Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) is known for popular hits like “Mr. Blue Sky” and “Don’t Bring Me Down,” but their discography is filled with lesser-known gems. Here are ten ELO deep cuts from the band’s discography that are worth checking out:
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The Jam – All Mod Cons was the third album from the pop-rock trio hailing from Woking, England and released in 1978. Consisting of Paul Weller (vocals and guitars), Bruce Foxton (bass and vocals) and Rick Buckler (drums), The Jam were critically acclaimed and commercially successfully in the U.K. for their short recording career viz. 1977 – 1982.
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Queen – News of the World is the next to be featured in our regular feature of classic album reviews. Of course, as usual, what qualifies as a classic album is a matter of opinion and typically, I will highlight albums that I have listened to quite a fair bit in order to ultimately arrive at this particular specific assessment.
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Edge of the Nocturne Sea is the new album from Bittersweet Machines, which is now available for download from Bandcamp.
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Licorice Pizza is a 2021 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It stars Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in their film debuts, alongside an ensemble cast including Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie. The movie has generally been well-received, having been nominated in the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
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This Best David Bowie Albums listicle is probably one of the best ways we could think of to celebrate Bowie’s 75th birthday. We wanted to share personal reflections on these albums and thus limited the selection to five stone cold classics. in our humble opinion. Also, we bit the bullet and ordered this list according to merit. Here goes nothing….
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The Beatles Get Back is a 2021 music documentary series directed and produced by Peter Jackson. It covers the making of the Beatles’ 1970 album Let It Be, which had the working title of Get Back, and draws from material originally captured for Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary of the Let It Be album. The series was released in three parts on Disney+ over the Thanksgiving holidays 2021.
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FUR When You Walk Away
Fur is a British rock band based in Brighton and is intent on recapturing the Britpop excellence of The Beatles, The Kinks, The Jam and Blur. When You Walk Away represents the band’s first full-length album after a series of well-received EPs and singles.
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The Verve Pipe is an American rock band from Michigan. It was formed in 1992 in East Lansing by Brian Vander Ark, Brian Stout and Donny Brown. Threads is the band’s latest album and contains the usual melodic rock that fans have grown accustomed to in its almost three decades’ history.
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The Best Queen Songs of All Time functions – as usual – as our introduction to the music of legendary pop-rock band, Queen. Queen rose out of the ashes of Smile – which Brian May (guitar) and Roger Taylor (drums) formed in university – with Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano) and John Deacon (bass) joining the line-up in 1970 and 1971 respectively.
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The Best ELO Songs of All Time is our concise introduction to the music of the Electric Light Orchestra (aka ELO). The Electric Light Orchestra was formed in 1970 by songwriters-multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood with drummer Bev Bevan. The band was effectively spun out from the final incarnation of the 1960s psych-rock band The Move.
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Steely Dan – Aja is the first to be featured in our new (hopefully) regular feature of classic album reviews. Of course, as usual, what qualifies as a classic album is a matter of opinion and typically, I will highlight albums that I have listened to quite a fair bit in order to ultimately arrive at this particular specific assessment.
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In my recent opinion piece on music appreciation, I opined that music has become less time sensitive in the new media age. So I am starting a new music feature to highlight recommended new (mainly) pop-rock albums on a post-monthly basis. So here it is – Recommended Albums (September 2020). Check them out!
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Since I reviewed his 2017 album, Something/Nothing, English singer-songwriter Nick Frater has been keeping up a steady yearly release schedule with Goodbye Kayfabe (2018), Full Fathom Freight-Train (2019) and his latest Fast & Loose this year. The self-described ‘60s/70s inspired power-pop’ specialist is determinedly prolific, by all accounts.
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I’ll be honest. This new album from The Neighbourhood shook me to the core. Now, this is a proper pop album. Not the shitty 2nd-rate lazy hip-pop that is popular nowadays but an old-school pop album. But with 2020 pop sensibilities. How did this happen?
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The title of the new album from singer-songwriter-musician Eric Barao is an obvious dig at how some people might view his style of music. Which in itself a tragic commentary on the state of modern pop music, when such densely textured, melodically/harmonically fecund work can be dismissed as irrelevant in 2019.
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Music is An Artform is Dead. How and why are the questions.
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After the success of last year’s Sgt Pepper remix reissue, this 50th anniversary edition of my favourite Beatles album was the one to look out for!
It’s impossible to be objective about Bohemian Rhapsody as I have been a Queen fan since 1977.
Mention Styx online and chances are you are going to be trolled. But for a time, the pop-rock quintet were one of the biggest bands on the planet.
It’s been a while since we talked about the key components of Power Pop Rock N Roll. You can catch up on previous instalments concerning Power Pop and Pop. This time – finally – we discuss Pop-Rock!
Songs of Experience is the fourteenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. Released on 1 December 2017, it was produced by Jacknife Lee and Ryan Tedder with Steve Lillywhite, Andy Barlow, Jolyon Thomas, Brent Kutzle, Paul Epworth, Danger Mouse, and Declan Gaffney.
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Photo credit : Mariela T. Huerta
Power pop legend Tommy Keene has passed away “unexpectedly and peacefully in his sleep,” according to his official website.
Big Star!
Music Journalists (and hardcore music fans) like to get themselves in a tizzy about defining genres. But never the artists themselves – in fact, artists hate to be pigeon-holed in such a manner.
Once upon a time, pop and rock came together and made a baby, and its name was Pop-Rock. Very strictly speaking, Pop-Rock is a fusion genre that mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its (typically) guitar-based rock songs. Other genres that bear similar traits would be Powerpop, Melodic Rock, Soft Rock, Jangle Pop, Glam Rock, New Wave, Indie Pop and of course, Rock ’n’ Roll.
