BALANCE OF POWER

Balance of Power was the last ELO album (until Jeff Lynne resurrected it again in 2001), finally fulfilling Lynne's contractual obligations to the record company. At this point, ELO was a trio featuring Lynne, Richard Tandy on keys, and Bev Bevan on drums. Even so, it would seem Lynne did mostly everything on this album including lots of programmed percussion. Balance of Power is just terrible, sounding like a mix of the Cars, Thomas Dolby, and Jethro Tull's Under Wraps album. The orchestra had long been abandoned. The lyrics were inane, childish, and stupid. Musically it was just a mass of digital synths and electronic and programmed drums chugging out bouncy electro-pop garbage. The result was the worst ever ELO album, even worst than the awful Discovery and Xanadu creations.

Lynne would go on to be a big-name producer for the likes of George Harrison, Tom Petty and numerous others. He would even release a solo album using analogue instruments (I guess even he couldn't stand the crap he made on Balance of Power). Bevan would start up a spin-off called ELO Part 2, with Groucutt joining him later, hearkening back to the classic 1970s pop sound the band made.

Balance of Power is for completionists only. ELO fans will have a hard time listening to this. There is no prog rock at all on this, even if you listened to it backwards. One star.