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 Results - The ELO Quickie Rate |
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 27th August 2020, 06:32 PM
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#21
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 Say that hiss with your chest, and...
Joined: 24 May 2016
Posts: 18,472 User: 23,308 
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This post has been edited by TheSnake: 27th August 2020, 06:32 PM |
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27th August 2020, 06:32 PM
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#22
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Say that hiss with your chest, and...
Joined: 24 May 2016
Posts: 18,472 User: 23,308
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I really like the high energy of Turn To Stone which makes it stand out in their discography. It is such a great disco dancefloor tune.
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27th August 2020, 06:44 PM
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#23
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 BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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11. Showdown
Popchartfreak 7 points Released in September 1973,Showdown is the only ELO single not to be included on a studio album. It reached number 12 in the UK. It has a funky/bluesy sort of sound to it and was a favourite song at the time of John Lennon. |
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27th August 2020, 07:08 PM
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#24
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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10. Shine A Little Love
AH Gold 1, Crazy Chris 4, Steve201 2 = 7 points 'Shine A Little Love' was the opening track on ELO's first no.1 album 'Discovery' and the first single to be taken from it in May 1979. It was fourth consecutive single by the group to reach number 6 (if you exclude an EP of earlier songs) and has an energetic disco sound to it. It returned to the charts in 2005 as a dance remix by Lovefreekz called 'Shine' which repeated the number 6 chart position. |
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27th August 2020, 07:16 PM
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#25
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Say that hiss with your chest, and...
Joined: 24 May 2016
Posts: 18,472 User: 23,308
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Showdown is good, yes it is quite Rolling Stones-esque but when you hear the signature violins you know it is ELO.
There were quite a few dance remixes of old songs in the charts in the mid 00s. Both the original Shine a Little Love and Shine by Lovefreekz I both used to like more but went off them when they were overplayed as soundbeds on TV talent shows such as Britain's Got Talent. However I like them both more now again. |
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28th August 2020, 06:32 PM
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#26
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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9. Confusion
TheSnake 4, Popchartfreak 1, Crazy Chris 2, diva thin muffin 2 = 9 points 'Confusion' was the fourth top 10 single from the 'Discovery' album,reaching number 8,as a double A side with 'Last Train To London'. This is another one of my favourites that I couldn't fit into my own vote so I'm pleased to see as many as four people vote for it. I like the keyboards and drums on this one and the echo effect on Jeff's vocal which makes it sound so reverberant. The two cello players,Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale,appear in all the videos for the 'Discovery' singles but they didn't actually play on the album and they were dismissed from the group afterwards. |
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28th August 2020, 07:14 PM
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#27
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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8. Yours Truly, 2095
TheSnake 10 points This is an unexpectedly high position for 'Yours Truly, 2095' but I'm happy so see it in the top 10. It's the third track on the 'Time' album and is about a feminine robot that the main character in the album's story encounters in the year 2095. Fembots are being designed and built right now so there is no doubt that they will be around in 2095. There seem to be half a dozen unofficial videos for the song. Having a quick look through them,this seems to be the best one even if it's the only one that doesn't have a robot in it. It's a perfume commercial and the actress is dancing to a different song but it seems to fit this song so well. |
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28th August 2020, 07:31 PM
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#28
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Say that hiss with your chest, and...
Joined: 24 May 2016
Posts: 18,472 User: 23,308
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Confusion is a brilliant ballad which certainly stands out from their usual uptempo tracks.
Yours Truly, 2095 is such a great disco tune, I have heard the Time album because my father has it and it is easily my favourite track on it. It should have been released as the lead single from the Time album I think, and yes it did sound relevant enough for the time as Duran Duran were doing a similar style of production with 'My Own Way' about the same time... |
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28th August 2020, 07:48 PM
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#29
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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7. The Diary Of Horace Wimp
Crazy Chris 10 points Another single from 'Discovery' and this one also got to number 8. It's a whimsical tale of a timid man who gains confidence in finding a wife after hearing a "voice from above". When asked why Saturday is missed out,Jeff explained that Horace goes to the football on Saturdays. The last minute in particular is very Beatlesque in its sound. There is a very good unofficial video that someone has made that I've seen before so I'm including that as well as the official one. |
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29th August 2020, 04:29 PM
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#30
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,851 User: 17,376
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Showdown was my 2nd ELO chart-topper aged 15 as I started a new school in Gloucester, and it reminded me of Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through The Grapevine. As Jeff is a bit of a musical magpie at times, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a deliberate homage! You're right though, that it's soulful, and it's no surprise that John Lennon was a fan - Jeff often sounded like The Beatles more Lennon-y stuff.
