Customer Reviews

Balance of Power

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It has been noted repeatedly here that BALANCE OF POWER is ELO sans the orchestra. As such, it is both a document of its times (the mid-80s) and somewhat weaker for it. "There's a sorrow about to fall," Jeff Lynne ominously intones on this 1986 album. And he was correct...this was the last Electric Light Orchestra album on which Lynne has appeared until 2001's superb ZOOM. Lyrically, BALANCE OF POWER anticipates the break-up, and reflects ELO's declining commercial fortunes: "Can it really be so serious/To be all broken up and delirious/I guess we've really been out of touch/But can it really be so serious?" Lynne asks on the sharp, new-wavey "So Serious" (a classic, must hear track). In ELO's best 80s ballad, "Getting to the Point," Jeff seems sadly resigned: "All I can do is watch it burn, burn, burn." The saxophone may be startling to some ELO purists, but it's a fantastic piece of work all the same and suits the track perfectly. "Without Someone" is another lonely, lovely ballad about loss. "Heaven Only Knows" and "Secret Lives" are upbeat pop numbers, and "Endless Lies" is fairly adventurous musically. "Send It" is a great fast-paced country song with some vintage Jeff Lynne production touches. The biggest hit here, and definitely a classic pop standard, is "Calling America," which is essentially keyboard based with a nice guitar solo. The harmonies are very sweet indeed on this cut, and if it is destined to be ELO's "TOP 40" swansong, then it's a nice one to go out on. The album itself inexplicably stalled at #49 on BILLBOARD's album charts. Perhaps it was "out of touch" with the prevailing "hair band" ethic of the day (remember Bon Jovi, Warrant, Cinderella, Poison, et al?). Forget the chart numbers...this is a very well done pop album that's still "music to my ears." Take it for what it is; if you are looking for the big orchestral sound, it's not here. But if you want smart, concise, well-crafted pop gems, this CD has what you are looking for.

Balance of Power is for me the least ELO album since Eldorado, but still it deserves a place among the good works of my favourite bands. The starting Heaven Only Knows is a cracking and enthusiastic pop song with a strong rythm and loads of backing vocals. 'So Serious' adds a fresh and new mood in the yet varied repertoire from ELO. 'Getting to the Point' is a very predictable ballad but still gets a beautiful feel and goes in crescendo to a climax. 'Secret Lives' is a curious reggae-caribbean like, insolit song into the history of the band and if silly, it's still funny. 'Is It Alright', for me the best song of the album, is a very strange song but filled with inspiration and originality.

The B side starts with a good song, 'Sorrow About to Fall'. Then, another highlight appears in the form of a great ballad called 'Without Someone', I think maybe the one song in the album closest to the band's past style. 'Calling America' is a very light-hearted and upbeat song, sounds really funny and modern. 'Endless Lies' is a masterpiece in itself, really one of the most original ELO has ever done, a very strange song like it was made of a lot of little song because the mood changes constantly. It is sang by a very eloquent Jeff Lynne that addoptes a lot of different attitudes speaking to a woman that lied and cheated him. The last track, 'Send It', is one of the worst songs ELO have ever done, it's a try of something like a synthesised rock and roll song, but it makes you feel as if what the lyrics say was real, that "the dream has gone".

But the overall feel of this album, if not a masterpiece as other earlier works, is a very fresh, joyful and funny record full of variety and with a couple of highlights from this outstanding band.

After 15 years it was time for E.L.O. to move on and so in early 1986 E.L.O. released their very last album. In my opinion E.L.O. is a very under-rated group and Balance of Power is a very under-rated album. Although this album might miss the great orchestra sound like on Out Of The Blue, as a popalbum it simply is great and far more personal than previous E.L.O. albums.

