Electric Light Orchestra — Out of the Blue
Qobuz catalog review (January 2024)
Out of the Blue may not have been Electric Light Orchestra’s best album (that would be its immediate predecessor, the taut and driving New World Record), but it was absolutely their most-est album. Coming off the creative, critical, and commercial breakthrough of New World Record, ELO’s Jeff Lynne clearly felt at the height of his powers, and for Out of the Blue, he delivered a trifecta of “overconfident ’70s rocker” signifiers: 1) a double album that 2) featured a side-long “song suite” and 3) a shocking amount of novelty numbers and instrumentals. And while it may not have been surprising that Out of the Blue was hugely successful — it went multi-platinum on the backs of some of the band’s most memorable hits, including the now-immortal “Mr. Blue Sky” — it is remarkable how well the material holds up decades later. Lynne’s unabashed Beatles-worship gets a robust airing, but it’s here more than any other ELO record that his love of the Fab Four is so artfully fused into everything from prog-rock symphonics, proto-disco rhythms, lush synth-pop, and, er, whale song. It’s absolutely pretentious, but in a beguiling and infectious way that winds up making it remarkably personal and highly idiosyncratic.
“Turn to Stone” charges out of the gate and sets the tone for the entirety of Out of the Blue, combining rich soundscapes, expansive arrangements, and earworm melodies. The album also features the epic “Concerto for a Rainy Day,” a four-part suite that is literally about the weather, featuring “Standin’ in the Rain,” “Big Wheels,” “Summer and Lightning,” and concluding with “Mr. Blue Sky,” a song that has since become synonymous with ELO’s signature sound. Of course, there are some overreaching missteps — the album would be fine without the weird and silly Tarzan effects of “Jungle” and the instrumental burbles of “The Whale” would have been more appropriate as a b-side bonus — but they are more than compensated for by the moments where Lynne’s ego pushes him and the band to unexpected greatness. The dizzying mariachi melodrama of “Across the Border” or the dreamy swoon of “Starlight” would have been attempted by few other acts in 1977, and only ELO could deliver them so convincingly. When it came to radio hits, cuts like “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” and even “Wild West Hero” are maddeningly catchy but also supremely weird. Of course, subsequent releases would find diminishing returns by trying to recreate the magic of Out of the Blue, but for this one bold, baroque moment, it seemed that Jeff Lynne and ELO had absolutely defined the future of artful pop-rock.
