In all seriousness, I can appreciate your stance and what you are saying
about the textures in general of what Lynne turns out.
My point of view is this: I was a huge fan of The Move, which morphed into
ELO - more a product of Roy Wood's vision that Lynne's.
After Wood left ELO (formed Wizzard and faded off into the sunset), imo
they went straight into the crapper. Like McCartney (whom Lynne obviously
wants to BE) without Lennon, Lynne - to my ears - turn out syrupy, sappy,
pop-pap. Go back and listen to "Turkish Tram Conductor Blues",
"Brontosaurus", "Fields of People", etc., etc and hear the sound of a
barely restrained herd of elephants. Some of it lingers in the first ELO
record - but it is soon to be overtaken by the OVERproduction and heavy
handedness (again, imo) which Lynne constantly exhibits. I could care less
about any disco elements exhibited (unless it's that over-shellacking I
mentioned) - I have no argument with disco per se. What I'm saying is Lynne
takes the fire out of what he touches without someone there to slap his
hand. The fact that Tom Petty had a decent record in spite of Lynne only
testifies to the strength of Petty's songwrirting.
Maybe Lennon (who wasn't sounding all that hot in his later years, mind
you) was simply being dragged into the AOR undertow and recognized a
partner in tedium. That mistake of a track which was recently released on
those Beatles comps (Free as a Bird or something) serves well to make my
point. And I am a *fan* of the Beatles, mind you. As for your question
about why major rock bands would use Lynne as a producer, the answer seems
obvious. Tedious, marketable, overproduced formulaic wrock sells wreckords
and makes big money. 10,000 flies can't be wrong...can they? 'Nuff Said.
Sorry if I stepped on your toes. Love to Love You, Baby.
jeff
At 07:35 PM 2/7/2002, you wrote:
quoted 23 lines All right dude:
>All right dude:
>I can understand your hesitancy to embrace all that is ELO, after all they
>represent some of the excesses of the disco era. BUT, you should really
>consider (as everyone should) an evaluation of their sound.
>
>For starters, Jeff Lynne was interested in exploring the possiblities of
>pop song structers, song instrumentation, the integration of electronics
>with more traditional instruments, and possibilities of studio
>production. I've been very inspired by his ability to arrange sounds,
>instruments and rhythums in layers where frequencies don't overlap each
>other, or in doing so, harmonize in interesting ways. His ability to add
>lots of flashy special effect sounds onto and with specific sounds
>(guitars, lyrics, etc) was an astonishing feat then and still sounds great
>today.
>
>Also John Lennon said that they would sound exactly like ElO if they had
>stayed togeather... Which is a pretty great compliment.
>
>And besides? If he was such a crappy producer, why would some of the
>greatest rock acts have him produce their albums?
>
>Well there's my argument. Convincing?
>Donna Summer