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Out of the Blue (Electric Light Orchestra album)

 

 
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Out of the Blue (Electric Light Orchestra album)
 
 
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Out of the Blue is a double album
Double album

A double album is an sound album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold . A double album is typically, though not always, released because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium....
 by Electric Light Orchestra
Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra, commonly abbreviated ELO, were a symphonic rock group from Birmingham, England, who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001....
, first released in 1977.

lass="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m2060268",this)' onMouseout='hide("m2060268")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Jeff_Lynne">Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne

Jeffrey Lynne is a two-time Ivor Novello Awards recipient and Grammy Award-winning English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, guitarist and record producer who gained fame as the leader of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys....
 wrote the entire album in three and a half weeks after a sudden burst of creativity whilst hidden away in his rented chalet in the Swiss Alps
Swiss Alps

The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position with the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....
. It took a further two months to record in Munich
Munich

Munich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. Munich is located on the River Isar north of the Northern Limestone Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg....
. The album had 4,000,000 pre-ordered copies and quickly went multi-Platinum upon release. Out of the Blue spawned five hit singles in different countries, and was ELO's most commercially successful studio album.






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Encyclopedia


Out of the Blue is a double album
Double album

A double album is an sound album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold . A double album is typically, though not always, released because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium....
 by Electric Light Orchestra
Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra, commonly abbreviated ELO, were a symphonic rock group from Birmingham, England, who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001....
, first released in 1977.

History

Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne

Jeffrey Lynne is a two-time Ivor Novello Awards recipient and Grammy Award-winning English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, guitarist and record producer who gained fame as the leader of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys....
 wrote the entire album in three and a half weeks after a sudden burst of creativity whilst hidden away in his rented chalet in the Swiss Alps
Swiss Alps

The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position with the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....
. It took a further two months to record in Munich
Munich

Munich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. Munich is located on the River Isar north of the Northern Limestone Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg....
. The album had 4,000,000 pre-ordered copies and quickly went multi-Platinum upon release. Out of the Blue spawned five hit singles in different countries, and was ELO's most commercially successful studio album. It was also the first double album in the history of the UK music charts to generate four top twenty
UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official UK Charts Company on behalf of the British record industry. The chart week runs from Sunday to Saturday, with the chart being printed in Music Week magazine , ChartsPlus , and published online on various sites ....
 hit singles. Side three of the original double LP consisted of the symphonic Concerto for a Rainy Day, composed of four separate tracks which together made up a cohesive suite. The inclement weather effects heard on "Concerto" were real and recorded by Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne

Jeffrey Lynne is a two-time Ivor Novello Awards recipient and Grammy Award-winning English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, guitarist and record producer who gained fame as the leader of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys....
 during a very rainy summer in Munich
Munich

Munich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. Munich is located on the River Isar north of the Northern Limestone Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg....
 1977. The Concerto suite would be Lynne's last dabbling in symphonic rock
Symphonic rock

Symphonic rock is a subgenre of Rock and roll, and more specifically, progressive rock. Since early in progressive rock's history, the term has been used sometimes to distinguish more classically influenced progressive rock from the more psychedelic and Experimental rock offerings....
.

Jeff Lynne considers A New World Record
A New World Record

A New World Record is the sixth studio album by Electric Light Orchestra. It was released in 1976....
 and Out of the Blue to be the group's crowning achievements and both sold extremely well, reaching multi-platinum according to RIAA Certification. Capital Radio
Capital Radio

95.8 Capital FM is a London radio station owned by Global Radio....
 and The Daily Mirror Rock and Pop Awards (forerunner to The Brit Awards) named it "Album of the Year" in 1978. Jeff Lynne, the albums composer, received his first Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello

David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Wales composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the early 20th century....
 award for Outstanding Contributions to British Music the same year.

