Customer Reviews

Lynne Me Your Ears - Tribute to Jeff Lynne

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What a fantastic way for artists from many genres to honor a man who has nurtured great music his entire life, Jeff Lynne. Lynne Me Your Ears contains many familiar ELO and Jeff Lynne classic tunes, some done very much like the originals, but others are done with new style, in a new vision and yet with love and respect for the original. Okay, some aren't my cup of tea, but I get more from those each time I listen to this album! I highly recommend Todd Rundgren's Bluebird is Dead, Tony Visconti's Mr. Blue Sky rocks, and Fleming and John's Eldorado is really a heart wrenching tune. By the way, give this album more than one chance! It will grow on you, and you'll appreciate the honor and respect that these artists are sending Jeff's way.

Superlatives fail the sheer genius of this 2 cd set! There is not a song in it that is less than hit-worthy, and there are no artists below the task of re-interpreting this fantastic music. That being said, not many can improve on Lynne's catchy pop tunes, which dominated the FM waves in the 70's, but they do justice to them. Very noteworthy exceptions are on disc two, starting with Tony Visconti's boppy, ecstaticly cheerful "Mr. Blue Sky", and Sparkle jets UK surfy, guitar filled "Above the Clouds. Todd Rundgren does actually improve "Blubird is dead" with a smooth techno-edge (and removing the expletive that ruined the original), but for the finale, fittingly, Flemming and John's "Eldorado" is a grand slam! Flemming McWilliam's soaring voice puts the Jewels and Mariah Careys of the world to shame, and this song was just waiting for her to grab it, entwine it with an otherwordly flair, and belt it out with the control of a opera diva! It, and this cd set on the whole, will leave you breathless!! Pity this won't make the grammy awards.

First of all, it's great that Jeff Lynne's finally getting some recognition for his tremendous talents. This CD contains many of Lynne's more famous works. (Livin' Thing, Don't Bring Me Down, and Mr. Blue Sky to name a few.) It also contains some of his lesser known stuff. (No Time, Sweet is the Night, and Boy Blue for example.)

The music is performed by various artists. Some of them are basically done similarly to the originals while others are very different interpretations of Mr. Lynne's music. Most of the performances are not as good as the originals as I expected. (Jeff Lynne is the master, after all.) Some, in my opinion, are terrible. But there are a few gems that make this a worthwhile CD. I particularly like Rockaria!, Message from the Country and Steppin' Out.

What a fantastic way for artists from many genres to honor a man who has nurtured great music his entire life, Jeff Lynne. Lynne Me Your Ears contains many familiar ELO and Jeff Lynne classic tunes, some done very much like the originals, but others are done with new style, in a new vision and yet with love and respect for the original. Okay, some aren't my cup of tea, but I get more from those each time I listen to this album! I highly recommend Todd Rundgren's Bluebird is Dead, Tony Visconti's Mr. Blue Sky rocks (Hey, hey), and Fleming and John's Eldorado is really a heart wrenching tune. By the way, give this album more than one chance! It will grow on you, and you'll appreciate the honor and respect that these artists are sending Jeff's way.

It's been a couple of years since I bought, and wrote my customer review for, "Lynne Me Your Ears," and after listening to it a lot recently I thought this CD deserves a wider audience than it is likely getting. Don't know how much difference an Amazon customer review will make, but at least I'm giving it my best shot.

Short version: I think this album is great. You should consider buying.

This 2-CD set includes 32 covers of Jeff Lynne songs, from his pre-ELO days through his solo records and the Traveling Wilburys. Apart from Todd Rundgren and Carl Wayne (if you aren't a 40-plus Brit or haven't read Bev Bevan's book, you'll have to google him), I haven't heard of any of these people before, but who cares? The point of a tribute album is to bring fresh attention to a bunch of great tunes, and this set accomplishes its goal. The album might have garnered more attention if it featured artists like Sting, Peter Gabriel or Ian Anderson, but the project would not necessarily have come out better for it (though obviously we'll never know).

Like generalizations about the sexes, gays, or ethnic groups, there are some things you're just not supposed to say openly, but we're all friends here, so between you and me, some of these covers are (in terms of production and technical performance) improvements over the originals. It needs to be said, but as much as I admire Lynne, his earlier recordings with ELO were muddy and his vocal chops, until "New World Record," were not uniformly reliable. Because of this, several of the cuts on "Lynne Me Your Ears" feature crisper production and more melodious lead vocals than the recordings they pay tribute to. In particular, the rockers often fair a bit better than Lynne's originals because, in my opinion, Jeff's rockers often miss the mark just a bit due to having the guitar distortion and drums low in the mix. Notwithstanding the claim that Bev Bevan was one of the harder-pounding drummers in the Brit rock circuit, and notwithstanding the great, chunky drum sound producer Mack was able to generate on such albums as "Out of the Blue," on ELO recordings the drums are usually just nicely hanging in the background.

