Jeff Lynne's final album with the Electric Light Orchestra for the Jet label was originally intended to be a double album, but once again the record company interfered with the artist's vision, saying that it would be too expensive to produce a double vinyl album. 'Out Of The Blue' anyone? The title was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the furore regarding supposed secret messages hidden in music with back-masking, and there was even a blurb on the back saying exactly this, until panicky bosses at the American distributor CBS insisted that it was removed. The secret messages, however, remained in the music, and are fun for fans to try to find. Lynne was forced to removed eight of his songs from the album, and these later appeared on B-sides and remastered versions of later albums. However, one of these songs, 'Beatles Forever', has become something of a holy grail as it's never appeared on any album, and has only ever been played once in public, at an ELO fan club convention, on the understanding that no-one recorded it. Of course they did, and low quality copies have since leaked onto Youtube, so I've cleaned it up as best I could to include here.
Track listing
01 Secret Messages
02 Loser Gone Wild
03 Bluebird
04 Take Me On And On
05 Stranger
06 No Way Out
07 Beatles Forever
08 Letter From Spain
09 Danger Ahead
10 Four Little Diamonds
11 Train Of Gold
12 Endless Lies
13 Buildings Have Eyes
14 Rock 'n' Roll Is King
15 Mandalay
16 Time After Time
17 After All
18 Hello My Old Friend
A rather odd comment on the Electric Light Orchestra's 'Time Stood Still' post prompted me to see if a better quality recording of 'Beatles Forever' had emerged since I first posted it, and I'm thrilled to be able to say that there is now a superb remaster of the song by The Bug Club, which sounds about as good as we're ever going to get since it was removed at the last minute from the 2018 re-issue of 'Secret Messages'. I've upgraded my double disc version of the album to include this new take, and links are updated
thanks for the ELO albums and the Byrds which I snagged as well nice site mate
ReplyDeleteI don't know what happened to me and ELO. I loved 'New World Record' & 'Out of the Blue' - - I even made that cardboard spaceship! But then I got into Elvis Costello and the New Wave bands. I didn't even know this album existed. I do now, and I love it. Thanks a lot.
ReplyDeleteCould not find any link...would you please provide it again?
ReplyDeleteIt's in the comments on the Nilsson post.
DeleteSECRET MESSAGES 1983 - ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA - NEW LINK - Please and Thank You, by raulzimdimaio@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteThe links are in the comments of the most recent post.
ReplyDeletePJ, without localization the link, is secret ? by raulzimdimaio@
ReplyDeleteLook in the comments of the Bill Withers post from today. Links are in the comments of the most recent post.
ReplyDeleteI did also email the link for this album to you. Check your junk folder in case it's in there.
ReplyDelete