No Answer (Expanded Edition) [Remaster]

Performer: Electric Light Orchestra
Producer: Ron Wood; Jeff Lynne
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Electric Light Orchestra: Roy Wood (vocals, acoustic & slide guitars, cello, clarinet, bassoon, recorder, bass, percussion); Jeff Lynne (vocals, electric guitar, piano, bass, percussion); Steve Woolam (violin); Bill Hunt (French horn); Bev Bevans (drums, percussion). Recorded at Philips Studio, London, England. Electric Light Orchestra: Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, Bev Bevan. Here's one of the few rock urban legends that appears to be true: This album, eponymously titled in the rest of the world, was called NO ANSWER in the US because when a secretary at United Artists called the band's office to find out the title, no one was there, and a handwritten note to that effect was mistaken for the record's name. This is less the first ELO album than the last Move album. Four of the nine tracks are by Move leader Roy Wood, and even the five Jeff Lynne tracks sound closer to the Move's classically orchestrated hard-rock masterpiece MESSAGE FROM THE COUNTRY than to the shiny pure-pop ELO albums to come. Wood's tracks, like the acoustic instrumental "First Movement" and the faux-medieval "Battle of Marston Moor," foreshadow his more experimental solo work, while Lynne's brilliant "10538 Overture" is the first of his classic string of pop songs.

ELO began as an outgrowth of '60s UK psych-rockers the Move and the Idle Race, but when former Move frontman Roy Wood departed early in the game, Jeff Lynne fashioned the band as a high-tech Beatles for the '70s. Featuring a full-time string section, ELO picked up where "Strawberry Fields" left off, creating orchestral Britpop without the pretense of prog-rock. The band's slick, lush sound helped define '70s pop, and proved influential decades later to the likes of Air and the Polyphonic Spree.

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