(100) Days of Soundtrack: #4 – Electric Light Orchestra – Face the Music

My friend Amber goes back to the days of guessing lyrics in AOL chats, so while she and I diverge on many musical issues (such as whether or not Courtney Love is the worst [hot tip: she is]), our relationship has always had music as a bedrock. It doesn’t much surprise me that she would find herself taking on the mantle of an album a day, and if I’m going to bring suggestions on board at all, I’m going to listen to the person who gave me the impetus for the project. What does surprise me a bit, however, was a recommendation of ELO. Also surprising: so far, it’s the oldest recommendation I’ve had, by a country mile. There’s the thing: I’ve been listening to music for decades, and my family instilled that in me, but just as I have missed a lot of new stuff, there is no shortage of the old I haven’t heard.

When Face the Music starts, you’re all but guaranteed there’s going to be some drama. “Fire On High” begins with a cacophony, samples and voiceovers, undulating waves of sound, snips of classical… aw shit, son, you can tell they want you to get ready for something explosive! Whatever that is, though, it never really comes. By the time “Fire On High” ends, it has had two intros. Three? Four? No, wait, have we gone back to intro three? It’s a lot of intros, is the point. “Fire On High” is literally five and a half minutes of various possible intros. I do kind of love the repeated guitar theme here, but I wish this had been a song. One song. That’s all we need, guys.

That this bombastic multi-intro ends up leading to the downtempo “Waterfall” seems doubly anti-climactic, but “Waterfall” itself surprised me. There were tones of Queen here that I wasn’t expecting from the band responsible for disco-era staples like the admittedly fun “Don’t Bring Me Down” and the much less fun “Evil Woman”.

Oh, by the way, “Evil Woman” is on this album. Less said about that, the better. Except that there will never be a moment in my life when I don’t hear it as “Medieval Woman.”

Still, much as this is unabashedly and obviously 70s cheese at its “finest,” there are interesting choices. While “Nightrider” combines two classic gimmicks of the era (swirly ghost-synths and the “You’re a [song title]” chorus), it also plays with some interesting phrase resolutions. While “Poker” liberally uses the ascending/descending speed-scales more commonly seen these days in a Muse solo, it also has a core that almost feels punk. I mean, Green Day punk, to be fair, but listen to it and tell me you can’t hear it performed by a band of that ilk. “Down Home Town” affects a painful country veneer, like Andrew Lloyd Webber trying to cram every possible genre into at least one track per musical, but it begins with almost a sea shanty feel. At every turn, ELO surprise me and make me call into question exactly what sort of band they are.

About halfway through the quaalude-lounge “One Summer Dream,” though, it becomes unmistakable. ELO are a 70s band. They have rock bones and disco pants. They are fascinated with the electronic and not quite adept at using it. They grew up with the statement music of the 60s, but have little to say of their own. They are a nightrider, oh baby, you know they are a nightrider. They are a product of their time. They are still singing “One Summer Dream…. One Summer Dreeeeeeeeeeam.” They might never stop. And that’s the way the news goes in this sort of music. There are good points, but oh are there low points. There is the promise of bombast at the beginning, but by the end nothing has lived up to the hype. It’s music that is there. Listening with intent, you can steal a couple special moments… you can pull out some highlights, and you can find reasons to spend more time with them in the future… but the realization is, you’d never recognize these songs in a crowd.

Except for “One Summer Dream.” That’s going to be repeating in your head ’til June.