One record at a time: 94. Electric Light Orchestra - A New World Record

When I was trawling eBay for a copy of "A New World Record" I came across a listing starting at 99p with no bids. I think I ended up paying a couple of pounds by the time the auction closed. I thought I had won an anonymous repressing in dubious condition. However, when the package arrived I was delighted to find the record was actually a 2016 180g "Legacy Vinyl" pressing still in the cellophane. Here I'm playing it for the first time.

"Tightrope" has an impressive orchestral introduction before a very seventies sounding rock song comes bursting through. I always felt the backing vocals on ELO songs were too loud and raw, but once you become familiar with them you can't imagine them being any other way. The second song is also found on the band's "Greatest Hits" CD that I fell in love with back in the late eighties. "Telephone Line" is just the right mix of catchy melody, synthesizer wizardry and brilliant orchestral arrangement to make it a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. I love the telephone style EQ on the introduction and the arrangement is nothing short of genius. I'm not a fan of traditional rock music but "Rockaria!" is so good it cannot be denied. This is a song that rocks with a smile on its face. "Mission (A World Record)" is a fairly run of the mill song but sporadically explodes into a funk break that Bootsy Collins would be proud of.

We start the flip side with "So Fine" which sounds like prototype Yacht Rock until everything suddenly grinds to a halt for an extend percussion break. It's almost as if there are so many musical ideas in Jeff's head that he's just having to get them all out. Yet anther big hit follows with "Livin' Thing" which revives those wonderful LA session backing vocals. I've read people on the internet interpreting the lyrics in all kinds of crazy ways, but to me this song is expressing a perfectly normal sentiment about love and relationships. "Above the clouds" provides the perfect respite from the driving rock singles with its slower tempo and floating melody. Next Jeff resurrects a track he wrote as part of The Move called "Do Ya". Whilst this is a perfectly executed rendition, in the context of this album, the rawness of certain aspects of the composition make it sound like a retrograde step. "Shangri-La" provides a perfect ending using the sound palette of "Telephone Line" but wrapped around a different melody. There is no doubt that every ELO album has improved upon its predecessor but it would take something very special to top "A New World Record". 4/5