Among the cuts that benefit from the change are "10538 Overture," "Do Ya," and "Rockaria!," all with a much rougher sound and appropriate, trashcan drumming. (BTW, has anyone figured out what the soprano is singing in the intro to 'Rockaria'? I've never worked it out - one website suggests it is sung in Italian, which it certainly is not.) Without having heard the originals, I would also put the early songs "No Time" "Morning Sunshine," and "Message From the Country" here, due to the fact that Lynne's early work tends to be muddy in the mix, and his early singing may be charitably called A Bit Rough. (Have you seen the recently-released Early Concerts DVD? Day Tripper? Oh dear.) Same goes for "The Minister," to which I'll add that has anyone besides me noticed that the guitar riff is 'Day Tripper' and the verse is 'Paperback Writer?' Come on, Jeff, those tunes were released back to back on the same 45!

There's another subset of tracks where the songs have been significantly altered from the originals - basically, just what most buyers of a tribute album are looking for. Comparing these to Lynne's recordings is apples-and-oranges, and I can't say whether I prefer Jeff's or the covers, but luckily I don't have to. These songs are, sometimes inexplicably, absolutely captivating in their inventiveness.

First and foremost I would put "Boy Blue," which jumps with fun and celebration. Jeff wasn't doing his best singing when the original was recorded, and whoever Rick Altizer is, he really makes the song hop. Another great interpretation comes through in "On the Run" by something called Sixpence None the Richer. Their version couldn't be further from the original in tone and tempo, but the female vocalist puts such a winsome, pensive spin on the thing, it totally brings the song new life - which is the point of such a project, I would think.

"El Dorado" takes the cake, as a winning standout track that makes a grand composition into a truly beautiful sound recording. Lynne's original vocal was (let's admit it) just a teensy bit of a stretch for him, but the fluty, airy female vocal in the team Fleming and John puts the melody across with delicious pathos. This must be among the most pensive and bittersweet lyrics Jeff Lynne ever gave us, and IMO the version on this disc makes a very good song into something subtly wonderful. It belongs, in addition to your listening collection, on a great movie soundtrack somewhere.

Other terrifically re-invented songs include "Ma Ma Ma Belle," "Sweet Is the Night," and "Showdown," the latter of which I find inexplicably irresistible with its deadpan, monotone verses and sound bites from cowboy movies. "Evil Woman," produced like a Boy Band track, nevertheless sounds dynamite (perhaps aided, for me, by the fact that I never hear this kind of music in my daily life). "Steppin' Out," sung by Carl Wayne, is a nice interpretation, but IMO suffers from a little too much of Wayne's cabaret-style wobble, which occasionally turns what could be 'heartfelt' into 'shmaltz.' This same treatment might sound great with a whisky-voiced groaner like Eddie Vedder or even Peter Criss (well-coralled so as to keep his questionable pitch in check).

"Bluebird is Dead," by Todd Rundgren, sounds okay enough, even though Rundgren, as always, sounds like he's singing it from a reclining position on his sofa. A reviewer or two has mentioned that the track has removed a 'pointlessly obscene lyric,' but no - that lyric appears in the companion piece, "Oh No Not Susan," which does not appear on this CD set.

"Don't Bring Me Down" does a good job of bringing in the rock 'n' roll that Lynne often reached for but couldn't quite pull off successfully - again, Lynne often somehow lost the crunch necessary to make these tracks sound a bit out of control. DBMD sounds lively and fun here - and is that Ace Frehley in an uncredited cameo in the third verse ('What happened to the girl I used to know?'). By Golly, it sure does sound like his boyish, out-of-tune warbling, especially when we get to the line, 'I'll tell you once MAW, before I get on the FLAW...' And Ace did cover "Do Ya" in concert and on one of his CDs somewhere. "Turn to Stone" also gets new life, stripped down to what it could sound like without any strings or choir. A clever twist, at least the first time you hear it, occurs in the middle bit, which in the original is sung at lightning speed, and which here is slowed WAYYYYYY down to half-speed.

"One Summer Dream" sounds wonderful, produced with ever-increasing crunchiness and edge as the song progresses. And with a very clever instrumental digression into "Old England Town" from "ELO II."

"Can't Get It Out of My Head," sounds fantastic in the verses, beautifully re-imagined, but IMO falls flat on the choruses, where everything is playing the same notes - it could've been a lot richer.

