Face The Music (Expanded Edition)

Performer: Electric Light Orchestra
Producer: Jeff Lynne (Reissue); Jeff Magid (Reissue)
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Also available in a 3-pack with A NEW WORLD RECORD and DISCOVERY. Electric Light Orchestra: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar); Kelly Groucutt (vocals, bass); Richard Tandy (guitar, piano, Clavinet, Moog synthesizer); Mik Kaminsky (violin); Hugh McDowall, Melvyn Gale (cello); Bev Bevan (drums, percussion). Master Sound releases are 24-karat gold CDs remastered from first-generation masters. This process utilizes 20-bit technology and Sony's revolutionary "Super Bit Mapping" system. Electric Light Orchestra: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar); Kelly Groucutt (vocals, bass guitar); Richard Tandy (guitar, piano, Clavinet, Moog synthesizer); Mik Kaminski (violin); Hugh McDowell, Melvyn Gale (cello); Bev Bevan (drums, percussion, background vocals). ELO was big enough by 1974 that some people actually suggested that ELDORADO featured Satanic backward-masking. Of course, the idea was ludicrous; but the band playfully responded by adding a backward message to "Fire on High," the opening instrumental on 1975's FACE THE MUSIC. Besides "Fire on High," which was used as background music for countless television programs in the '70s, this album's eight lengthy tracks include two enormous hits, "Evil Woman" and the McCartneyesque ballad "Strange Magic." Decades later, these two tracks are still in constant rotation on classic-rock radio around the world. Those three songs defined the new sound of ELO. Gone were the elaborate, classically styled overtures, in favor of concise, ultra-melodic pop songs given lush, romantic orchestral arrangements with endlessly overdubbed harmony vocals. The next three ELO albums refine this aesthetic to commercial perfection, but this is where it starts. FACE THE MUSIC is the album that put ELO over the top. ELO was big enough by 1974 that some people actually suggested that ELDORADO featured Satanic backward-masking. Of course, the idea was ludicrous; but the band playfully responded by adding a backward message to "Fire on High," the opening instrumental on 1975's FACE THE MUSIC. Besides "Fire on High," which was used as background music for countless television programs in the '70s, this album's eight lengthy tracks include two enormous hits, "Evil Woman" and the McCartneyesque ballad "Strange Magic." Decades later, these two tracks are still in constant rotation on classic-rock radio around the world. Those three songs defined the new sound of ELO. Gone were the elaborate, classically styled overtures, in favor of concise, ultra-melodic pop songs given lush, romantic orchestral arrangements with endlessly overdubbed harmony vocals. The next three ELO albums refine this aesthetic to commercial perfection, but this is where it starts. FACE THE MUSIC is the album that put ELO over the top.

Q (2/96, p.114) - 2 Stars - Average - "...ponderous commercial prog-rock..."

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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