Heaven Only Knows is a nice opener for the album. This track lets the listener know what they can expect from the album... popmusic.
So Serious is a very nice song though, perhaps a bit short. It was released as a single in some countries.
Getting To The Point would actually be a great opening track or a great closing track for this album. With lyrics about the breaking up of the band it was released as the final E.L.O. single.
Secret Lives is one of my personal favourites from this album. It has a nice beat and clever lyrics.
Is It Alright almost sounds like reggae, but it isn't of course, this is E.L.O. remember? Nice tune, this time the arrangement works and fits the album.
Sorrow About To Fall is perhaps the only real weak song on the album. It has never been a favourite of mine. It sounds bland and boring.
Without Someone is the best track on the album... A great haunting melody and superb lyrics. It never became a single, which is a shame.
Calling America is the most commercial sounding song on the album and it isn't suprising that this became the first single. reaching the US Top 20 and the UK Top 30 in 1986.
Endless Lies is Jeff Lynne trying to be Roy Orbison.An early version of this song is available on the re-mastered version of Secret Messages.
Send It isn't a great song, it's not awful, but it's not a great closing track for the final album of one of the greatest groups in the world.

There were some other songs recorded for this album. Destination Unknown, A Matter Of Fact and Caught In A Trap would have all fitted on this great, almost forgotten album of an almost forgotten group...

I cant understand the negative reviews that BALANCE OF POWER gets.It is much better than either TIME or SECRET MESSAGES.Jeff Lynne just isnt capable of writing a bad song.HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS is a great uplifting track.WITHOUT SOMEONE is one of Lynne's best ballads ever,which includes an awesome heartbreaking mood.GETTING TO THE POINT is a great song that described Lynne's thoughts on ELO at the time.ENDLESS LIES,IS IT ALRIGHT,SORROW ABOUT TO FALL and SECRET LIVES are all very good songs as well.CALLING AMERICA is a great top 20 hit that never gets played on radio anymore.BALANCE OF POWER is a great up to date(at the time!)sounding album that doesnt deserve to be forgotten.

This would be the last album by the original ELO. It hit #49 in 1986, the year of the hair bands. Jeff Lynne must of known that this would be the last record after dropping several hints in music rags prior to it's release. Only 1 hit of this disc "Calling America" #18, this is a very good song with a nice guitar part in the middle. "Heaven Only Knows" is one of my favorites on this CD. "Endless Lies" has a 50's sound to it, "Is it Alright" is a good little tune also. The ballad "Getting to the Point" seems to be Jeff's way of saying goodbye to ELO with these lyrics "It's getting to the point where nobody can stop it now it's getting to the point of no return and all that i can do is stand and watch it know watch it burn,burn,burn" This disc should be in every ELO collection, it may not be their best, but it is still a great cd.

Critics and fans alike seem to regard Balance of Power, ELO's final studio LP from 1986, as little more than a footnote to the band's illustrious hit-making career. Yet the album is a superbly crafted and consistently appealing pop record (there's not a single clinker in this ten-track bunch, a rare accomplishment indeed for a singles-oriented band) and is of historic importance when viewed as Jeff Lynne's opening bid for artistic credibility in a post-Xanadu age, which ultimately proved so successful that he realized his life's dream, that is, to work with the, um, Beatles.

Lynne abandons the excesses of his previous few outings here, stripping the short, simply structured songs to their melodic and harmonic core, with synths playing a far more subtle role than previously. Even the cover graphic indicates a retreat of sorts, replacing ornate adolescent silliness with a simple visual pun.

"Getting to the Point," the first and finest of the record's three ballads, explores with a new-found maturity the dying embers of a relationship, with the first-ever appearance of solo sax on an ELO record. "Without Someone" is similarly restrained in tone, also calmly reflecting on a lost love. Finally, the initially off-putting "Endless Lies," with its operatic chorus, finally clicks when one realizes the song is a tribute to future-Lynne collaborator Roy Orbison.

The remaining seven brief pop-rockers are uniformly excellent. "Sorrow About to Fall" makes an inspired swipe of FOREIGNER's "Urgent," with sax again stepping into the spotlight, while "Is it Alright" (sic), a simple letter checking up on a friend who felt the need to move on, deftly weaves together several joyously Beatle-esque, octave-leaping melodies with a latter-day Steve Winwood synth pattern and a mildly sinister bass chug. "Calling America," a minor stateside hit, is a similar exploration of a friend who has left town, which bemoans high technology's inability to connect the two across the Atlantic; a far cry from the excessive technofascism of 1981's Time LP.

