh, worry, and various emotions that are hard to explain. Even though this album can't be considered a prog masterpiece by many people, I consider that it IS, and firmly, a masterpiece and my favourite project of Jeff Lynne's incredible band.

The love-filled lyrics, that make you feel so strongly special things for that person that it keeps going round and round in your head ad nauseam, the melodies so flooded in nostalgia and hope with drops of perseverance and adventurous incitement to want to listen to EVERY SINGLE THING that sounds in every song, because every song has thousands of beautiful and perfect details that, together, make every part of this album sound endearing and instantly recognizable to every person who has heard it and felt the lyrics and rhythms as much as I have.

Over the years I have lived all kinds of sensations, feelings, experiences, phrases, talks, laughs, cries, fears, reliefs, surprises, all kinds of situations that generally impact and change one, sometimes completely or in large part generating a strict and notorious turn of margin in our mind, which makes us rethink many things. And through all that I have just mentioned, I have never stopped listening to Discovery over time, because it is a work that accompanies me day and night with its lyrics and its mystical and essential magic for any music lover or music lover (I can relate, haha). I can say, clearly and proudly, that there is no better medicine, talking about music of course, than a song that touches your soul with the situation you are going through, as if it had been composed thinking about you... And it seems that this album reflects so many feelings, that it makes you think that it was made for you! Because ELO knew how to adapt the music to the human heart and walk to the skin-deep touch that embraces our mind and body day by day.

It is definitely my favourite album of all time, and one of the most pro-love, pro-dream projects I have ever heard and admired. There is no greater thrill for me than that of a start-to-finish listen to Discovery, from the shifting, sensual melody of "Shine a Little Love" to the solid, walking rhythm and salsa that pours out "Don't Bring me Down" to close the album.

A beautiful aural and emotional journey through the intrepid and virtuosic routes of one of my favourite bands. Discovery is a masterpiece, by ELO, a master band. Thanks for reading.