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Post by janne on Sept 28, 2019 12:59:59 GMT
With FOON coming up, how has AITU stood up?
Have you re-evaluated it or do you still like - or dislike - it?
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Post by cleldo on Sept 28, 2019 13:23:42 GMT
I like it and still listen to it quite regularly.
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Post by tightrope on Sept 28, 2019 15:45:30 GMT
I played it yesterday and still very much love it.
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Post by nobodyschild on Sept 28, 2019 15:59:46 GMT
When I first hear AITU, I didn’t care for it much. I liked WIWAB, and Blue, which sadly didn’t make it on the album because that’s my favorite track from it, but my first impressions of the other tracks were rather lukewarm. I think the main thing I was getting hung up on was that none of the songs were fast, they were all rather melancholy. A few sad and/or slow songs are fine on an album, I’d think every album needs one or two of those, but to have them all be that way, not my cup of tea.
That being said—I have listened to AITU a lot more since then and have moved past my initial impressions. I still wish there had been some more energetic songs on there, but I understand with the concept of the album that they wouldn’t have fit. A lot of the songs on AITU are really beautiful actually, especially looking at them from a musical standpoint, like chords and vocals and such. I really like “When the Night Comes”, and “I’m Leaving You” is now one of my favorite tracks from it, I found it to have a very Orbison-like style to the vocals, full and kinda operatic. While AITU isn’t my favorite album, I think it’s one of those that gets better with time.
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Post by BSJ on Sept 28, 2019 17:17:04 GMT
It took me some time to warm up to it. Like cleldo, it's listened to regularly.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2019 20:36:00 GMT
It's a "great little album", which I still play now and then. But I wish Jeff would do a "great big album" sometime.
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Post by bhabs on Sept 28, 2019 21:05:57 GMT
It’s a good album, but for me it doesn’t have as much staying power. It’s Jeff playing it as safe as he ever has - for the most part.
I LOVE: WIWAB, One Step, and the title track. I really like: Ain’t It a Drag, I’m Leaving You, The Sun Will Shine Everything else is fine but kinda predictable.
I really do hope FOON has more WOW moments. More surprises. More upbeat songs. If it ends up being on par with AITU, then that’s fine. It’s kind of my expectation. But if it can reach Zoom levels? I’ll be a happy camper!
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Post by unomusette on Sept 28, 2019 21:33:49 GMT
I've not listened to it for ages, but it does have some great tracks. For me these would be Blue, One Step at a Time, Ain't it a Drag and When the Night Comes. I liked it pretty much straight off but I can see how it's not up there with the blockbuster albums for some.
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Post by fernandoamado on Sept 30, 2019 3:55:27 GMT
I didn't change my mind about it, but because I've always loved it. AITU is my favourite ELO album, for four reasons. First of all, I think it's good. Yes, it has its famous problems that I will repeat shortafter. Second, it houses the best ELO song in my opinion (When I Was a Boy, the ultimate sum of everything that makes a standard song a ELO hymn). Third, it has four songs that I believe should never be missed in a "ELO Greatest Songs" album: When I Was a Boy, The Sun Will Shine on You, I'm Leaving You and Alone In the Universe (to me, they are as good as Turn to Stone and Waterfall). Fourth, not a merit but a relative reason: It was released at a time when I could enjoy it contemporaneously. My father was eighteen when Out of the Blue was released, and I was eighteen when AITU was released, and I could consciously enjoy it. To me, that's magical.
That was the resume. Now I'll split the review it in two:
The good:
*The album sounds diverse. Although some say the album is about loneliness, I don't hear it. Yes, there are some sad songs, but they aren't the majority. They are three and only one is expressly about being lonely. *Every song pictures a different scenario, and they do that sonically. WIWAB is the orchestral rock hymn. Love and Rain is the bittersweet song about love. The Sun Will Shine on You is a journey to one's mind. Ain't It a Drag is a Beatle merseybeat. All My Life is the wedding song. I'm Leaving You is a Roy Orbison tune, One Step at a Time is the disco hit (shame that it wasn't) and Alone in the Universe is THE rock song from the future, and it has e heart-killer solo. *Sonically it has two parts: The good and the ugly. The good is that many digital or electronic effects add a lot to ELO. That is especially true for The Sun Will Shine on You and Alone in the Universe. This album, to me, can be defined by the word "Textures". *Jeff sounds great, and I'm pretty sure he didn't use Autotune. *Almost one guitar solo per song. *Some songs don't need strings, and because no song on this album except for WIWAB has them, those songs sound how they should. *The album cover is damn good.
The bad: *Almost most drumming parts are horrible. They are 100% perfect in three songs (WIWAB, ILY and AITU), neutral in some (L&R, TSWSOY, AML) and bad, very, very bad on the rest (DTTB, WTNC, OSAAT, FL, Blue, OMM). * Sonically (ugly part): Did I mention drumming? Apart from that, the mix makes parts lose definition, or resolution, I don't know how to express this. Sometimes the flow is very turbulent instead of laminar, and I can't quite differentiate every sound at the same time. The mastering is higly compressed. I don't think Steve Jay is a good sound technician. I believe he is a very bad one and that Jeff should replace him with a young man that understands how the human ear works. Or maybe it's Jeff's fault and I'm accusing wrong. *Living on the Fault Line and Blue aren't inspired. On My Mind is self-plagiarism. *The album is too short, songs follow the same pattern. *There are four editions. Deluxe editions and Japanese editions are theft. And they are double theft because the extra tracks aren't worth it. *Contrary to what I've said previously, many song do need strings, and lack them. Particularly in One Step at a Time.
