Now here is a guy whose music has always rubbed me the wrong way – and maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe I project, I take offense to things that have nothing to do with me or my life. So why should it bother me that he essentially took Roy Wood’s idea and turned it into his own band? Why does it bother me that my perception is that his fans believe that this is the kind of music the Beatles would’ve made had they stayed together (even though they all went in a more bare-bones direction, at first anyway)? This goes all the way to the Beatles themselves, who accepted him into the fold as producer (Would Lennon have?). Why should I care if he has the same strummy acoustic guitar and the same loose snare sound in half of his songs? The songs seem often to be based on really simple chord progressions or riffs – Evil Woman or the above tune – and his lyrics are of the moon/june variety. There is some great studio wizardry happening here and I appreciate that a lot, but it’s all so much icing on a blase cake.
Did he re-record it because he didn’t own the recordings and he wanted to make more from licensing? Squeeze did that recently, can’t imagine anybody actually bought that thing. There’s a long history of that particular move… Otherwise, I don’t see any reason for Lynne to have gone to the trouble.
Mrs. cdm likes ELO and yet somehow we make it work.
Something about Jeff Lynne has always rubbed me the wrong way, but I will give him credit for writing excellent pre-choruses. There’s not one in this song but in most of his songs (and I only really know the greatest hits), the pre-chorus is the best part of the song. I suspect that he’s using the same device in most of the songs, like going to the same relative minor chord sequence or something, but I don’t know enough about theory to say for sure.
I’m a huge ELO/ Lynne fan and spend WAY too much time trying to make my home recordings sound like his production style.
He re-recorded the old songs to have versions that HE owns for TV/movie / commercials / itunes. There is ONE new song that is pretty good called Point Of No Return, 1xt new ELO song since 2001.
You have been hearing these re-recorded versions in Budweiser commercials and bad comedy movies for the last few years, he just collected them for this release.
Squeeze and Cracker have done the same thing recently to get out from under their label’s ownership of their masters. Def Leppard is about to do the same.
It was also released to get him some press for his covers CD that comes out the same day and to get him back in the press for his original music CD in early 2013
The weirdest part is, he claims that he didn’t re-record these for the “own them fully for licesning reasons” explanation. That’s the only thing that really makes sense, especially with him having sued various other members into submission to stop them from touring as ELO II, but he says it’s more about him being obsessed with getting minor details right that apparently only he’s been hearing for three decades.
I will say, whatever the reason may be, if he’s really re-recording these vocals, it’s kind of astonishing that his voice really sounds like that in 2012. Did he seriously lose nothing off his vocals and range in all that time?
Obviously, I’m very pro-ELO, so I am hoping this somehow leads into ELO getting the critical upgrade treatment in popular music press to go with ABBA and solo McCartney. I’m also willing to take on the challenge of getting my man cdm to find a few ELO songs to win him over if we haven’t already gone down that road.
While I think there really is most likely a “I wanna own the masters” reason behind this…and that he’s bonkers for doing it….I’m not complaining. I love this particular ELO song and the video is pretty cool if you ask me. (Secret ELO fan from way back…I’ve probably lost a chunk of punk rock cred for saying that…).
Oats, has HVB responded to his Rock Summons offlist? I don’t see comments from him on this subject here. Perhaps he is simultaneously contemplating re-recordings by ZZ Top and Prince.
ELO were not what I wanted to hear while listening to the radio while punk was breaking, and even though I’ve forgiven Fleetwood Mac for being all over the radio day in day out during the summer of 1977 “The Diary of Horace Wimp” was a step too far, and until the Travelling Wilburys made me feel positively murderous at the thought of Jeff Lynne.
I am not only going to comment on this fabulous re-invention of the ELO sound — I’m going to do so by referencing ZZ Top and Prince!
Here goes:
This seems pointless, as many have opined before me. I suppose it’s interesting that when Jeff Lynne loses his creative mojo, he does a covers album just like everybody else. But wait! The Jeff Lynne twist is that he covers his own music! Letter-perfect knockoffs of Jeff Lynne studio wizardry by studio wizard Jeff Lynne! Studio perfeczzzzzzzzzzzz…
Still (here comes the ZZ Top bit), this is better than the rock crime perpetrated by the Zeez and their sleazeball carny manager Bill Ham. Back in the late 80s or thereabouts, they remixed all their classic (read: good) albums from the early- to mid-70s in order to make them sound more contemporary to the era of massive gated snares, digital reverb, etc. Heinous. Now, of course, they’re ever-so-slowly reissuing these albums as expensive “remasters,” going back to the original mixes, at a dear cost to their long-suffering fans. It only took them 20 years to admit they’d foisted a huge pile of steaming dog shit on the rock universe.
Prince: I know of no effort by Prince to re-record any of his music. And if he did, it would probably suck.
There.
BTW, I’m strongly considering favoring these halls with a review of the new ZZ Top album which, by gum, is actually interesting and unusual and noteworthy, and… so far, I’m leaning towards it actually being GOOD. That’s a remarkable thing, by the way.
What a bold reinterpretation. It adds so much to the original and in no way could be said to be completely superfluous. No, really.
I’m glad he got that snare hit on the 48th measure worked out.
ROCK CRIME!
Jeff Lynn is trying to update his market: #Musictotakedrugsto
I didn’t watch yet. I take it he didn’t bother to make those shitty songs good, then?
