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Electric Light Orchestra: No Answer

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Jet Records
Released: 1971.12.15
Time:
 41:42
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Jeff Lynne  , Roy Wood
Rating: ******.... (6/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.elo.biz
Appears with: Traveling Wilburys, Jeff Lynne
Purchase date: 2010.05.16
Price in €: 2,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] 10538 Overture (J.Lynne) - 5:30
[2] Look at Me Now (R.Wood) - 3:17
[3] Nellie Takes Her Bow (J.Lynne) - 6:01
[4] The Battle of Marston Moor (July 2nd 1644) (R.Wood) - 6:04
[5] 1st Movement (R.Wood) - 3:00
[6] Mr. Radio (J.Lynne) - 5:04
[7] Manhattan Rumble (49th St. Massacre) (J.Lynne) - 4:23
[8] Queen of the Hours (J.Lynne) - 3:23
[9] Whisper in the Night (R.Wood) - 4:48

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Jeff Lynne - Vocals, Electric Guitar, Piano, Bass, Percussion, Producer
Roy Wood - Vocals, Acoustic & Slide Guitars, Cello, Clarinet, Bassoon, Recorder, Bass, Percussion, Producer
Bev Bevans Drums, Percussion

Steve Woolam - Violin
Bill Hunt - French Horn

Pete Mew - Engineer, Mastering
Roger - Engineer

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1971 LP Jet Records 35524
1990 CD Jet Records ZK-35524
1990 CS Jet Records PZT-35524
1994 CD Sony Music Distribution 25306
1994 CS Sony Music Distribution 25306
2003 CD EMI Music Distribution 5829830

Recorded at Philips Studio, London, England.

Here's one of the few rock urban legends that appears to be true: This album, eponymously titled in the rest of the world, was called NO ANSWER in the US because when a secretary at United Artists called the band's office to find out the title, no one was there, and a handwritten note to that effect was mistaken for the record's name. This is less the first ELO album than the last Move album. Four of the nine tracks are by Move leader Roy Wood, and even the five Jeff Lynne tracks sound closer to the Move's classically orchestrated hard-rock masterpiece MESSAGE FROM THE COUNTRY than to the shiny pure-pop ELO albums to come. Wood's tracks, like the acoustic instrumental "First Movement" and the faux-medieval "Battle of Marston Moor," foreshadow his more experimental solo work, while Lynne's brilliant "10538 Overture" is the first of his classic string of pop songs.

The debut album, released first in the UK by EMI's Harvest Records in December 1971 was followed a few months later by United Artists in the USA - but not without incident. A label executive asked his secretary to ring London and find out the album title. On receiving no reply, she left her boss a message: "No Answer". In America, the album has been known as that ever since...


Although ELO quickly became Jeff Lynne's baby, it was launched as a collaboration between Lynne and his bandmates in the Move, multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood, and drummer Bev Bevan. Indeed, the label on ELO's first album reads "Move Enterprises Ltd. presents the services of the Electric Light Orchestra," and most histories claim that the initial idea for the spin-off group combining rock and classical music was Wood's, not Lynne's. Wood and Lynne split the songwriting duties on Electric Light Orchestra, much as they did on late-period Move albums, but it seems like their visions of what ELO was were widely divergent. Wood's songs are clearly more classically influenced, with the string and horn sections driving the songs rather than merely coloring them, as they do on Lynne's tunes. The difference between Wood's baroque "Look at Me Now" and Lynne's hard rocking "10538 Overture" is obvious, and Lynne never wrote anything as purely classical as Wood's "The Battle of Marston Moor (July 2nd, 1644)" in his entire career. (The Gershwin-like piano jazz of "Manhattan Rumble (49th Street Massacre)" is Lynne's equivalent piece, and suggests an intriguing avenue he unfortunately never explored further.) This dichotomy makes Electric Light Orchestra in some ways much more interesting than later ELO albums. When Wood left to form Wizzard after the release of this album, the tension generated by that clear difference between his and Lynne's songwriting styles was gone. Later ELO albums were much more commercially successful, but they were also considerably more stylistically attenuated. As good as they are, all of the later ELO albums sound pretty much exactly alike. Electric Light Orchestra sounds like nothing either Jeff Lynne or Roy Wood did before or after, and therein lies its fascination.

Stewart Mason - All Music Guide
 

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