My Amazon Reviews: Electric Light Orchestra "Mr Blue Sky; The Very Best Of"

Crashing the Starship
1 Out Of 5 Stars


I don't know which makes me feel worse; that Jeff Lynne decided he needed to do note-for-note recreations of some of ELO's best known songs or that I was sucker enough to drop my hard earned cash on this doggy-doo. I first heard that Lynne wanted to make "Mr Blue Sky" because he wanted to make the songs sound like they did in his head, and with modern technology. OKAY, I'm intrigued. My imagination gets an expectation that maybe Lynne's going to revisit these songs and do some major overhauls, like different orchestrations of arrangements. Silly me.

Like Kiss, Foreigner, Journey and a handful of other classic rock bands, Lynne pulls a George Lucas on us and decides the real thing would be so much cooler if he just made them a second time, without any help from the rest of those pesky original Electric Light Orchestra bandmates. Which should give everyone a terrific lesson in what is commonly referred to as "Band Chemistry." As technically proficient as he is, and as much as he was the driving force behind ELO's multiple line-ups (except for the awful ELO II from the late 80's/early 90's), he alone does not an ELO make.

So you end up with some various minor changes, like the much dryer version of "Do Ya" or the less disco-fied version of "Turning to Stone." For the most part though, this is like chocolate pudding when you could have chocolate mousse. They have some similarities, but they just aren't the same thing. Jeff Lynne has every right in the world to remake his own songs in whatever format he desires. I also have the right to call them doody. Don't make the same mistake I did. Stick to your copies of All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra (Original Recording Remastered). Key word here? Original.

    

My Amazon Reviews: Peter Gabriel "New Blood"

Transfusion Confusion,
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Like so many older artists, Pater Gabriel has ideas about his older works. For some reason, those wonderful, ingrained and intensely personal songs from your life (and his career) need to be re-imagined. "New Blood" takes 13 songs, orchestrates them (think the "Scratch My Back" CD), and submits them for our consumption. It's pretty grand sounding music, cinematic and broad. But when you think of how a song like "In Your Eyes" wove such a spell the first time you heard it, this version will leave you with a tepid feeling.

So let's look at the songs that gain from the treatment. "Mercy Street" and "San Jacinto" gain in scope, while "Intruder" becomes a whole new menace. That's three. Then there's the songs that give you a serious dose of WTF. "Solisbury Hill" was as perfect a song as Gabriel has ever written, and the new version all but made me grind my teeth. "The Rhythm Of The Heat" has the word 'rhythm' in the freaking title, so taking away the drums functionally neuters that song. Same for "Red Rain" - all the drama is sucked out.

Which leaves the rest of the album in a holding pattern, with a bonus point for not forcing us to listen to "Biko" one more time. Also, "Up" is already a ten year old album. "New Blood" is making me wonder if Gabriel, like David Bowie, has hit a dry well. Bowie is at least sitting his time out, "New Blood" is mediocre enough to make me think maybe Peter Gabriel should give consideration to a similar spell.