Search - Elo :: Secret Messages

A solid, well-produced collection

Dave | United States | 10/19/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've been getting back into ELO yet again, and beginning to appreciate Jeff Lynne's talent more than ever. Electric Light Orchestra's 1983 album "Secret Messages" strikes me as a solid, badly underrated album.



Jeff Lynne was onto something here, and although it was hardly without precedent, he really hit upon an in-your-face ear-candy production style that can be strongly detected in his subsequent production work with George Harrison and Tom Petty. Lynne hadn't entirely abandoned real orchestration here, although to a large extent he had. There are lots of synthesizers--he admits in the liner notes of this 2001 reissue of the album that he was after a more hi-tech sound, and the results are mostly impressive.



He also wrote a bunch of quality songs. The uptempo title track is a highly catchy harmony-fest with earthy and atmospheric electric guitar. The tempo-shifting "Loser Gone Wild" is a terrific track with an engagingly bluesy feel on the verses and an extremely catchy, richly harmonized chorus. "Bluebird" is a wistful and affecting, if slightly melodramatic, mid-tempo pop-rocker. The reflective "Stranger" is a supremely enjoyable ballad that sounds very similar to Al Stewart's "Song On The Radio". "Take Me On and On", with its ringing arpegiatted guitars and hushed moody feel, is sumptuous. I used to dislike "Time After Time", but I have to refute myself, as this is a spacy, wonderfully-harmonized and addictive track. "Four Little Diamonds" is rather slight, but still catchy and fun. Even "Rock 'N' Roll Is King" is hardly as lousy as I used to feel it was.



I haven't changed my mind though about "Letter From Spain", which is a dull 'atmospheric' piece with that annoying repetition of "lettah" [sic] running throughout.



Specifically regarding the 2001 reissue of "Secret Messages"... The remastering is excellent. There are also a couple of flawed, but interesting, bonus tracks--the doo-wopping "No Way Out" has a really catchy harmonized bit; and "Endless Lies" has some nice melodicism, although Lynne gets carried away with his operatic vocal sections. On the downside, the third and final bonus track, the instrumental "After All" (used as a b-side for "Rock 'N' Roll Is King") is more dull 'atmospherics' along the lines of "Letters From Spain". Also, Lynne's track-by-track "commentary" in the booklet is for the most part incredibly tossed-off and perfunctory, with nearly no insight into the actual songwriting.



In the end, "Secret Messages" is a highly enjoyable piece of work with some true essential gems--very much worth discovering if you perhaps haven't heard it in many years."

Very, Very good!

Odd Magne Granli | Southern Sweden | 10/09/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It couldnt started better. The song "Secret Messages" is one of the best songs they have written. In fact many of their best songs are here "Secret Messages", "Take me on and on", "Four Little Diamond", "Stranger", "Danger Ahead", "Letter from Spain" and the funny rocker "Rock n`Roll is king". This alone makes the cd worth it, and then there is all those songs that havent gotten worthy playtimes, like "Bluebird". My favorite song of ELO is Danger Ahead. It is a upbeat rocker with a tight and typical ELO sound, with a wonderful chorus. I love it, and it makes the cd even better.It may not be the good old ELO as they were on Eldorado and those records, but on the other hand, I prefer the Jeff Lynne dominated style, on the newer records. Those who reads my other reviews knows my knack for his style.I give this cd 5 stars, there ARE some not so good songs here, but the good ones make it all worth it. Buy this one!"