Lots going on in ELO-land, but I wasn't able to update the site for over a week. The hard drive (on my now replaced computer) hit a bad sector and all hell broke loose around here. Lost pretty much everything on the drives so I have to start over.
Will be back with some updates tomorrow.
Isn't Surrender great?
Various Artists - Brumbeat: The Story of the 60s Midlands Sound (on Castle/Sanctuary) Out now... and getting good feedback from it.
Carl Wayne: Songs From The Wood and Beyond (on Castle/Sanctuary) Already released.
Electric Light Orchestra - The Collection (EMI collection) March 13. Pretty decent as far as budget releases go.
Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue Live at Wembley DVD (allegedly with stereo/surround mix at last) March 20
Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer & ELO II (USA remastered editions) March 28.
Electric Light Orchestra - On The Third Day, Face The Music and A New World Record: all remastered and expanded on May 16. Musictap.net (the source of this info) was almost spot on about No Answer and ELOII way back when...
Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue and Balance Of Power remasters. September.
Roy Wood - Look Through The Eyes of Roy Wood (on Castle/Sanctuary) April 10.
Roy Wood - The Wizzard (on EMI) April 3... advance promos already circulating.
Tom Petty - Highway Companion (Produced by Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Michael Campbell) June.
Electric Light Orchestra - The Harvest Years 1970-1973. 3CD set - 2006
Those who think they pay too much money for a CD have nothing to complain about with this. It cost me all of US$5.
Having said that, this collection doesn't add a whole lot for the tried and true fans. Although the booklet is nice for a budget release... and the back of the book and liner notes tease a 3-CD anthology of ELO's Harvest years coming sometime this year.
Another thing: why has the word Quadraphonic disappeared and the words Alternate Mix are in its place? It's on the USA remastered editions of No Answer and ELO II as well. Not a criticism, just wondering.
I have to admit, I don't listen to 50s or 60s music from any part of the world, much less the Midlands, but I thought the new Brumbeat CD set would be worth having anyway.
I know fully well, in the end, this will eventually sit with the CDs that rarely get touched, but I'm finding a lot to like about this. I can only measure the Move and Idle Race tracks when I judge sound quality and frankly, Day Of The Broken Arrows surprised me. Only because I thought the Back To The Story set was as good as the sound quality gets on these songs. Wrong.
It makes the whole prospect of the upcoming Idle Race boxed set more appetizing... and Sanctuary is quickly winning me over.
Well, the news has sunk in and the details are posted to FTM Online.
On The Third Day bonus tracks are not entirely unexpected. The main album remastered is the most exciting aspect here.
Face The Music looks fine except for a useless USA single edit taking up space. I'm quite intriqued at the stripped down mix of Evil Woman. There were a few b-sides for this album's singles which were never used... and apparently still won't be. Then again, they'd make good iTunes material.
Without question, the most anticipated of this bunch will be A New World Record. Surrender is a surprise. I heard a few of the bonus tracks at Camp Rob in Ontario a few years back. They are quite simply: awesome. It's a totally different experience hearing the rough instrumental mixes of So Fine and Tightrope. (For the record, I've not heard Tightrope yet.) It not only shows how amazing these guys were on this record, but the enormous talent that went into creating the orchestral arrangements. You'll flip, I promise you.
Let's check the score, shall we?
Various Artists - Brumbeat: The Story of the 60s Midlands Sound (on Castle/Sanctuary) Out now... and getting good feedback from it. Post feedback on this if you can.
Carl Wayne: Songs From The Wood and Beyond (on Castle/Sanctuary) Already released.
Electric Light Orchestra - The Collection (EMI collection) Out starting March 13. Budget collection. I have one on the way, will post my thoughts on it later.
Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue Live at Wembley DVD (allegedly with stereo/surround mix at last) March 20
Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer & ELO II (USA remastered editions) March 28.
Electric Light Orchestra - On The Third Day, Face The Music and A New World Record: all remastered and expanded on May 16. Musictap.net (the source of this info) was almost spot on about No Answer and ELOII way back when...
Roy Wood - Look Through The Eyes of Roy Wood (on Castle/Sanctuary) March 13, but not a peep on this yet.
Roy Wood - The Wizzard (on EMI) April 3... advance promos already circulating.
The Essential Roy Orbison is set for release on March 28, the new two disc set will feature, You Got It (of course) and 3 other Jeff Lynne productions. What's interesting here is that in the next two years Legacy Recordings is planning on releasing a remastered Mystery Girl CD and a DualDisc edition of Roy's "King Of Hearts" disc from 1992. While the Essential Collection will contain all three Jeff Lynne-produced tracks from Mystery Girl, the DualDisc of King Of Hearts will be the more intriquing project.
I've been finding that artists are opting more for Enhanced Stereo on the DVD side of a Dual Disc instead of a 5.1 Surround Sound. Which will King of Hearts have? Time will tell. I'd personally would like to lobby for the set to contain the video for Heartbreak Radio, even with the fake Roy in it.