The large spaceship on the album's cover (by now symbolic of the group) was designed by Shusei Nagaoka
Shusei Nagaoka

is a Japanese people illustrator. He is best known for his music album cover art in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the artists he did covers for include, ELO, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Caldera and Pure Prairie League....
 and Ria Lewerke with Kosh
Kosh (art director)

Kosh is an art director, album cover designer, graphic artist, and documentary producer/director. He was born in London, England and rose to prominence in the mid-1960s while designing for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House....
 based on Kosh's earlier logo he designed for the previous album A New World Record which connected with Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is an Cinema of the United States 1977 in film space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It was the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: Star Wars#Original trilogy continue the story, while a Star Wars#Prequel trilogy contributes backstory, primarily for the troubled charac...
 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, Fran?ois Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban and Cary Guffey....
 fever. It also looks like a space station with a docking shuttle from 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 in film science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous and of...
 (1968). The number JTLA 823 L2 which is featured on the shuttle arriving at the space station is the original catalogue number for the album. The album also included an insert of a cardboard cutout of the space station. The space theme was carried onto the live stage in the form of a huge glowing flying saucer stage set, inside which the band performed.

Concerto for a Rainy Day

Side three of the release is subtitled "Concerto for a Rainy Day", a four track musical suite based on the weather
Weather

Weather is a set of all the Phenomenon occurring in a given atmosphere at a given time. Weather phenomena lie in the hydrosphere and troposphere....
 and how it affects mood
Mood (psychology)

A mood is a relatively long lasting, affective or emotional state. Moods differ from simple emotions in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event....
 change, ending gloriously with the eventual sunshine and happiness of "Mr. Blue Sky
Mr. Blue Sky

Mr. Blue Sky is a song by the rock group Electric Light Orchestra.The song forms the fourth and last track on the "Standin' in the Rain" suite on side three of the original two-LP set....
". This was inspired by Jeff Lynne's experience whilst trying to write songs for the album against torrential rain outside his Swiss Chalet.

"Standin' in the Rain
Standin' in the Rain

'Standin' in the Rain' is the opening track to "Concerto for a Rainy Day" from the 1977 double LP Out of the Blue .The song opens a four track musical suite based on the weather and how it affects mood change, ending gloriously with the eventual sunshine and happiness of Mr....
" opens with a haunting keyboard over a recording of real rain
Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation . On Earth, it is the condensation of atmospheric water vapor into droplet heavy enough to fall, often making it to the surface....
, recorded by Jeff Lynne just outside his rented studio. Also heard at the 30 second point of the song marking the beginning of The Concerto is thunder
Thunder

Thunder is the sound made by lightning. Depending on the nature of the lightning and distance of the listener, it can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble ....
 crackling in an unusual manner voicing the words "Concerto for a Rainy Day" by the band's keyboardist, Richard Tandy
Richard Tandy

Richard Tandy , is best known as the keyboard player in the rock band, Electric Light Orchestra . His palette of keyboards was an important ingredient in the group's sound, for example on the albums A New World Record, Out of the Blue , Discovery , and Time ....
. ELO used the song to open their 1978 Out Of The Blue concerts.

"Big Wheels" forms the second part of the Concerto for a Rainy Day suite and continues with the theme of the weather and reflection followed by the more optimistic third part "Summer and Lightning". Apart from its inclusion on the Out Of The Blue album, the song has never appeared on any compilation or B-sides
B-Sides

B-Sides is an iTunes-exclusive album from the Coventry Trio The Enemy , consisting of ten songs that were B-sides to the single releases from their debut album We'll Live and Die in These Towns....
 until 2000, when Jeff Lynne, the song's composer, included it on the group's retrospective album Flashback
Flashback (Electric Light Orchestra box set)

Flashback is a box set compilation by Electric Light Orchestra. See also: Afterglow ...
.

"Summer and Lightning
Summer and Lightning

Summer and Lightning is a song by Electric Light Orchestra.It is the third song in the "Concerto for a Rainy Day" suite from the 1977 album Out of the Blue ....
" is the third song in the "Concerto for a Rainy Day" suite. The raining weather theme is continued throughout the track though the mood and lyrics are more optimistic eventually leading on to the classic finale of...