Shine A Little Love was disco catchy, and hit my top 3, but has never been amongst my fave ELO tracks, although everything is relative, top 3 is still great! Confusion I adore, and the other side Last Train To London was fab enough in it's own right. Playing it along loudly in my College room on campus for my final year, with Bev upstairs stamping on the ceiling if I got too loud when she was in. Like me, from mansfield, I traumatised Bev so much she's now married to, and is, a reverend working in Mid-Wales. My loud music has a lot to answer for  Yours Truly I don't know but it sounds good! I didn't buy albums in those days (went for the singles, although I'd got vinyl copies of the first ELO album - 2ndhand - and Out Of The Blue, a xmas present from my brother). I later got vinyl A New World Record, Secret Messages, Greatest Hits, Vol 2, and Armchair Theatre. And about a year ago I got the CD box set (at last!) of On The 3rd Day, Face The Music, A New World Record, Discovery & Time - so I can play them all at long last and listen to Yours Truly in glorious stereo now I have a new amp and new cd player.  So, just the 2nd album, Xanadu to go, and the recent ones. Love Horace Wimp, peaked at 4 in my charts during an all-time classic period for singles, the chart was chock a block with records that deserved to be number one at that time, not least Abba, Boomtown Rats, Police, Cliff and many others. I was working in a hosiery warehouse that had radio 1 on all-day so they are all ingrained firmly into my mind forever 
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29th August 2020, 04:46 PM
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#31
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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Listening to 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine',I can hear the resemblance now. It hadn't occurred to me before.
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29th August 2020, 06:58 PM
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#32
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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6. Eldorado
King Rollo 10 points The musical instruments on ELO's first three albums were all played by the group but they used an orchestra for the first time on the next album,'Eldorado',which was a concept album about a man who is always daydreaming to escape his mundane reality. The title track gets my own 10 points. It's an epic sounding ballad with Jeff singing his heart out in the three choruses,particularly the last one,and backed by the choir. The song is best heard with the Eldorado Overture which follows it and this clip includes both tracks. |
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29th August 2020, 07:22 PM
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#33
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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5. Sweet Talkin' Woman
AH Gold 7, Dexton 4, Crazy Chris 1 = 12 points Sweet Talkin' Woman was the third single to be released from 'Out Of The Blue' and reached number 6. It's a catchy string led pop song with lots of high and low pitched backing vocals. Jeff did most of the backing vocals himself but when ELO played live,bass guitar player Kelly Groucutt contributed a lot to the vocals. We sadly lost Kelly in 2009,aged 63. |
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29th August 2020, 07:56 PM
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#34
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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4. Don't Bring Me Down
Dexton 7, TheSnake 1, diva thin muffin 4, dandy* 7 = 19 points This was the first single I ever bought. I actually bought two at the same shop,with the other one being Cars by Gary Numan. It reached no.3 over here and no.1 in Canada while in the US,it got to no.4 and remains as the group's only top 5 single there. There are no strings on this one but there's still plenty going on production wise. It's always been a live favourite with the audience singing along. The made up word "Groose" has often been misheard as Bruce. The sound right at the end is a fire door at the studio slamming shut. |
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29th August 2020, 08:01 PM
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#35
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Say that hiss with your chest, and...
Joined: 24 May 2016
Posts: 18,472 User: 23,308
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Don't Bring Me down is more Status Quo sounding than ELO. Good song, I too thought they referred to Bruce originally. Sweet Talkin Woman is a nice song too.
