elver
Junior Member
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Posts: 37
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Post by elver on Jan 14, 2024 3:59:31 GMT
While doing my research about ELO's fall from grace, many websites said that making Xanadu hurted ELO's reputation.
Did this really happen? What else would have happened after making OOTB that caused economic problems during the making of BOP?
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Post by lawrev on Jan 14, 2024 5:21:12 GMT
A few thoughts:
1. Jeff Lynne spent years running away from Xanadu. 2. Bev Bevan, in press clippings leading up to the Time album, mentioned that Time was a heavier sounding album (their Sgt. Pepper) as a partial reaction to the increasing pop and disco found on Discovery and Xanadu. 3. OOTB was the band's last multi platinum album in their largest market (USA). While Discovery went platinum in the USA, it was still less than OOTB, and every album after sold less than their predecessor. Time went Gold in the USA, but SM and BOP didn't even reach gold. 4. After OOTB, ELO significantly scaled back touring, which was a way to stimulate album sales. The Time Tour, reaching the USA, Western Europe, and the UK, was smaller than the tour in support of OOTB. ELO never went back to Japan or Australia after 1978. 5. On a personal level, Jeff lost interest in touring (something Richard agreed with). On the other hand, Bev and Kelly loved to tour. 6. Jeff became more interested in producing others than keeping ELO going.
I'm sure others will add their perspectives to your questions.
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Post by janne on Jan 14, 2024 7:12:15 GMT
I don't think Xanadu in any significant way affected ELO's popularity.
ELO had a very good run, reaching its peak around A New World Record/Out of The Blue/Discovery. In those years, they were massive.
I think it was only natural that the interest started to fade when we came into the 80's. It's not like they had no competition, and the general public - at that time buying, what, two records a year? - moved on to other acts. Popular music is a cruel game, and many want the new thing. (Until, of course, nostalgia kicks in and they again want what they listened to in their teens...)
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Post by Timeblue on Jan 14, 2024 9:39:37 GMT
If you seperate the music from the film the five ELO songs stand up pretty well on their own,there isn't a duffer on the (ELO) side imo. Even though Jeff hid from this album for many years, Xanadu and especially AOTW have had a new lease of life.
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Post by janne on Jan 14, 2024 11:06:45 GMT
If you seperate the music from the film the five ELO songs stand up pretty well on their own,there isn't a duffer on the (ELO) side imo. Even though Jeff hid from this album for many years, Xanadu and especially AOTW have had a new lease of life. I think ONJ's songs hold up very well too. Quality pop.
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Post by Horacewimp on Jan 14, 2024 12:02:36 GMT
I know from my friends at the time that when Discovery came out the band lost a lot of street cred with young males, Xanadu been a film aimed more at the female market was a further nail in the coffin. The music however is of very high quality.
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Post by ShardEnder on Jan 14, 2024 15:44:57 GMT
If the damage from releasing Discovery at the tail end of disco's peak wasn't enough (just weeks before the growing backlash culminated with the Disco Demolition Night event), ELO's credibility as a rock act took a further hit once Xanadu arrived, taking the "kitchen sink" pop approach to its most extreme. However, for all the band's talk of course correction on Time, it's not like tracks such as Yours Truly, 2095 and From The End Of The World didn't still have some lighter disco elements, while Julie Don't Live Here was arguably the closest Jeff came to borrowing from ABBA, even recording at Polar Studios to capture their magic. Fast-forward a few years, and the guilty pleasure tag pushed by select music journalists was firmly in place for arguably good reason.
From what I can tell, the singles from Xanadu were far more successful than the soundtrack album and even the movie itself, but they could have done far better had there been dedicated promotional videos and not just film clips repurposed for broadcast in the absence of live appearances from ELO in particular. This was right on the verge of MTV becoming the new dominant format, and like so many groups that had once been chart mainstays across the previous decade, failure to adapt meant ELO was dismissed as old hat almost overnight. Of course, it also didn't help that Xanadu was openly cited as one of the two musicals that inspired the creation of the inaugural Golden Raspberry Awards, so ELO's heavy association with that project ensured they'd be seen to many as a laughing stock, no matter how good Time or subsequent efforts may have ended up becoming.
