OUT OF THE BLUE

This was ELO's most infectious album, which absolutely deserves a four star rating for its excellence. While it may lack the more experimental touches on the band's first 3 albums, this for me was their artistic climax (it was their commercial climax too!) and they never got better than this! It's just packed with very well crafted orchestral pop-rock songs, each with a mini symphony of its own. As for style, there were always some Beatles influences, you can hear some Beach Boy's rock'n'roll-like melodies too among others but always with a twist particularly with the melodic experiments going on. The songs have a very 70's feel of course, but that definitely gives them more character and we had a nice revival of some trendy 70's groove over the last couple of decades that were surely influenced by some kinds of music here, especially from the floating synth driven "The Whale". There are many personal favourites on this whopping double record but the best have to be "Sweet Talkin Women", "Standing In The Rain", the two heartbreaking ballads "Stepping Out", "Believe Me Now" and the most fantastic of all "Mr Blue Sky". Highly recommended!