By Dante Spado
My favorite band is Electric Light Orchestra, or as they’re more commonly known, ELO. Growing up, I was raised on Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen and other classic rock bands, like Aerosmith. ELO was never on my radar until I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (fitting that my favorite band would come out of a movie I saw), which featured the song “Mr. Blue Sky” in its opening sequence. I was hooked on the song, but more importantly, I was hooked on their sound. Jeff Lynne’s falsetto voice coupled with violins and guitars released an ungodly amount of serotonin in my brain.
I looked into ELO more and found that I already knew their big hits “Don’t Bring Me Down” and “Do Ya.” But I also fell in love with new songs I had never heard before, like “Midnight Blue”, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” and, my favorite, “Telephone Line.” Over the years, I cycled through all their songs and albums until I only had one left—Time.
I need to start off by saying Time is NOT like the other ELO albums. The orchestra is swapped out for a synth (hey! It was the ‘80s), resulting in a new sound for the band. The album is also unique because each song bleeds into the next. If you listen to the whole thing straight through (and you should), there is never a moment of silence. You can tell when a new song starts, but there are always lingering instrumentals that bridge the gap between one track to the next.
The coolest thing about Time is that it’s a concept album that tells a story of a man taken from the 1980s to the year 2095. The whole thing is very futuristic, even by today’s standards. It’s also my belief that the album could be adapted into an awesome sci-fi movie.
Between being transported to the future, having his wife replaced with an android version of herself, traveling to the moon, contacting his wife in the 80s through a dream and coming to terms with what it means to be a “21st Century Man,” the man in the album goes through some really interesting stuff. The kicker is, at the beginning and end of the album the man goes through a dream-like state, leaving the listener wondering if the man really was taken to the future, or if it was all just a dream.
Every time I listen to the album, I get this vivid imagery in my head, from the “ivory towers and plastic flowers” to having a robot wife who is “the latest in technology.” I’m confident that the album could be adapted to a movie, and that may be something I look into in my Introduction to Screen Adaptation class this semester.
I imagine a lot of that sounded weird, and I’d say that’s fair; it’s a weird album. But it’s also really good. If you have time (ha) over the weekend, I recommend setting aside 40 minutes or so and listening to Time. It might just transport you across another plane.