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Post by Timeblue on Jan 14, 2024 17:07:56 GMT
If you seperate the music from the film the five ELO songs stand up pretty well on their own,there isn't a duffer on the (ELO) side imo. Even though Jeff hid from this album for many years, Xanadu and especially AOTW have had a new lease of life. I think ONJ's songs hold up very well too. Quality pop. Granted, Magic was good.
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Post by lawrev on Jan 14, 2024 20:32:39 GMT
I know we talked about this issue previously, but we can't discount the loss of FM radio coverage in the USA as a result of Discovery and Xanadu (though I consider Don't Bring Me Down as a rock track). FM radio in the states had a major impact on the ascension of ELO from 1975-78. While I can't give a scientific measurement of the impact of FM radio, we've seen many radio stations visits by Jeff and Bev during those those years. I noticed that those dropped off with Discovery and Xanadu and in subsequent years, and you can't see them being interviewed on major rock stations in the major rock markets in the USA to plug Discovery and Xanadu.
And quite honestly, Jeff got sick of those visits. And in later years when he did interviews, the topics were carefully curated to a select list of topics, especially once the band started breaking up.
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Post by trekkielo on Jan 15, 2024 2:05:30 GMT
Xanadu and Discovery are both multi-platinum albums in the USA, certified on October 12, 1984 and January 10, 1997, respectively! Although the film was a critical and commercial disappointment, the soundtrack was a worldwide success and received positive reviews from music critics, earning double platinum certifications in the United States and Canada. The singles "Magic" and "Xanadu" reached #1 in the USA & UK, respectively. Both singles were chart-toppers in the Netherlands and Italy, respectively. All in all, the album was the fifth most popular US soundtrack of 1981. I like everything ELO!
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Post by janne on Jan 15, 2024 6:52:27 GMT
Xanadu and Discovery are both multi-platinum albums in the USA, certified on October 12, 1984 and January 10, 1997, respectively! Although the film was a critical and commercial disappointment, the soundtrack was a worldwide success and received positive reviews from music critics, earning double platinum certifications in the United States and Canada. The singles "Magic" and "Xanadu" reached #1 in the USA & UK, respectively. Both singles were chart-toppers in the Netherlands and Italy, respectively. All in all, the album was the fifth most popular US soundtrack of 1981. I like everything ELO! Thanks for bringing in some hard facts and some perspective, instead of "guys just guessing" (myself included)!
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Post by lawrev on Jan 15, 2024 18:51:09 GMT
trekkielo is citing RIAA records, which is readily viewable here: www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=Electric+Light+orchestra#search_sectionYou will notice the gaps in status (for instance, it took 18 years for Discovery to go double plat. And the impact of digital downloads on certain ELO singles. Some 30-40 years after release. Still.... very sad that Time went gold in October 1981, during the Time Tour, but in the last 40+ years it hasn't gone plat. During ELO's heyday, the measure of an album's success (at least in the USA) was how long it took to go platinum (generally a few months). So.... Discovery went platinum, Time went Gold, and SM and BOP did nothing. OTTB was released with 4 million in advance orders (USA), but with the distribution problems with that album, maybe 4 million is not entirely accurate. And OTTB in the RIAA records still show only platinum. Consider Wing's last album, Back to the Egg, also from May 1979. BTTE was certified Plat in July 1979, two months after its release. Yet that album was considered a failure by Paul and his record company (Columbia). Most bands would give their left arms to have a platinum album, but at the level of Wings (or ELO, for that matter) merely plat was not good enough. So, if we go back in time and look at the sales figures as they existed then (rather than 10-40 years later), we can see the financial pressures on Jet Records as each release (Xanadu is not a true ELO album) sold less than the prior one.
