SO SERIOUS

Well. It is curious, but sometimes I tend to like the music and albums that many people don`t like. This is the case with ELO`s "Balance of Power" album, a very underrated album by some of the Prog Rock music fans of the band. Well. I also like other types of music, so sometimes as a Prog Rock fan I "tolerate" and in fact I like some of the mostly Pop Rock music that some Prog Rock bands of the seventies recorded in the eighties. Some of that music has some good quality.

"So Serious" was played in some FM Radio stations in my city. It is a very Pop Rock song from ELO. Very characteristic from the eighties in terms of production values, but anyway with good qualities such as very good vocals and keyboards arrangements. Give good credit to very good musicians like the members of ELO to produce good music even in their last days as a band in the eighties. "Balance of Power" as an album to me was like a "bittersweet" combination of some sad lyrics and very good Pop Rock music. It still is a very special album for me from ELO`s discography.

"A Matter of Fact" in the B-side is also a good song, also very eighties in style, with very good keyboards arrangements (maybe some of them were programmed, I think). I read in the web that in fact there were two released versions of this song, one of them with alternate lyrics and maye some mixing differences, as I could listen to both of them thanks to youtube. None of the versions of this song was included in the remastered and expanded CD version of the "Balance of Power" album from 2007, but if I remember well one of them was released in the "Afterglow" Box Set from 1990, an album which I still don`t have in my record collection.

I am not a fan from most of the music which was produced in the eighties. But some very good albums like "Balance of Power" still are among my favourites.