A NEW WORLD RECORD

I have to agree with the previous reviewers misgivings about ELO'S 'prog' credentials. Having said that, being one who enjoys 'syrupy', commercial, heavily orchestrated pop music, I'm happy to have the chance to comment here. This album is all the foregoing. Other than 'Do Ya', which I find slightly irritating/banal, I dont' think there's a dud on this album.

If I'm feeling a bit depressed and want to hear an album that will lift my mood, this is the first one I think of. However, I don't play it so often because like the other reviewer who misses 1976, for me too it was a golden time, gone forever, so I don't want to live too often in the past. Anyway, I find myself singing along passionately to virtually all of this album.

The opening track 'Tightrope' is a scorcher, with some borrowings from a famous piece of classical music, and some urgent string sounds that cut through the air with the chillingness like the sound effects in 'psycho', but upbeat. The songs 'Telephone Line', 'Rockaria' and 'Living Thing' all made the British Top 10. For singing along to, I like 'Telephone Line' best, and don't know how anyone could not like that song.

All the remaining songs are commercial enough that they sound like they could have been hits too, and that's what this album oozes, top class commerial pop songs.

So, for what it is, and the powers that be have it on this progressive site (so, that makes it 'progerssive'), on that understanding, I think this is an essential album, a top notch representative of it's type.