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Post by lawrev on Jan 15, 2024 19:06:14 GMT
I know from my friends at the time that when Discovery came out the band lost a lot of street cred with young males, Xanadu been a film aimed more at the female market was a further nail in the coffin. The music however is of very high quality. All of my friends in high school disavowed ELO when they heard Xanadu - it was ABBA - esq pop, and I would agree that the movie was primarily aimed at women. Xanadu was (and is) nothing like Grease or Saturday Night Fever.
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Post by Timeblue on Jan 15, 2024 20:16:07 GMT
trekkielo is citing RIAA records, which is readily viewable here: www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=Electric+Light+orchestra#search_sectionYou will notice the gaps in status (for instance, it took 18 years for Discovery to go double plat. And the impact of digital downloads on certain ELO singles. Some 30-40 years after release. Still.... very sad that Time went gold in October 1981, during the Time Tour, but in the last 40+ years it hasn't gone plat. During ELO's heyday, the measure of an album's success (at least in the USA) was how long it took to go platinum (generally a few months). So.... Discovery went platinum, Time went Gold, and SM and BOP did nothing. OTTB was released with 4 million in advance orders (USA), but with the distribution problems with that album, maybe 4 million is not entirely accurate. And OTTB in the RIAA records still show only platinum. Consider Wing's last album, Back to the Egg, also from May 1979. BTTE was certified Plat in July 1979, two months after its release. Yet that album was considered a failure by Paul and his record company (Columbia). Most bands would give their left arms to have a platinum album, but at the level of Wings (or ELO, for that matter) merely plat was not good enough. So, if we go back in time and look at the sales figures as they existed then (rather than 10-40 years later), we can see the financial pressures on Jet Records as each release (Xanadu is not a true ELO album) sold less than the prior one. That site states that Time has certified units of 500,000 but I'm guessing it's sold more since 1981? so is there a more accurate number of sales in the years since?
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Post by lawrev on Jan 16, 2024 2:56:03 GMT
trekkielo is citing RIAA records, which is readily viewable here: www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=Electric+Light+orchestra#search_sectionYou will notice the gaps in status (for instance, it took 18 years for Discovery to go double plat. And the impact of digital downloads on certain ELO singles. Some 30-40 years after release. Still.... very sad that Time went gold in October 1981, during the Time Tour, but in the last 40+ years it hasn't gone plat. During ELO's heyday, the measure of an album's success (at least in the USA) was how long it took to go platinum (generally a few months). So.... Discovery went platinum, Time went Gold, and SM and BOP did nothing. OTTB was released with 4 million in advance orders (USA), but with the distribution problems with that album, maybe 4 million is not entirely accurate. And OTTB in the RIAA records still show only platinum. Consider Wing's last album, Back to the Egg, also from May 1979. BTTE was certified Plat in July 1979, two months after its release. Yet that album was considered a failure by Paul and his record company (Columbia). Most bands would give their left arms to have a platinum album, but at the level of Wings (or ELO, for that matter) merely plat was not good enough. So, if we go back in time and look at the sales figures as they existed then (rather than 10-40 years later), we can see the financial pressures on Jet Records as each release (Xanadu is not a true ELO album) sold less than the prior one. That site states that Time has certified units of 500,000 but I'm guessing it's sold more since 1981? so is there a more accurate number of sales in the years since? Pre - May 1991 SoundScan implementation, the record company had to provide auditable confirmation of Time sales. Since May 1991, Time sales would be registered at point of sale - so if Time sold another 500,000 units in the US since 1991, that should show up in the RIAA certifications. Note also the difference between the US and the UK - Platinum in the US means 1,000,000 units, and in the UK it is 500,000.
The ELO section of RIAA shows updates for digital downloads of certain ELO singles. As for OTTB, maybe nobody wants to go down that rabbit hole, and maybe Jeff doesn't care anymore about the accurate level of certification.
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