It's Oeuvre.....

[babyzoomer]

Just a quick thought:

If you add up all the songs that JL has produced (by which I mean written, recorded & released) - it comes to much less than 24 hours worth of music. I'm not anal-itic enough to actually add up all the individual songs and their timings - but a rough approximation can be made as follows:

There's the 14 ELO albums (OOTB counts as two), noting that he was responsible for only about half of No Answer (but the 1/2 of Xanadudu makes up for that);

plus the two 'solo' albums (Longwave & Armchair);

you could count the 2 Wilbury albums as partly his - so say that's one more;

and about another album-full of outside work for many & varied artists;

and perhaps another 2-3 albums of 'sideways releases' (like Surrender, Hello My Old Friend, Latitude) & film music etc etc -

Then (I nearly forgot) his contributions to Move, Idle Race etc; perhaps add another album's worth -

So you get 20-22 albums; now estimate them at 45-55 minutes each;

It's clear there's less than 24 hours-worth of actual JL music in his Oeuvre (look it up).

This is DEFINITELY not a criticism of JL; just a sad observation that the life's work of a modern music artist comes to so little.......

BTW I have been toying with this concept for a while - but today I thought of the title for the thread and there was no stopping me...

[queenofthehours]

This is very interesting to know and perhaps one of the most important Jeff-facts I have ever learned but, under 24 hours?, that's a little bit depressing!

I wonder what other artist's oeuvres add up to? Wilbury-wise I reckon Tom and Bob's will be over 24 hours, Roy's might be the same as Jeff and George's a lot less if you discount the Beatles. 

[BSJ]

Jul 8, 2017 14:02:30 GMT babyzoomer said:

Just a quick thought:

BTW I have been toying with this concept for a while - but today I thought of the title for the thread and there was no stopping me...

[Timeblue]

Jul 8, 2017 14:02:30 GMT babyzoomer said:

Just a quick thought:

If you add up all the songs that JL has produced (by which I mean written, recorded & released) - it comes to much less than 24 hours worth of music. I'm not anal-itic enough to actually add up all the individual songs and their timings - but a rough approximation can be made as follows:

There's the 14 ELO albums (OOTB counts as two), noting that he was responsible for only about half of No Answer (but the 1/2 of Xanadudu makes up for that);

plus the two 'solo' albums (Longwave & Armchair);

you could count the 2 Wilbury albums as partly his - so say that's one more;

and about another album-full of outside work for many & varied artists;

and perhaps another 2-3 albums of 'sideways releases' (like Surrender, Hello My Old Friend, Latitude) & film music etc etc -

Then (I nearly forgot) his contributions to Move, Idle Race etc; perhaps add another album's worth -

So you get 20-22 albums; now estimate them at 45-55 minutes each;

It's clear there's less than 24 hours-worth of actual JL music in his Oeuvre (look it up).

This is DEFINITELY not a criticism of JL; just a sad observation that the life's work of a modern music artist comes to so little.......

BTW I have been toying with this concept for a while - but today I thought of the title for the thread and there was no stopping me...

You do realise now that someone on here WILL add up all the timings exactly?

[babyzoomer]

Jul 11, 2017 22:26:00 GMT Timeblue said:

Jul 8, 2017 14:02:30 GMT babyzoomer said:

Just a quick thought:

If you add up all the songs that JL has produced (by which I mean written, recorded & released) - it comes to much less than 24 hours worth of music. I'm not anal-itic enough to actually add up all the individual songs and their timings - but a rough approximation can be made as follows:

There's the 14 ELO albums (OOTB counts as two), noting that he was responsible for only about half of No Answer (but the 1/2 of Xanadudu makes up for that);

plus the two 'solo' albums (Longwave & Armchair);

you could count the 2 Wilbury albums as partly his - so say that's one more;

and about another album-full of outside work for many & varied artists;

and perhaps another 2-3 albums of 'sideways releases' (like Surrender, Hello My Old Friend, Latitude) & film music etc etc -

Then (I nearly forgot) his contributions to Move, Idle Race etc; perhaps add another album's worth -

So you get 20-22 albums; now estimate them at 45-55 minutes each;

It's clear there's less than 24 hours-worth of actual JL music in his Oeuvre (look it up).

This is DEFINITELY not a criticism of JL; just a sad observation that the life's work of a modern music artist comes to so little.......

BTW I have been toying with this concept for a while - but today I thought of the title for the thread and there was no stopping me...

You do realise now that someone on here WILL add up all the timings exactly?

         The thought never crossed my mind! smiley-music025

[babyzoomer]

Nobody has corrected my obvious mistake, so I'll do it...

JL didn't write the songs on Longwave, so it doesn't count.

Some of the songs on Armchair aren't original either.

Of course we don't know how many unfinished songs (maybe of the quality of Surrender!) lie hidden in a vault at Bungalow Palace, condemned to oblivion by JL's quest for perfection.

[BSJ]

Shows you how closely I pay attention. I think the 24 hour of songs threw me off. That's my excuse, and I'm stickin' to it!

