ELDORADO

If my memory still works properly, this might be the first album that I heard from Electric Light Orchestra. I was so impressed with the word "orchestra" prior to buying the cassette at record store at that time. As the first song is a symphonic music using orchestra, so I purchased this album. The good thing about this album when I did a bit of research was that this is the first concept album ELO has ever made where Jeff Lynne wrote the whole story first prior to any idea on what sort of music he and his band mates were about to make. It's basically similar with adopting the book to a concept album. The difference is on the way the story was conceived as it tells the story of a character who experiences mental journeys into fantasy through dreams in order to runaway from a mundane reality the character can not tolerate.

The use of "real" orchestra .

Well, as the name of the band implies, it's actually no harm at all if Jeff Lynne composed the music with electric orchestration as far as there is a great representation of violin and cello throughout the album. Jeff did not manipulate on this and he did not overdub the record by putting real orchestra, conducted by Louis Clark, in every single piece of its music. The result is truly a lively record demonstrating excellent stream of music which flows naturally into my mind. By that time I was not posed to any significant exploration of string orchestration in rock music. So this kind of move by a pop / rock band had made me quite impressed with the sound.

Even though the basic structure of its music is a pop rock style, the augmentation of orchestra has improved the musical impact on my head. Right after great overture the music follows with "Can't Get it Out of My Head" (4:26) which was my favourite at first listen of the cassette. This track was also released as a single. The song has beautiful structure and melody. "Boy Blue" (5:17) reminds me to a heroic nature of a battle especially with the use of brass section at the opening part followed brilliantly with dynamic orchestration, combined with spoken words. The main body of the song is actually a pop rock song with excellent vocal line. It continues with guitar solo as an intro of "Laredo Tornado" (5:26) where it flows nicely in dragging style of vocal and nice rhythm section augmented by orchestra (violin and cello).

It moves to an upbeat music of "Poorboy" (The Greenwood) which lends in itself with a style of "Boy Blue" in the vein of pop rock. "Mister Kingdom" (5:50) is a ballad with catchy melody with nice orchestration. "Nobody's Child" (3:40) intro lends exactly from "Boy Blue" at the opening orchestra but it then moves differently with a bit of jazz influence music. It's really a nice musical composition and the singing style is something like a monologue. The insertion of piano has made it really nice. "Illusions in 'G' Major" (2:36) is a straight pop rock in the vein of The Beatles. The album title track shows another example that this album was crafted really well so that every details of the song sounds nice. The album concludes brilliantly with "El Dorado - Finale" (1:20) to close down all chapters which have been discussed.

Overall, this is an excellent addition of any prog music collection. Do not miss this album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW (i-Rock! Music Community)