My Second Favourite Album: El Dorado by The Electric Light Orchestra

The genesis of the Electric Light Orchestra was a band that would take over from the Beatles at the fade outs to “Strawberry Fields Forever” and ”I Am The Walrus” , both heavy on strings but still steeped in rock. The Beatles had not been scared of orchestral arrangements and “Eleanor Rigby” contained only Paul McCartney on vocals , the music being provided double string quartet arranged by George Martin.

Jeff Lynne had joined the Move from The Idle Race, and collaborated with Roy Wood to transform the Move into a band with a substantial classical string section , although Wood was a talented multi instrumentalist and can be seen playing Cello in many of the videos, though he was primarily a guitarist , composer and singer. With the Move Jeff Lynne had contributed a stonewall block riff classic “Do Ya” which was revisited by The Electric Light Orchestra on “New World Record”.

The first two Electric Light Orchestra albums were true to the original aim of the group and after the second Roy Wood left ironically pursuing excellent flamboyant rock and roll with Wizzard. This left Jeff Lynne in sole charge of the Electric Light orchestra reflecting two starkly contrasting singles the over the top orchestrated rock and roll of a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” followed by a 180 degree turn with the Jeff Lynne penned Philadelphia should of “Showdown” . These two showed a band that could probably take on anything.

The third album was “On The Third Day” , ponderous but including “Showdown” , “Ma Ma Belle” (similar to “Do Ya” another block riff) and a take on Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” (they are orchestral).

Then “El Dorado '' , the concept (taken from the wikipedia entry here) is

“Eldorado'' is the first complete ELO concept album; bandleader Jeff Lynne conceived the storyline before he wrote any music.The plot follows a Walter Mitty-like character who journeys into fantasy worlds via dreams, to escape the disillusionment of his mundane reality. Lynne began to write the album in response to criticisms from his father, a classical music lover, who said that Electric Light Orchestra's repertoire "had no tune".The influence of The Beatles is prevalent, especially in the melody of the verse of "Mister Kingdom" which to some degree resembles the Beatles' "Across the Universe".”

I immediately loved the cover with it’s “Wizard of Oz '' Dorothy's Red Shoes and Witch’s claws. It opens with a wonderful frightening announcement then into the “El Dorado Overture '' which is reprised after the gorgeous title track in the Finale.

After the Overture is the gorgeous “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” and the lush orchestral pop permeates the rest of the album with a speeded up break for “Illusion In G Minor” before the title track and the Finale.

This is an album I listen to often and enjoy the beautiful production , brilliant songs , and the absolute perfection of it. It is , in my opinion a perfect album and unfortunately t is seldom possible to improve on perfection, and while they hit paydirt with “A New World Record” this is the album for me.

Yes it’s a concept album , yes it is pretentious , but it is put together perfectly , there is nothing that could be discarded without damaging the integrity and perfection of the album. Everything about it is perfect for me , the cover , the music , everything. It'ss only my opinion and people will lift out “Mr Blue Sky” from “Out of the Blue” which I detest , I think every song on “El Dorado” trumps it , and my opinion on that will never change. It is perfect,