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30th August 2020, 11:39 AM
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#36
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,851 User: 17,376
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"a concept album about a man who is always daydreaming to escape his mundane reality" that's me that is
, looking forward to getting to know this one on the CD box set. Sweet Talking Woman topped my charts for 4 weeks a big ol pop fave, and Don;t Bring Me Down I bought in the USA at the time on single, and it still reminds me of 5 students driving down sunkissed desert highways in California & Nevada singing along to it. "GROOSE!" indeed from the days when US commercial radio was just the absolute tops... 
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30th August 2020, 06:51 PM
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#37
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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3. Livin' Thing
AH Gold 10, Popchartfreak 10, Steve201 1, dandy* 2 = 23 points I was 11 years old when Livin' Thing came out and I think it was probably this song that made me first take notice of ELO. It was played on the radio quite a lot and gave the group their first top 5 hit,reaching number 4. Patti Quatro (sister of Suzi) is on backing vocals. In 2006,the song was named as the number 1 'Guilty Pleasure' of all time by Q magazine. Two years before that,a cover version by the Beautiful South reached number 24. |
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30th August 2020, 07:23 PM
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#38
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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2. Xanadu
AH Gold 4, Steve201 7, diva thin muffin 7, Jester 7 = 25 points The only doubt in this top 3 was which song would finish in 2nd place. Xanadu finishes 2 points ahead of Livin' Thing. It's ELO's only UK number 1 single. They were always unlikely to have a no.1 on their own but Olivia Newton-John's popularity pushed the single to the top of the chart in 1980 where it stayed for two weeks. I'm assuming you all voted for the original version. Jeff Lynne re-recorded the song in 2000 with the lead vocal by himself and it's that version that appears on 'All Over The World : The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra' which reached number 1 on the UK albums chart in 2016,eleven years after it was released. When asked by Simon Mayo in 2017 what the favourite song he had written was,Jeff said it was Xanadu. He likes the chords in it. He talks about chords a lot in his interviews. I'm posting both versions here. |
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30th August 2020, 08:02 PM
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#39
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 3 January 2017
Posts: 10,162 User: 23,961
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1. Mr Blue Sky
King Rollo 7, Dexton 10, Crazy Chris 7, Steve201 10, diva thin muffin 10, Jester 10, dandy* 10 = 64 points It comes as no surprise that Mr Blue Sky finishes in 1st place,with a commanding lead of 39 points. It's certainly ELO's signature song,known to all generations. What is perhaps less well known is that it's the final part of a suite of four songs which make up the 'Concerto For A Rainy Day' on side three of 'Out Of The Blue' which explains the "please turn me over" vocoder message at the end of the track. Jeff Lynne was inspired to write those four songs by the dark and misty weather outside the chalet in the Swiss Alps he had rented to write the album. There is an official video for the song but the one I now watch is this one. At the closing ceremony of the 2018 Commonwealth Games,held in Australia,there was a short segment given over to the 2022 host city,Birmingham. As it was night time in Australia,it was early morning in Birmingham when this performance to Mr Blue Sky was shown live. The choreography and camerawork is amazing here with hundreds of people taking part and the same camera being used throughout. It must have taken months of preparation and only one small mistake was made. |
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31st August 2020, 09:13 AM
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#40
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 18 July 2012
Posts: 22,851 User: 17,376
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Thanks for running this Rollo! I adore Livin' Thing, Sarah Cox back in radio 1 days chose this as her regular guilty pleasure. For me, there is no guilt! Winter of '76/'77, snow-covered Mansfield, and I was alternating between this, Yvonne Elliman's Love Me and Abba's Money Money Money as my chart-topping loves. In the long run, it's ELO that wins out....
Xanadu was the last record I bought at Uni as we all broke up to go our own ways, so it's sweet-sad for me. I love Livvy too. The film has 3 things going for it: Livvy, ELO, Gene Kelly. That's about it. Mr Blue Sky is still Guardians Of The Galaxy fresh. Out Of The Blue is an album everyone should own. That Concerto suite is fab. When ELO went right out of fashion in the 90's I never lost faith that they were right up there with the best pop of the 70's. Right, now it's time my other "out of fashion 70's band) 10CC got firmly rehabilitated. Guardians Of The Galaxy did their bit, Rollo's done his bit, I entered 10CC into BJSC too, so we just need a another big movie moment if you're listening Disney.... 
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