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Post by orioles70 on Jun 5, 2022 15:05:59 GMT
this one is a rarity that will cost you big on Amazon or Discogs but now someone has uploaded it to YouTube
an album of deconstructed, mostly acoustic ELO covers by P Hux 12 tracks with some brilliant moments and some ... "what was he thinking" moments
let me know which is your fav, which one you hate the most and - whose voices are those on Don't Bring Me Down?
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Post by tremblinwilbury on Jun 5, 2022 19:08:26 GMT
Thank you orioles70 - I really enjoyed that I thought that, after listening to MBS, that that would be my favourite. Full marks to Parth on his nice new arrangement. But - the intro to EW caught me by surprise! Like it - a lot! CGIOOMH - to me, it's a ballad. Accompanied by thousands of mobile phone lights. This arrangement is my least favourite. Erm, DBMD... I need to listen to it a few more times. Even so - love it
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Post by eloneen on Jun 5, 2022 20:05:46 GMT
This was a great listen! Thanks orioles70 ! My least favorites were Showdown and Ma Ma Ma Belle, which both need something more, in my opinion. Showdown needs more edginess and bluesy sounds, and Ma Ma Ma Belle needs more raw energy and punch to it. Do Ya fares OK stripped down. DBMD was fun! I really like what they did with two ballads in particular- CGIOOMH and my beloved Telephone Line. Lovely!
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Post by lawrev on Jun 6, 2022 0:54:57 GMT
Have the album, but haven't listened to it in years. But I remember the wonderful job he did on MBS - and I don't like that song anymore!
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Post by orioles70 on Jun 6, 2022 12:27:33 GMT
lawrev - does the CD insert give credit to the "spoken word" bits on DBMD? One of the voices sounds like Mik, but I guess anyone could fake a Midland's accent.
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Post by orioles70 on Jun 7, 2022 14:50:49 GMT
there's almost no break between songs and usually the transition is handled very smoothly
My favorite song on this is MBS, but then it's immediately followed by my least favorite which is Showdown - several shades too gloomy for my taste. A song pairing that works much better is Sweet Talking Woman going directly into Evil Woman. It's almost like the singer's mood shifts - first lamenting "if that's the way it's over" and then after ruminating about the state of things for 4 or 5 minutes, getting downright angry about that "evil woman".
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Post by lawrev on Jun 9, 2022 1:18:36 GMT
lawrev - does the CD insert give credit to the "spoken word" bits on DBMD? One of the voices sounds like Mik, but I guess anyone could fake a Midland's accent. orioles70 I'm going to have to check - I am in the middle of moving and all my cds are packed in the moving boxes at least for another 2-3 weeks. Overall I thought it was a very solid treatment of the songs and P Hux was and is always complimentary of Jeff's skills (I've met him a few times). And, P Hux has some pretty darn good solo albums.
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Post by orioles70 on Jun 21, 2022 11:58:14 GMT
I came across this review of Homemade Spaceship. www.thelogbook.com/music/homemade-spaceship/There’s gonna be a throwdown! At least that was what I thought when I first heard of this release: Parthenon Huxley, the songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist behind the excellent No Rewind album from The Orchestra (formerly ELO Part II), tries on some bona fide Jeff Lynne classics for size. Given ELO Part II/The Orchestra’s storied legal history with Lynne, surely Huxley had some massive brass balls. Not only had he become one of the inheritors of the ELO sound, but he was taking on classic ELO songs written by one of the group’s founders. A gutsy move, to say the very least. Huxley is, like many modern power pop practitioners, an admirer of Jeff Lynne’s songwriting and production acumen, and so perhaps it was wise for him to do something really unexpected with Homemade Spaceship: in many cases, he almost rewrites the music. Same words, but completely different takes on some of the familiar melodies. There are plenty of hints of the familiar melody of “Mr. Blue Sky”, for instance, but the timing has changed, and Huxley completely changes the trajectory of the main vocal melody. The lush harmonies are gone for the most part too, further confusing the ear that’s accustomed to Lynne’s wall of sound. Some songs stick very close to their source material: “10538 Overture” is a folkier take on the very first ELO song, and has the added benefit of making the lyrics easier to understand than the original does. The closest any of the tracks here comes to their inspiration is “The Diary Of Horace Wimp”, which is presented in a laid-back way but, unlike many of the songs covered on Homemade Spaceship, preserves much of the harmonies in the chorus. “Showdown” stays close to the original, but trades in the original recording’s layers of foreboding strings for a pared-down, folky western dirge. Some of the songs that do stray further from the source material are real treats: Huxley makes “Evil Woman” his own via some melodic twists and turns that differ significantly from the original, but it still has a driving beat and a bluesy feel at its heart. “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” is a much softer song than the hard-rocking original, but the changes give the same set of lyrics a completely different emotional angle.
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