..."Mr. Blue Sky
Mr. Blue Sky

Mr. Blue Sky is a song by the rock group Electric Light Orchestra.The song forms the fourth and last track on the "Standin' in the Rain" suite on side three of the original two-LP set....
" is the finale of "Concerto for a Rainy Day". It is an uplifiting, lively song celebrating sunshine. It is the only piece from the Concerto to be excerpted as a single
Single (music)

In the record industry, a single is a song usually used from a current or upcoming album to promote the album. Singles are distributed through a number of ways; originally, they were packaged as "single" records with one or two other songs and sold before the release of the album....
. In the last orchestral note, the phrase "Please Turn Me O-ver" spoken through a vocoder
Vocoder

A vocoder, , is an analysis / synthesis system, mostly used for speech in which the input is passed through a multiband filter, each filter is passed through an envelope follower, the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated, and the decoder applies these control signals to corresponding filters in the synthesizer....
 can be heard (This bit has been misheard repeatedly as "Mr. Blue Sky, why?", but original keyboardist Richard Tandy confirmed the actual lyric to members of the Showdown ELO fan list). (This is an instruction for owners of the original vinyl album to turn it over to listen to the following side.)

Reissue

The remastered album was re-released on February 20th (US) and 26th (UK), 2007 as part of the Sony/BMG Music Epic/Legacy series. The 30th anniversary issue was a strictly limited one-off pressing in hardback book with expanded 24-page full colour booklet. It features full-length sleeve notes by Jeff Lynne and ELO archivist Rob Caiger, as well as rare photos and memorabilia. A push-out replica ELO Space Station for this version was released as well as the standard jewel case edition with a full colour 12-page edited booklet. The album once again reached the top twenty album charts in the UK peaking at #18. A sixth single "Latitude 88 North
Latitude 88 North

"Latitude 88 North" is a song by Electric Light Orchestra and was released as the third bonus track on the 2007 remastered version of their 1977 album Out of the Blue ....
" was released as digital download single.

The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a musical reference book edited by Robert Dimery, released in 2006.It consists of a list of albums released between 1950 and 2005, part of a series from Quintessence Editions Ltd....
.

In August 2006, it was named by the UK's Q magazine as the #11 'Guilty Pleasure' album of all time – a list designed to celebrate 'uncool' but excellent records, which received considerable publicity.

Track listing

All music and lyrics were written by Jeff Lynne. Orchestra and choral arrangements by Jeff Lynne, Richard Tandy and Louis Clark
Louis Clark

Louis Clark is a British musical arranger and keyboard player.He trained at Leeds College of Music. He was the conductor of the orchestra and choir hired to back Electric Light Orchestra's sound, introduced on their album Eldorado in 1974....
. Orchestra conducted by Louis Clark.

Side one


Side two


Side three (Concerto for a Rainy Day)


Side four


2007 bonus tracks

  2. "Wild West Hero
    Wild West Hero

    "Wild West Hero" is a song by Electric Light Orchestra, and the closing track and third single from the album Out of the Blue . The song was written by lead singer Jeff Lynne....
    " (Alternate Bridge - Home Demo) – 0:24
  3. "The Quick and the Daft
    The Quick and the Daft

    Not to be confused with "The Quick and the Dead""The Quick and the Daft" is title of the ninteenth song on the 2007 Out of the Blue #2007 bonus tracks version of the 1977 album Out of the Blue by Electric Light Orchestra....
    " – 1:49
  4. "Latitude 88 North
    Latitude 88 North

    "Latitude 88 North" is a song by Electric Light Orchestra and was released as the third bonus track on the 2007 remastered version of their 1977 album Out of the Blue ....
    " – 3:24


Personnel

  • Jeff Lynne
    Jeff Lynne

    Jeffrey Lynne is a two-time Ivor Novello Awards recipient and Grammy Award-winning English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, guitarist and record producer who gained fame as the leader of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys....
     – lead vocals
    Singing

    Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the human voice, which is often contrasted with regular speech. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist....
    , backing vocals
    Backing vocalist

    A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. In some cases, a backing singer may sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry....
    , lead guitar
    Lead guitar

    Lead guitar refers to the use of a guitar to perform melody lines, fill , and guitar solos within a song structure.In rock music, heavy metal music, blues, jazz and fusion bands and some pop music contexts as well as others, the lead guitar lines are usually supported by a second guitarist who plays rhythm guitar, which consists of accompan...
    , slide guitar
    Slide guitar

    Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide is in reference to the sliding motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides, which were the necks of glass bottles....
    , rhythm guitar
    Rhythm guitar

    Rhythm guitar is the use of a guitar to provide rhythmic chord al accompaniment for a singer or other instruments in a musical ensemble. In ensembles or "bands" playing within the country music, blues music, rock music or Heavy metal music genres , a guitarist playing the rhythm part of a composition supports the melodic lines and solos play...
    , Gibson
    Gibson Guitar Corporation

    The Gibson Guitar Corporation, of Nashville, Tennessee, USA, is a manufacturer of Steel-string guitar and electric guitars. Gibson also owns and makes guitars under such brands as Epiphone, Kramer Guitars, Valley Arts Guitar, Tobias , Steinberger, and Gibson Kalamazoo Electric Guitar....
     EDS 1275, Les Paul
    Les Paul

    Les Paul is an American jazz guitarist and inventor. He is a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which "made the sound of rock and roll possible." His many recording innovations include overdubbing, Delay such as "sound on sound" and Delay , Phaser , and multitrack recording....
     Custom, Marauder, Ovation 1615/4, 1619/4, Wurlitzer
    Wurlitzer

    The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, is an American company, formerly a producer of stringed instruments, woodwind, brass instruments, theatre organs, fairground organ, orchestrions, electronic organs, Wurlitzer electric piano and jukeboxes....
     E.P. 200, Mini-moog, percussion
    Percussion instrument

    A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound by being hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration....
  • Bev Bevan
    Bev Bevan

    Bev Bevan is an English rock musician who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and the Electric Light Orchestra. After the collapse of ELO in 1986, he founded Electric Light Orchestra Part II without the original ELO singer/songwriter, Jeff Lynne....
     – Slingerland drum
    Drum

    The drum is a member of the percussion instrument group, technically classified as a membranophone.. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with parts of a player's body, or with some sort of implement such as a drumstick, to produce sound....
    s, Remo
    Remo

    Remo is an American drum skin company.Remo may also refer to:* Remo , a member of the Lucchese crime family* Remo language, a Panoan language of Brazil and Peru...
     Roto Toms
    Rototom

    Rototoms are drums which have no shell. They consist of a single head in a die-cast zinc or aluminum frame. Unlike most other drums, they have a variable definite pitch ....
    , Avedis Zildjian
    Avedis Zildjian Company

    The Avedis Zildjian Company is a cymbal and gong manufacturer founded in Istanbul, Turkey by an Armenians named Avedis Zildjian during the Ottoman Empire....
     cymbal
    Cymbal

    Cymbals are a modern percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various cymbal alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture....
    s, Slingerland 'Bev Bevan' drumsticks, Remo drum heads, gong
    Gong

    A gong is an East Asia and South East Asian musical instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet.Gongs are broadly of three types....
    , various percussion instruments, backing vocals
  • Richard Tandy
    Richard Tandy

    Richard Tandy , is best known as the keyboard player in the rock band, Electric Light Orchestra . His palette of keyboards was an important ingredient in the group's sound, for example on the albums A New World Record, Out of the Blue , Discovery , and Time ....
     – Polymoog
    Polymoog

    The Polymoog is a polyphony analog synthesizer that was manufactured by Moog Music from 1975 to 1980. The Polymoog was based on divide-down oscillator technology similar to organs and string synthesizers of the time, and this led to a certain lack of flexibility compared to later polyphonic synthesizers such as the Yamaha CS-80 and the Seque...
    , Minimoog
    Minimoog