I have been totally seduced by the Sparkle Jets' version of "Above the Clouds," which has, I guess, a sort of less-ornery Blondie thing going on. I don't know, whatever, but to me it sounds fantastic. Nothing much like the version on "New World Record," but it just lights me up.

A third group of songs are pretty much straight-on-the-line recreations of the originals, though performed ably and enjoyably. Some reviewers think of such covers as "pointless," but on a tribute album, covers of any nature ARE the point. The object is to provide an anthology, and straight-ahead covers do not interfere with this goal.

In this category I would place "Telephone Line," "Every Little Thing," "Handle with Care," (did the Wilburys really sing the words 'f**ked up' in the lyrics?), "Strange Magic," "Twilight," "Xanadu," "When Time Stood Still," "Rock and Roll is King" (which nevertheless benefits nicely from a more trashcan approach to the guitars and drums), and "Livin' Thing," which sounds just great, even though the band, PFR, didn't take any chances with it.

There are a couple of clunkers, naturally, and of course this is entirely in the ear of the listener. But Tony Visconti's "Mr. Blue Sky," which is charming in a totally-out-of-left-field way, lost its listenability to me after the first pass or two -- even though, like a nasty news story, I sometimes just can't pull myself away from it. Some other reviewers obviously love this recording, so who knows?

"You Took My Breath Away," by the Heavy Blinkers, is probably trying for winsome and willowy, but instead the entire organization sounds (to me) like it's on Codeine. While I'm sure the Blinkers are all lovely and talented artists, on this track the vocalists seem totally detached from the lyrics, and come across as bored to tears. Just an opinion, you understand.


The jewel case, for what it's worth, allows the discs to rattle around loose, which is annoying, but that's not what you came here for.

The inestimable Doug Powell put together a disparate group of artists to cover songs of Jeff Lynne, all the way from The Move to ELO to solo to The Traveling Wilberries.

Although the songs are all superior, some covers are much better than others. I particularly enjoyed Jamie Hoover's cover of "Handle With Care," as well as Todd Rundgren's beautiful take on "Bluebird." Solid contributions also by Swag, Bill Lloyd, Earl Slick, and Jason Falkner.

I might have spliced this down to a single disc, and gotten rid of some of the covers that don't add much. But on balance this is a nice tribute to a great artist.

It wasn't too long ago that I was listening to the new remastered "Eldorado" CD and wondering what would happen if a good female vocalist recorded some of these songs. To my delight, I found the last track on this CD to be a great female singer (as in Fleming and John) singing the song "Eldorado". This alone is worth the price of the CD.

I would like to say that the 31 other tracks on this CD are equally as inspired, but I can't. However, they are all more-or-less interesting and enjoyable, and they stand up to repeated listening. Some you might not like at first, but they grow on you.

My other favorites are Steppin' Out by Carl Wayne (great voice and arrangement) and One Summer Dream by Prairie Sons and Daughters (they managed to pay tribute to the delicate "pop" ELO and the earlier "progressive" ELO in one song).

If you are an ELO fan, I recommend you buy this CD now. It may not be in print forever. And, it's great to see Jeff Lynne get some long overdue recognition.

Tribute albums are usually disappointing becuase the songs invariably fall into 2 traps. Either it's such a carbon copy of the original, you ask 'what is the point?', or it's so different, whatever you liked about the song has been destroyed. Most of the songs here are faithful attempts to copy the original, but it still succeeds because Jeff Lynne was/is such an accomplished songwriter. His songs are so well crafted, they are very hard to screw up, unless of course your name is Todd Rundgren who delivers the only real clunker. And as for the people crying about the eclectic assortment of artists here, saying 'Who ARE these people?' that isn't the clever, or even valid, criticism you think it is, all you are doing is advertising your own musical ignorance...with a megaphone.

While I have a number of the album's tracks on my MP3 player, I can't say I play them often. The modernized covers of ELO's greatest hits generally are unimpressive 2000-era updates. ELO incorporated strings for a reason; the striping of the music ruins a lot of the tracks. Further, for someone in the Traveling Wilburys and a friend of top artists, why would few if any show up on the album? Todd Rundgren may be the most famous artist in this group--frankly his "Bluebird is Dead" is one of the best on the album--but where are artists like Petty and Dylan? Lynne deserves MUCH better than this.

While I would agree that this CD can't compete with original material, I would still state that as tribute CDs go, this one has its merits.

Lynn's sole solo CD, since he left ELO and since the Wilbury's died off..."Armchair Theater." is consigned to short attention span reviewers, so I have this one to address.

The cuts are really well recorded and they are cool played really loudly...(my neighbors are knockin,' right now). And isn't that what ELO were always about?
\
BEK

yeesh! whoda ever thought I'd have settled for three sentence reviews? Much less three paragraph?

Oh well...I'm outta here!