D. Malcolm Fairbrother

Once upon a time, o my children, there really was an Electric Light Orchestra, composed of real people playing a wide variety of actual instruments and composing music that was interesting to scores of fans. Chuck Berry and the maestro himself, Beethoven, were allegedly seen rolling it on over at electrifying concerts where Art Rock concepts and classical sensibilities snuggled warmly together. Alas! That scene recently has been replaced by a 'faux-E.L.O.' imitation fueled by the ego of one man, Jeff Lynne, who has resurrected the name of the group on the new CD, Zoom, while assembling few of the elements that were so crucial to any of its past successes.

Electric Light Orchestra sprang into being when the eccentric group The Move could not sustain the rather diverse and weighty visions of its founding members, Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and Bev Bevan. To the mix of Beatlesque guitar work and song writing, Lynne and Bevan added electrifying and electric violins and cellos, renamed themselves Electric Light Orchestra, and dominated the 70s with a string of pop chart-topping singles and a flurry of albums that featured state of the art production values, superior musicianship and a treasure trove of inventive ideas. But as much as they became the darlings of their ever-increasing fan base, the critics began to decry their evolution into a hit factory that had seemingly lost the creative edge. By the early 80s, the group had fallen out of favour with the record-buying masses, and Mr. Lynne's attentions turned to twiddling the knobs in the production of several remarkable albums for other artists. Among his startling successes in this field are Information (Dave Edmunds), Cloud Nine (George Harrison), Mystery Girl (Roy Orbison) and Full Moon Fever (Tom Petty). Add to this impressive list the exceptional but brief catalogue of the Traveling Wilburys, a super group composed of Lynne and the aforementioned Petty, Harrison and Orbison, and augmented by a significant contribution by no less than Bob Dylan himself, and it becomes an understatement to say that Mr. Lynne has paid his dues.

All of this serves to render Zoom a somewhat perplexing but not uninteresting work that has some moments of sheer brilliance as well as a few mildly disappointing aspects. On the first song, Alright, Lynne gives us reason for optimism. A beat rescued right out of the peak years of E.L.O is borne on soaring guitars into a most listenable and enjoyable piece of pop music, replete with a repetitive yet hummable chorus and sonic fury worthy of the name Orchestra. Sadly, this is the only song in which a former group member other than Lynne makes an appearance. Given that Lynne is more than capable of deftly handling a wide variety of instruments, including keyboards, Mr. Tandy's presence would seem irrelevant.

Much of Lynne's catalogue as exemplified by the songs contained on Zoom present the listener with a problematic paradox: his attempt to recapture the past gives us songs such as Moment in Paradise or Just For Love that briefly capture the magic of the past, but quickly pale in comparison to songs from the pinnacle of his former success, both artistic and commercial. It is difficult to find fault with a collection of pretty baubles, yet ultimately they do not hold our interest and serve only to drive us back to box sets and greatest hits collections where the truly marvelous material is still to be found.

There are moments of engaging exhilaration. These moments, on songs such as State Of Mind and All She Wanted, tend to occur when Lynne reaches back into the past of rock 'n' roll, extracts a simple yet effective hook, bass-line or beat, and attempts to transmute it into something unique and modern. It is somewhat of an irony that he has much more success echoing the music of others than he does in recreating his own sound. State Of Mind clips along with an engaging cadence, but it would not be out of place on an earlier work from the mid-70s such as Face The Music or New World Record. The same could be said of All She Wanted: engagingly evocative, like an echo of the writer's former greatness.

Zoom contains several love songs that are similar to one another as well as to love songs on previous works. Songs such as In My Own Time and A Long Time Gone present a wounded lover who has suffered but survived; as bitter-sweet as they are, they are just like the candies from a box of chocolates: tasty to be sure, too sweet by half, and, in the end, barely distinguishable one from another. A highlight in this area is the allegorical Stranger On A Quiet Street, a song that brings a sense of mystery to what could have been a rather pedestrian subject matter, the feeling of isolation and confusion that lost love can arouse in one who is abandoned...ultimately the stranger is oneself.

The CD demonstrates that Jeff Lynne is a first-rate producer. He constructs even the most mundane of songs with articulate layers of sound that give the listener the sense that even the most insignificant of phrases has been deliberately included for a higher purpose. Zoom, therefore, sounds great but says little, including thirteen pieces in a scant forty-five minutes. Lynne pays serious homage to his idols, The Beatles, in more ways than one. Of course he uses the production techniques and values well established on former Beatles works -- E.L.O. always had that Beatles-like layering of sound much more capably rendered in the studio than on the stage. On this work, he includes the slide guitar work of George Harrison and the drumming of Ringo Starr on a couple of tracks -- the echo of Lynne's musical signature is just too strong, though. Both icons' work is diluted to the point of 'what's the point?'.

In short, Lynne reminds us of how difficult it is to reinvent yourself when all you can do is stare into a mirror of your own design.

[More information on the Electric Light Orchestra may be found at http://www.elomusic.com - Ed]