Trivia / Electric Light Orchestra

• Career Resurrection: Alone in the Universe was released in November of 2015, 14 years after the lukewarm reception to Zoom. Spurred on by positive reviews of his solo records and the positive reception of Mr. Blue Sky, a 'greatest-hits' collection of ELO songs re-recorded by Lynne, it seemed the time was right for Jeff Lynne to return with new ELO material. It was also the first album billed as 'Jeff Lynne's ELO', as he had obtained complete rights to the band name. He played his first concert as ELO in thirty years in New York City in November 2015.
• Channel Hop: The band were initially signed to Harvest Records in the UK and United Artists Records in the US. After two albums, the band moved over to Warner (Bros.) Records in the UK before their manager, Don Arden, opened his own label, Jet Records, in 1974, moving the band there. While Jet was distributed by United Artists in the US, in Britain, they were handled by Island Records for a year, then Polydor Records for another before moving to United Artists worldwide. In 1978, Jet switched distributors again to Columbia Records, a deal that would remain in place until Arden shut down the label in 1985. Because of Jet's closure, Balance of Power and Zoom were released through Epic Records (with CBS Associated Records handling the US release of the former) before the band moved back to Columbia for their material as Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra.
• Creator Backlash: The soundtrack to Xanadu was not fondly remembered by Jeff Lynne at first. However, he eventually came to terms with that and released an album featuring some rerecorded Xanadu songs, and as of the 2019 tour, includes two songs from the album ("Xanadu" and "All Over The World") in the setlist.
• Creator Breakdown: Balance of Power was Jeff Lynne's way of saying "I really don't want to keep this band going anymore," especially as detailed below the denial of Secret Messages as a double album and the cut content from the aforementioned Balance of Power ensured that the band would at least need a break. The lyrical content clashing with the happy instrumentals make this extremely evident.
• Creator Killer: The television broadcast of their 1978 Wembley concert, which fell victim to a horrible mixing job that makes their Xanadu soundtrack sound like the Scarface soundtrack by comparison, was most likely the beginning of the end for ELO.
• Missing Episode:
  • From the Secret Messages sessions came the song "Beatles Forever". It was originally slated to be released as part of the album, but it was ultimately left off when the original concept of making the album a double album was canned. Subsequent re-releases of the album have not seen it released as a bonus track and is unlikely to ever see an official release, possibly due to Jeff Lynne's later involvement in projects involving former Beatles members causing him to look back on it less than fondly. Bootlegs do exist, though, thanks to an ELO Fan Club Convention that played the song once for its attendees.
  • In 1990 Jeff Lynne got together with Roy Wood to write and record two songs. Though meant to be a double-sided single, they were ultimately never released, but appear on several ELO bootlegs.
  • Over four hours of material was recorded for Balance of Power but only 35 minutes of it made it onto the final album. If Jeff Lynne still has said recordings, it seems unlikely at this point that he has any intention of releasing them.
• Money, Dear Boy: The only reason why ELO's songs are in commercials in the first place (although Jeff has admitted that he loves seeing his music in movies and TV).
• No Export for You: While the double-album version of Secret Messages was mostly consigned to vinyl when it finally came out in 2018, it did get a CD release in Japan... and only Japan, owed to the format maintaining widespread popularity there.
• The Pete Best: Roy Wood, one of Jeff's old bandmates from their previous band the Move, who left after the first album to form Wizzard. He managed to avoid becoming this in the UK, however, due to Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" becoming a classic Christmas anthem. He may actually be the best known member despite leaving so early on.
• Revival by Commercialization: From Volkswagen to The Emoji Movie to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to Toy Story 4, it seems Jeff Lynne makes a lot of money from throwing his music out to any production that wants it.
• Shrug of God: Jeff Lynne says that he doesn't actually know whether the time travel journey of "Time" really happened to the protagonist, or was all a dream.
• Throw It In!: The lead soprano on "Rockaria!" came in too early, but Jeff Lynne found it endearing enough to keep it on the finished track.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, Secret Messages was going to be a 2-disc album including the unreleased track "Beatles Forever". However, the band was advised against it, since their record company claimed it would be too expensive to produce. The cut songs would surface on reissues over time before the double-LP configuration was finally restored for a vinyl reissue in 2018 (albeit excising "Beatles Forever").
  • Balance of Power ended up with a lot of unused material, as the existence of alternate recordings of both "Secret Lives" and "Heaven Only Knows" shows it was supposed to be a more string-heavy production. Denying that the album was slapped together to fulfill a contract, ELO archivist Rob Caiger adds the 34-minute album was condensed down from 4 hours of material.

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