    The Minimoog is a monophonic analog synthesizer, invented by Bill Hemsath and Robert Moog. Released in 1971 by the original Moog Music, it was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers....
    , ARP 2600
    ARP 2600

    The ARP 2600 is a semi-modular analog circuit Subtractive synthesis Synthesizer, designed by Alan R. Pearlman and manufactured by his company, ARP Instruments, Inc....
    , ARP Odyssey
    ARP Odyssey

    The ARP Instruments, Inc. Odyssey was an analog circuit synthesizer introduced in 1972. Responding to pressure from Moog Music to create a portable, affordable "performance" synthesizer, ARP scaled down its popular ARP 2600 synthesizer and created the Odyssey, which became the best-selling synthesizer they made....
    , ARP Omni
    ARP Omni

    The ARP Omni was a simple electronic keyboard instrument which produced preset stringed instrument sounds. It was ARP's best selling keyboard....
    , Sequencer
    Sequencer

    A sequencer is something that either generates or analyzes a sequence, or triggers events in timed fashion. The term may mean or refer to:* Sequencer, a 1976 electronic music album by Larry Fast...
    , minus noise mixer, Wurlitzer E.P. 200
    Wurlitzer electric piano

    The Wurlitzer electric piano was one of a series of electric piano manufactured and marketed by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, Corinth, Mississippi, Mississippi, United States and North Tonawanda, New York, NY....
    , Yamaha
    Yamaha (manufacturer)

    The is a multinational corporation and Conglomerate based in Japan with a wide range of products and services, predominantly musical instruments, motorcycles and powersports equipment, and electronics....
     C7B piano
    Piano

    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
    , S L M concert spectrum, mellotron
    Mellotron

    The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphony keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin, which was the world's first sampling keyboard....
     M 400, Hohner
    Hohner

    For the music band from Cologne, see H?hner.Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a company specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments....
     clavinet
    Clavinet

    Not to be confused with clarinetA Clavinet is an electrophone keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar....
    , Gibson S.G custom guitar
  • Kelly Groucutt
    Kelly Groucutt

    Kelly Groucutt...
     – vocals, backing vocals, Gibson G.3 bass
    Bass guitar

    The electric bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a plectrum.The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and Scale length, and usually four strings tuned to the same pitches as those of the double bass, whic...
    , percussion
  • Mik Kaminski
    Mik Kaminski

    Mik Kaminski played violin for the Electric Light Orchestra between 1973 and 1979.He made his first professional performance with the Leeds Orchestra, when he was 14....
     – Barcus Berry violin
    Violin

    The violin is a Bow string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
  • Melvyn Gale
    Melvyn Gale

    Melvyn Gale is an English people cellist....
     – William Lewis cello, piano
    Piano

    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
  • Hugh McDowell
    Hugh McDowell

    Hugh Alexander McDowell is an English people cellist....
     – William Lewis cello


Even though Mik Kaminski appeared only on "Sweet Talkin Woman", "Across the Border" and "Wild West Hero" , Melvyn Gale on "Wild West Hero" and Hugh McDowell on none of the tracks, all three are credited as full band members.

Chart Positions, Chart Runs

  • US: #4 Billboard 200
    Billboard 200

    The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling Albums and extended play in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine....
    , 58 weeks
  • UK: #4 UK Albums Chart
    UK Albums Chart

    The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled by The Official UK Charts Company and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website ; the full Top 200 is published exclusively in ChartsPlus....
    , 113 weeks
  • AUS: #3 ARIA Albums Chart
    ARIA Charts

    File:ARIA Charts Logo.pngThe ARIA charts are the main Australia record charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling single and albums in various genres in Australia....
    , 31 weeks
  • CAN: #1 RPM Albums Chart
    RPM (magazine)

    RPM was a Canada music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees....
    , 29 weeks
  • GER: #6 Media Control Charts
    Media Control Charts

    The official Music Charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband der phonographischen Wirtschaft ....


External links