The final track, "Send It," inclusively ends the string of album-closing "rock and roll" numbers begun with Discovery's "Don't Bring Me Down," and continuing through Time's "Hold on Tight" and Secret Messages' "Rock 'N' Roll is King." The song succeeds especially when set in low relief to the previous album-closers' synth-based clutter, which betrayed their hollow insincerity. Here, the melody and the steady beat carry the song along handsomely, and the album arrives at the terminal in tip-top condition.

Within the year Lynne was already collaborating with George Harrison on a number of projects, and his production career began in earnest, offering his now-stripped-and-clean sound to the likes of Del Shannon, and fellow Traveling Wilburys Roy Orbison and Tom Petty (Bob Dylan approached Daniel Lanois for his first post-Wilburys project, to the likely disappointment of Lynne).

After his work with Ringo Starr on the excellent Time Takes Time record, the pieces were in place for Lynne to make his final move. Since his teen days with the Idle Race, singing of John and Paul and Ringo and George's "lovely tunes," Jeff Lynne, a good-natured working-class lad from a northern industrial city, imagined a better life. In 1995, reality caught up with imagination, and "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" are the glorious if sadly incomplete results.

This is the last ELO album, for all intents and purposes. And it's missing several things:

It's missing, most notably, the strings. Every reviewer can and will comment on the lack of even a Time-style synthesized orchestra.

Also missing is Kelly Groucutt, which people will tell you because they want to feel intelligent.

But the major draw for me, and others, i imagine, is the pervasive sadness that is felt, from one song to the next. Not the tired feeling of someone who doesn't care anymore, but the depressing end to a fifteen-year career with largely the same group of people. Jeff sounds completely down throughout the album, trying to put his best face forward. It's sad, it's beautiful, and, with the ambiently blue songs throughout, it's nice to have a bit of the perky, pseudo-campy ELO back at the end with 'Send It' -- a fitting way to say goodbye.

Breifly - This album kicks my you-know-what start to finish. If you're A) an over-all ELO fan B)love pop music w clever lyrics and arrangements C)long for albums where you love EVERY song- This album is a MUST.

Being basically a faceless band, this got lost in the big hair craze of the 80s- it's just a shame.

Unfortunately it clocks in less than 40 minutes. I WANT MORE.

Calling America deserves it's Top 20 ranking (shoulda been Top 10) but why "Secret Lives" wasn't a single is beyond me. This song is bleeding "hit song" (I can even imagine killer dance mixes) and should be covered by any artist with a knack for killer melody and harmonies.

"So Serious" was the 2nd single (in the States at least) - another great clever pop song- and got very little airplay. If I recall- it has a really good video too.

Many reviews for this album mention the lyrics as about the break-up of ELO. That's a very easy assumption - but why would an artist even want to write almost an entire album about that -sounds rather silly to me. Instead, as Jeff Lynne has stated a few times, the break-up here is more closer to home- the one with his wife.

The song I recall that he singly pointed out to that fact in interviews was "Is it Alright".

However sad the meaning of some of the lyrics, the layers of synths etc....it's Power-Pop to the Max and to me that's what matters.

Own this album- play it Loud 'n Proud and over-indulge yourself on yet another one of Jeff Lynne's genious.

I remember when I first heard this in early '86. I could not get enough of Calling America which was in moderate rotation on MTV. The song I could never get out of my head was So Serious. The best use of 2 and a half minutes during that entire decade. Flash forward 15 years and I bought the CD. I discovered Without Someone. Now one of my all time favorites. Jeff is such a great artist and a very underrated singer. All you 70's fans have to give us late comers a bit of a break.

Don't be fooled by the apparent lack of "hits" on this album. It is full of solid hooks, great production, and everything that is ELO. The production style has become vintage 80's (the use of DMX and Linn Drum machines) but all of the charm of a great ELO record is there.