Electric Light Orchestra’s First Album Turns 50

‘Electric Light Orchestra’, the first album for Electric Light Orchestra, was released 50 years ago on 3 December 1971.

Electric Light Orchestra was formed around The Move’s core members Bev Bevan, Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood. The Move were making their final album at the same time ELO started work on their debut.

The self-titled album was initially released as ‘No Answer’ in the United States due to an error. A record company executive had rang ELO management to ask the name of the album. No-one answered so he wrote down “no answer” in his notes. That mistake went all the way to release.

‘Electric Light Orchestra’ reached no 32 in the USA and no 54 in Australia but only reached no 196 in America.

Roy Wood left ELO during the recording of the second album ‘ELO 2’. He only appears on two tracks. He went on to form Wizzard and had a hit with ‘See My Baby Jive’.

Electric Light Orchestra had their first top 10 album anywhere in the world in Australia with their third album ‘On the Third Day’. It reached no 10. Australia gave more love to Elo than the UK in the early days. ‘On The Third Day’ (1973), ‘Eldorado’ (1974) and ‘Face The Music’ (1975) all failed to chart in the UK but were all Top 40 albums in Australia. ‘Face The Music’, with the hit song ‘Evil Woman’ reached no 8 in America. The UK didn’t warm to ELO until the sixth album ‘A New World Record’ in 1976. That album also delivered three Top 10 hits in Australia and the UK ‘Living Thing’, ‘Telephone Line’ and ‘Rockaria’.

Bev Bevan left ELO for Black Sabbath in 1983 but returned for the final album ‘Balance of Power’ in 1986. These days Jeff Lynne continues to tour as the sole founding member of ELO. He has released three album as ELO, ‘Zoom’ (2001), ‘Alone In The Universe’ (2015) and ‘From Out Of Nowhere’ (2019).

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