Now here is a guy whose music has always rubbed me the wrong way – and maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe I project, I take offense to things that have nothing to do with me or my life. So why should it bother me that he essentially took Roy Wood’s idea and turned it into his own band? Why does it bother me that my perception is that his fans believe that this is the kind of music the Beatles would’ve made had they stayed together (even though they all went in a more bare-bones direction, at first anyway)? This goes all the way to the Beatles themselves, who accepted him into the fold as producer (Would Lennon have?). Why should I care if he has the same strummy acoustic guitar and the same loose snare sound in half of his songs? The songs seem often to be based on really simple chord progressions or riffs – Evil Woman or the above tune – and his lyrics are of the moon/june variety. There is some great studio wizardry happening here and I appreciate that a lot, but it’s all so much icing on a blase cake.
Did he re-record it because he didn’t own the recordings and he wanted to make more from licensing? Squeeze did that recently, can’t imagine anybody actually bought that thing. There’s a long history of that particular move… Otherwise, I don’t see any reason for Lynne to have gone to the trouble.
The phrase you are looking for is “polished turd”.
ELO: The Eatles.
Mrs. cdm likes ELO and yet somehow we make it work.
Something about Jeff Lynne has always rubbed me the wrong way, but I will give him credit for writing excellent pre-choruses. There’s not one in this song but in most of his songs (and I only really know the greatest hits), the pre-chorus is the best part of the song. I suspect that he’s using the same device in most of the songs, like going to the same relative minor chord sequence or something, but I don’t know enough about theory to say for sure.
I’m a huge ELO/ Lynne fan and spend WAY too much time trying to make my home recordings sound like his production style.
He re-recorded the old songs to have versions that HE owns for TV/movie / commercials / itunes. There is ONE new song that is pretty good called Point Of No Return, 1xt new ELO song since 2001.
You have been hearing these re-recorded versions in Budweiser commercials and bad comedy movies for the last few years, he just collected them for this release.
Squeeze and Cracker have done the same thing recently to get out from under their label’s ownership of their masters. Def Leppard is about to do the same.
It was also released to get him some press for his covers CD that comes out the same day and to get him back in the press for his original music CD in early 2013
Did he re-record it because he didn’t own the recordings and he wanted to make more from licensing?
yes, these re-recorded songs have been in movies and commercials for years.
The weirdest part is, he claims that he didn’t re-record these for the “own them fully for licesning reasons” explanation. That’s the only thing that really makes sense, especially with him having sued various other members into submission to stop them from touring as ELO II, but he says it’s more about him being obsessed with getting minor details right that apparently only he’s been hearing for three decades.
I will say, whatever the reason may be, if he’s really re-recording these vocals, it’s kind of astonishing that his voice really sounds like that in 2012. Did he seriously lose nothing off his vocals and range in all that time?
Obviously, I’m very pro-ELO, so I am hoping this somehow leads into ELO getting the critical upgrade treatment in popular music press to go with ABBA and solo McCartney. I’m also willing to take on the challenge of getting my man cdm to find a few ELO songs to win him over if we haven’t already gone down that road.
While I think there really is most likely a “I wanna own the masters” reason behind this…and that he’s bonkers for doing it….I’m not complaining. I love this particular ELO song and the video is pretty cool if you ask me. (Secret ELO fan from way back…I’ve probably lost a chunk of punk rock cred for saying that…).
Oats, has HVB responded to his Rock Summons offlist? I don’t see comments from him on this subject here. Perhaps he is simultaneously contemplating re-recordings by ZZ Top and Prince.
He has not, but I know HVB will come through!
I hope so; I’m worried about the guy.
I don’t like this new version. It’s like he stripped all of the soul out of ELO. Oh, wait ….
Another strong Post of the Month contender!
ELO were not what I wanted to hear while listening to the radio while punk was breaking, and even though I’ve forgiven Fleetwood Mac for being all over the radio day in day out during the summer of 1977 “The Diary of Horace Wimp” was a step too far, and until the Travelling Wilburys made me feel positively murderous at the thought of Jeff Lynne.
I am not only going to comment on this fabulous re-invention of the ELO sound — I’m going to do so by referencing ZZ Top and Prince!
Here goes:
This seems pointless, as many have opined before me. I suppose it’s interesting that when Jeff Lynne loses his creative mojo, he does a covers album just like everybody else. But wait! The Jeff Lynne twist is that he covers his own music! Letter-perfect knockoffs of Jeff Lynne studio wizardry by studio wizard Jeff Lynne! Studio perfeczzzzzzzzzzzz…
Still (here comes the ZZ Top bit), this is better than the rock crime perpetrated by the Zeez and their sleazeball carny manager Bill Ham. Back in the late 80s or thereabouts, they remixed all their classic (read: good) albums from the early- to mid-70s in order to make them sound more contemporary to the era of massive gated snares, digital reverb, etc. Heinous. Now, of course, they’re ever-so-slowly reissuing these albums as expensive “remasters,” going back to the original mixes, at a dear cost to their long-suffering fans. It only took them 20 years to admit they’d foisted a huge pile of steaming dog shit on the rock universe.
Prince: I know of no effort by Prince to re-record any of his music. And if he did, it would probably suck.
There.
BTW, I’m strongly considering favoring these halls with a review of the new ZZ Top album which, by gum, is actually interesting and unusual and noteworthy, and… so far, I’m leaning towards it actually being GOOD. That’s a remarkable thing, by the way.
HVB
Oats, the man has delivered!
Now bring on that Zeez review.