[Helmut83]

Very interesting point, babyzoomer . You are right, so much work -and so much genius!- is really so little in terms of time...

But I'd also like to add another statistic which could give you a different point of view about that. In the case of people like us, forumheads, which means fans obsessive enough to create an user and enter regularly to this forum to talk about Jeff Lynne, let's take every single of his songs, multiply it's length in time by the times we've listened to them throughout our life, and then add them all up. I'm sure the result would be, in the least of cases, weeks of music, and I'm pretty sure it would be more easily measurable in months.

So with an "oeuvre" (to carry on with your terminology) less than a day's long Jeff has managed to fill so many days -understood as 24 hours- of our lives.

[babyzoomer]

Jul 11, 2017 23:57:34 GMT Helmut83 said:

Very interesting point, babyzoomer . You are right, so much work is really so little in terms of time...

But I'd also like to add another statistic which could give you a different point of view towards that. In the case of people like us, forumheads, which means fans obsessive enough to create an user and enter regularly to this forum to talk about Jeff Lynne, let's take every single of his songs, multiply it's length in time by the times we've listened to them throughout our life, and then add them all up. I'm sure the result would be, in the least of cases, weeks of music, and I'm pretty sure it would be more easily measurable in months.

So with an "ouvre" (to carry on with your terminology) less than a day's long Jeff has managed to fill so many days -understood as 24 hours- of our lives.

Excellent point!

A life's work

A day's music

A lifetime of pleasure.

And I'm always left wanting more.......

[eloneen]

Jul 11, 2017 23:57:34 GMT Helmut83 said:

Very interesting point, babyzoomer . You are right, so much work is really so little in terms of time...

But I'd also like to add another statistic which could give you a different point of view towards that. In the case of people like us, forumheads, which means fans obsessive enough to create an user and enter regularly to this forum to talk about Jeff Lynne, let's take every single of his songs, multiply it's length in time by the times we've listened to them throughout our life, and then add them all up. I'm sure the result would be, in the least of cases, weeks of music, and I'm pretty sure it would be more easily measurable in months.

So with an "ouvre" (to carry on with your terminology) less than a day's long Jeff has managed to fill so many days -understood as 24 hours- of our lives.

I'm sure it would be much, much longer than that Helmut83! Think of how old some/many of us are on here, and then think of when many of us first heard of ELO. I'm probably pretty typical in terms of age (52), and in my case, it was 41 years ago!!  When I was a teenager, I listened to at least a couple of hours of ELO just about every day. For the past 8-10 months, I've been back to about that same amount of time.  

[Helmut83]

eloneen, much longer than months? Even when you are 52, and even when you've had your furious ELO streaks as you say, making quick maths in my head I see it as unlikely that it could be measurable in years. I'd say in the biggest of cases it should be around one year (though if you had kept the pace of these last 8-10 months every year that would give us about 2 years and a half).

PS: I have edited a few typos and wrong words from my previous message since you guys quoted me.

[eloneen]

Jul 12, 2017 0:20:28 GMT Helmut83 said:

eloneen , much longer than months? Even when you are 52, and even when you've had your furious ELO streaks as you say, making quick maths in my head I see it as unlikely that it could be measurable in years. I'd say in the biggest of cases it should be around one year (though if you had kept the pace of these last 8-10 months every year that would give us about 2 years and a half).

PS: I have edited a few typos and wrong words from my previous message since you guys quoted me.

I was thinking of the the sum total of the listening time of all the fans --my misunderstanding of your idea. Oops!

[Helmut83]

Ah, OK. Well, that would be measurable in centuries probably.

[babyzoomer]

Jul 11, 2017 18:46:34 GMT queenofthehours said:

This is very interesting to know and perhaps one of the most important Jeff-facts I have ever learned but, under 24 hours?, that's a little bit depressing!

I wonder what other artist's oeuvres add up to? Wilbury-wise I reckon Tom and Bob's will be over 24 hours, Roy's might be the same as Jeff and George's a lot less if you discount the Beatles. 

Ok I've done a simular 'rough job' on Jon Bon Jovi (why him? - Because my wife is a big fan, has all his albums etc....in fact you could say that we are the 'Jeff & Jon' house).

Bon Jovi (the group) have made 13 studio albums, plus Jon has done a solo album, and a couple of movie soundtracks. I understand Jon writes most of it himself.

Let's say 16 albums; again well short of 24 hours of music.

Admittedly Jon is about 14 years younger than Jeff, but Jon found success at a much younger age. I doubt he will produce an album every second year indefinitely.

As an aside - if my forgettery is working right, Jon & Jeff both attended Paul McCartney's last (or was it his second last?) wedding. 

To find more productive songwriters who also produce & record their songs, I think you would need to look at:

#Super-hyper-stars like Madonna, Springsteen or Bowie.

#Country and western stars like Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, 'The Man in Black' etc.

But again these people do/did not produce (as in engineer) their own recordings, or even do the arrangements - unlike JL.

Just to reinforce that this is not a measure of quality, just quantity.

When it comes to quality, we all know who wins.........