Electric Light Orchestra Part Two

E.L.O. | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 11, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Volcano
• ASIN: B00000IMJF
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,881 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Electric Light Orchestra Lite, March 24, 2005

By 

Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Electric Light Orchestra Part Two (Audio CD)

Electric Light Orchestra traces its history to the 1960s. In the 70s ELO's music and public taste matched, and the group had a string of successful albums. By the end of the 70s public interest in the group began to wane, and it was apparent that ELO's time had passed. Jeff Lynne left the group in 1986. Since Jeff Lynne would not rejoin ELO, the reformed group released "Electric Light Orchestra Part Two" in 1990. Perhaps the group should have called itself "A Group Who Sorta Sounds like ELO, But Not Quite," because while there are similarities in the style, and even a few good songs, ELO this is not.

The opening track seems to be a hello to ELO fans. "Hello" is a relatively trivial song that ends up sounding more like the Beatles or Herman's Hermits than ELO. I could speak further about the lack of depth and inspiration, but instead I will class this song as one of the throwaway songs on this CD.

The second track is perhaps the best song on the entire CD. "Honest Men" is about as close as this CD comes to classic ELO. The highly orchestrated music is well done, and I would classify this song as a very good song, and worthy of being considered an ELO song. The lyrics are admittedly just a tad trite, but I like the science fiction implications of the song. When I read the words I think of "Star Trek" rather than "Star Wars" because of the Earth orientation of the song. Had Jeff Lynne participated in this song, it would have been just a bit better.

The third track is mediocre derivative rock. "Every Night" sounds too much like cookie-cutter big hair rock of the 80s. This song would have been interchangeable with the music of any of a dozen 80s groups that churned out forgettable songs. The music itself is not all that bad, just not very good. The lyrics, on the other hand, are just bad. I think this song was hidden between two much better songs hoping the magic would wear off. Call this one filler.

Another good song is "Once Upon a Time." The music is fair, with several moments of inspiration, but the lyrics are some of the better lyrics on this CD. There are some interesting strings, but the music of this song still comes out only as a bit better than average for ELO.

"Heartbreaker" starts off with a lot of potential, but it ends up sounding too much like big hair band music of the 80s. I really enjoyed the line "Rain (falling from the skies, falling from your eyes)," until it was repeated the sixth, seventh, eighth and then ninth times. Somewhere along the line the line, which is the best part of this song, is abused, and then it becomes tedious. This song can be categorized as the way to not exploit a good lyrical and musical concept.

After the last two songs another good song is welcomed. "Thousand Eyes" has enough flavor and flair of ELO to be listenable multiple times. There are good harmonies in this song that make it enjoyable. The lyrics have some complexity and a touch of fantasy, and while portions of the music reveal 80s roots, there are good songs from every era, and this one is another of the better songs on this CD. Consider also that Eric Troyer, the author of this song, also wrote "Honest Men," which, as noted above, I also consider to be very good.

Yet another good Eric Troyer song is "For the Love of a Woman." Eric has an excellent style and feel for ELO's style. This powerful pop song owes a stylistic singing nod to Roy Orbison. Enough said about this song.

"Kiss Me Red" is just atrocious. Elimination of this cheesy song, which sounds like something sung by a group of wannabes rather than a professional rock group, and "Every Night" might have kicked the quality of this album up another notch. The CD would have been shorter, but shorter good is much better than longer with garbage like this song. Program your CD player to pass this one over.

At first "Heart of Hearts" had a Cars' flavor. Then the song changed into something more reminiscent of Survivor, but again not quite; maybe Survivor with a bit of Alan Parson's influence. While the style is clearly 80s, this song is reasonably good, though this Eric Troyer song is still less than some of the better songs that Eric provided earlier on this CD.

The final song starts off with a lot of promise, and just as quickly fizzles into derivative rock. The pseudo-power of this song is all bark and no bite, and you long to dig your old Kiss records out of the box, or Black Sabbath from the Ozzie years, just to get this noise out of your ears. Forget this song; it belongs with "Kiss Me Red" and "Every Night" as songs that should have remained in the box.

The question I always ask is: Knowing what I know now, would I buy this CD again? What if I were an ELO fan? I would not purchase this CD. There are several good songs, but nothing I consider essential. I would make a higher recommendation to a die-hard ELO fan, because several of these songs are ELO-worthy. There is too much chaff in this wheat. Go back to the earlier ELO albums for much better music.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Jeff Lynne's works, but still a quality album, June 13, 2001

By 

Brian J. Barton (San Clemente, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electric Light Orchestra Part Two (Audio CD)

Not so much a cohesive album, more a collection of hits and misses. Jeff Lynne's writing and production skills are missed, but "Honest Men" (though the lyrics are a little silly), "Thousand Eyes", and "Once Upon a Time" are as enjoyable to me as a number of ELO favorites.

Some of the other songs are forgettable, but that doesn't make this CD not worth buying for the open minded ELO fan

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Worthy Revisiting., June 4, 2006

By 

C. W. Higgins "Smileymoodring" (New York, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Electric Light Orchestra Part Two (Audio CD)

I remember back in 1991 when ELO Part 2 debuted live on the radio to promote the upcoming new album. They played "Honest Men", and although we all knew it was not Jeff singing, there was a distinctive appeal to it all. When I bought the CD after it finally came out, (cover art was a plus)I found that the sound harkened back to a more lush landscape than what was displayed on ELO's last studio album, Balance Of Power. Jeff's solo CD, Armchair Theatre came out only a summer before, and was similarly "stripped down" in sound (still a strong effort). Yes, it seemed that all of the trademarks of the classic mid-70's ELO sound were in place on many cuts off ELO Part II. Cascading string runs, layered harmony vocal arrangements...many sung in a falsetto, above average chord changes, Humor, songs that were corny in some respects, but we loved them for it! Even a nod to Jeff's "nod" to the Orbison style ("For the Love Of A Woman"'s quasi Spanish setting in the verse). Some may claim that this is simply an album of imitation, and it is true to a degree. However, those millions of musicians who take elements of Beatles Brilliance, distill it into great songs of their own might be just as guilty. In my opinion, I am glad for groups like 10cc, Ambrosia, Cheap Trick (who also love ELO), Badfinger, Raspberries and countless others who took a certain sonic ball and ran with it. There are some weak songs on here: "Every Night" just makes me cringe with the "slam-bam, alakazam" line, but I wouldn't change it because it is that corny element that makes it succeed. Eric Troyer is particularly good on this album. He seems to know how to push the ELO buttons and summon elements of the band's sound compositionally. Pete Haycock, alumni from Climax Blues Band, will sound familiar to anyone who enjoyed his smooth vocals on their hit, "I Love You". Louis Clark added his "strange magic" to the overall sound with his wonderfully dramatic string arrangements. He is to ELO what David Palmer is to Jethro Tull: A brilliant classical musician working in a pop format. Kelly and Mick (vintage era ELO bandmates) later joined as full-time members, with Kelly's voice being a secret weapon for sure! All in all, I would advise the listener to enjoy this collection of sounds and songs for what it is: a knowing nod to a different era and writing style that was a refreshing change for 1990-1991. Well done indeed!