In the end, I think AITU is better than Zoom, Balance of Power and the prog rock era, and that it is the album we didn't get in 1980. They should join its songs with Xanadu's songs and bridge Discovery with Time. On a side note, a friend of mine who didn't know ELO was introduced by me to the band, and after four years of hearing all the albums, he believes AITU is one of the very best.
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Post by cleldo on Sept 30, 2019 9:01:20 GMT
I must agree on the drum sound, I really don't like it.
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Post by janne on Sept 30, 2019 10:28:41 GMT
I must agree on the drum sound, I really don't like it. As I wrote in the FOON thread; sounds like someone patting a bag of crisps. Guess this whole thing started when Jeff produced Tom Petty?
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Post by queenofthehours on Sept 30, 2019 16:19:06 GMT
I haven't been listening to AITU a lot but I expect FOON to sound quite similar which I suppose is no bad thing. The thing with the more modern stuff for me is that it makes me hanker after the big 70s productions so whenever I play Zoom or AITU I have to follow it up with ANWR for that bit of pizzazz which the newer music lacks. Not that the newer albums aren't great, it's just that they are more sedate.
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Post by Grroosss on Nov 15, 2019 10:07:54 GMT
Well, since we've been comparing AITU to FOON in the FOON thread again, I thought I'd revisit this one.
I'll start off by saying that AITU has never been much of a favorite album for me. I first heard it when I was just starting to really get into ELO, I think it was the second album I'd heard in its entirety, I'd been listening mostly just to ELO's biggest hits at that point, and at that time I was a bit disappointed that AITU didn't sound like the old ELO so that put me off the album for a while. Since then, I've grown to appreciate it a lot more; though it'll never match the eminence of the likes of ANWR, OOTB, or Time, it always strikes me that I forget how much I actually do like most of the songs whenever I put AITU on.
I didn't reconsider my opinions of AITU as FOON was drawing near, but I did after FOON's release. Not sure that I can pinpoint why, but for me, having FOON has better solidified AITU's spot in ELO's discography. It feels like AITU really belongs there now, between Zoom and FOON, and I'm much happier with that. The ELO aka Jeff solo albums that have been released since 2001 are a bit samey (and AITU within itself the most so) compared to the stuff from the golden ELO days of yore, but I think with FOON to compare things to, it's easier for me to see Zoom, AITU, and FOON as all different enough that they can hold their own, with AITU as a distinct ELO era. I still have to say that AITU is my least favorite of the three, simply because of process of elimination, because I like Zoom and FOON better--but that certainly doesn't mean I don't like AITU!
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Post by fireonhigh on Nov 16, 2019 21:23:49 GMT
I've not listened to AITU for probably 2 years now. I do like Alone In The Universe and One Step At A Time, but nothing else really floats my musical boat sadly from the album. Likewise with FOON, I've listened to it only about 5 times, with again only a couple of tracks I like. I'm pleased Jeff is still releasing 'ELO' music and people really love it but will I listen again? Probably, but for now it stays on the ELO music shelf! Neither will be my 'go to' ELO albums. It's sad as usually with any album with Jeff's involvement it is the majority of the album I like with just a couple of songs I don't! I am however enjoying refinding my love and appreciation for Secret Messages, Balance of Power and Zoom.
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Post by nobodyschild on Nov 17, 2019 20:36:40 GMT
When I first heard AITU I didn’t really like it. At that time it felt like all the songs felt the same and lacked that magical ELO character from the 70s. A while back I listened to it again and thought, this wasn’t as dull as I remembered, there’s some good tracks on here. But it still didn’t really feel like ELO to me. After FOON came out, I listened to it all again to try and pick a favorite track from AITU. I found this task near impossible. I was stuck deciding between four or five songs which I really liked, and every time I listened to one I’d go, “oh this is the one”, and then the next one would come on and I’d think “no, THIS one is the one”, very similar to OOTB where it is also practically impossible to pick just one favorite. So I’d say now, I really like AITU. The more you listen the more you start noticing all the little ELO bits in there, the keyboards and backing vocals and such. Its general standing among ELO albums still puts it nearer the bottom, but not because I don’t like it; it’s just because its predecessors set such a high bar, that the “last place” if you will ELO album can still be a good album, but not a mind-blowingly fantastic one. Same goes for songs, I’ve yet to cross a JL/ELO song that I actually dislike (even when I first heard AITU), it’s just that some songs are better than others and when there’s songs like Tightrope or STW or something, other songs fall short and can seem a bit disappointing, like AITU did at first, but the more you listen you realize they were of course always good, just not the best.
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