Refreshed

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA
Eldorado (Epic/Legacy)
Discovery (Epic/Legacy)
Time (Epic/Legacy)
Secret Messages (Epic/Legacy)
Electric Light Orchestra is probably one of the biggest but most unrecognized and unacknowledged influences on the current pop underground. Any band that features lush production, soaring melodies and, most importantly, a sense that pop can be popular as well as cool probably has a few ELO albums in its members' closets. Bandleader Jeff Lynne has been called pretentious by more than one critic over the years, but in truth he's probably the least elitist of any 70s rock star. Lynne harbors no illusions of enlightening the masses with a high-brow pop/classical hybrid; rather, he wants to take his music to as many people as possible. He possesses a seemingly endless supply of engaging melodies, cribbing various Beatles riffs and harmonies but grafting them onto songs that may not be original but are at least distinctive. By immersing them in plush production that employs strings, choirs, massed overdubs and any other studio application he can think of, he makes records that are easy on the ears and great-sounding on the radio. Accusations that Lynne is more concerned with craft than heart may be at least partially accurate (witness the sparse commentary found in these reissues), but at least it's craft of a very high order.

Eldorado, originally released in 1974, is a perfect example of what fans consider the classic ELO sound. The violin/cellos string trio (featuring crowd-pleasing fiddler Mik Kaminksi) happily slather as much of Lynne's polished rock tunes as possible with enthusiastic bowing. The potential for bombast is lessened by Lynne's uncanny ability to know exactly what enhancements a song needs. It helps that the songs are almost all winners: "Boy Blue," "Laredo Tornado" and the minor hit "Can't Get It Out of My Head" are to pop fans what methadone is to junkies. "Illusions in G Major" is a bit too rockabilly for its self-important title and "Mister Kingdom" is more than a little reminiscent of the Beatles' "Across the Universe," but these are minor criticisms. More troublesome are the so-called bonus tracks. "Dark City" is a mere :45 second fragment instead of a song, and the eight-minute "Eldorado Instrumental Medley" is simply ridiculous. Still, Eldorado was at the time the culmination of the band's ambitious pop 'n' roll fusion, and it set the stage for the massive success to follow.

Strangely, Sony decided to leap forward in time to the band's final period, skipping over career-defining records like Out of the Blue and A New World Record. 1979's Discovery is a transitional record. The strings and guitars share the mix with a vastly increased use of keyboards and a heavier emphasis on rhythm. Shoulda-been-a-smash "Shine a Little Love" and the pretty ballad "Midnight Blue" hearken back to the ELO of old, but "Confusion" and "On the Run" presage the techno-pop of the early 80s. "Last Train to London" is out-and-out disco. The most famous tune, of course, is "Don't Bring Me Down," the driving disco rhythms and loud guitars of which contributed to its blockbuster success as a single. Joined by two more fragments and a reverent version of Del Shannon's "Little Town Flirt," the hook-packed Discovery is the band's most eclectic album and quite probably their most effortlessly enjoyable.

Time, which originally came out in 1981, is a concept album, but only as with its compatriot Eldorado only Lynne really gets it. Fortunately, you don't have to grok the time-travel storyline to enjoy the music. Orchestral sounds take a back seat to Lynne's increasing interest in synthesizers, while Bev Bevan's drumming sounds enhanced with sequencers or click tracks. The overall sound of the record definitely reflects the time in which it was made—whether this dates it or not depends on your individual taste. Regardless, Lynne's mastery of the pop hook hasn't dimmed, as "Yours Truly, 2095," "Twilight" and "Rain is Falling" handily prove. The stripped-down "Hold On Tight" gives a preview of Lynne's late-80s focus on the simpler side of rock. The three bonus cuts are honest-to-god songs this time, rather than snippets. Taken from B-sides, they're surprisingly as good as anything on the album proper.

1983's Secret Messages sports the same electronic sheen as Time, but the melodies themselves begin to turn towards the roots rock Lynne would explore with the Traveling Wilburys and Tom Petty. Synthesizers, clean guitars and the band's signature harmonies make this record as lush as their string-laden efforts in the 70s. Again, Lynne's melodic sense rescues the album from its own excess, as the hooks of "Stranger," "Loser Gone Wild," "Four Little Diamonds" and the title track cut through the slickness with unerring precision. The album ends with another roots excursion, "Rock and Roll is King," which was the band's last hit of any consequence. The bonus tracks are more B-sides and are all quite good. If this and Time aren't where Ultravox, Talk Talk and Duran Duran got their inspiration, they should have been. The legacy of these records provides more than enough animus for any ten modern-day pop acts, and they aren't even the band's most popular albums. Let's hope Sony reissues the rest of the band's catalog soon. Michael Toland

For fans of: the Beatles, Abba, Queen