Here goes my review of “Alone in the universe”:
1)
When I was a boy: the first time I listened to it I got a bit carried away by the emotion of listening to new Jeff Lynne material after so much time and said it was great. Now after many calms re-listens I wouldn’t go as far. The song has good strength and a brilliant chords sequence (very lynnesque). The melody is OK, but in my opinion it’s too similar to “Forecast” and has some elements of “Steppin’ out” as well (that ascendant scale towards the end!), that’s why it doesn’t sound so new. The chorus is the worst part and quite predictable, with those long notes making it boring. All in all, a good song, which would have made a solid ballad at #5 or #8, but I’m not sure it’s good enough for being the #1 and standout track of a Jeff Lynne album.
2)
Love and Rain: remarkably flat in my opinion, it transmits nothing, but then again, it’s pretty much a remake of Showdown and I’m not a big fan of that song, neither of that kind of slow disco stuff. The chorus is as tasteless and silly as Jeff has ever done. After the second chorus there’s the only interesting part of the song when it goes into that middle eight with the major chords; that’s in my opinion the only part which transmits something. Other than that, good backing vocals from Laura Lynne, and nothing else to remember.
3)
Dirty to the bone: one of the few tracks I think are at Jeff Lynne’s height and probably the best of the album. I love this one to bits. It’s a great mix of happy and sad moods that makes my hair stand on ends. The high harmonies are remarkable as well (you’ve got to hit those notes in your late ‘60s!). The guitar solo has some Harrison influences. The pre-chorus is just one line long and yet so brilliant, it deserved to be longer, and the chorus is amazing as well. It’s fantastic, truly the work of a pop genius.
4)
When the night comes: pretty much what I said about “Love and Rain” can be applied to this song as well, even though the styles are different (this one is more kind of a pop-reggae): too flat and emotionless. Uh, and predictable. There’s not any interesting turn or twist in the melody, it just goes always in the same predictable direction. Also most of the chorus sound too similar to “Is it alright”. It sounds forced and lacking in inspiration.
5)
The sun will shine on you: probably the worst track of the album. Seriously, anyone can write a song like this. There’s zero inspiration on this one.
6)
Ain’t it a drag: the other great track of the album, this one is an upbeat little pop gem. The verse is very short but fantastic, very original and flows dynamically. The middle eight and the solo work great as well. The chorus is quite minimalistic, basically just a great hook and nothing else, but it works very effectively. I haven’t heard a Jeff Lynne song as fluent and fresh-sounding as this one since “Lift me up”.
7)
All my life: not bad, I’d say it’s an OK ballad, but far from great. It has some slight reminiscences of “Rain is falling”, a few Wilburys songs and something from “Zoom”. The vocals harmonies are interesting.
8)
I’m leaving you: this one reminds me a bit of something from “Armchair Threatre”, probably “Stormy Weather” with a bit more rhythm, kind of a bolero groove. It’s really interesting from a harmonic point of view, it’s not easy to put a melody over those chords and make it sound well. The chorus is quite well achieved, and Jeff sings this kind of stuff pretty well. Not my kind of song, but I can recognize it reaches successfully the place where it wants to go.
9)
One step at a time: another semi-disco track, and I don’t like it much either. The verse features that chromatic up-and-down sequence which is quite original I think, but still doesn’t sound very well IMO. The chorus is too repetitive (well, who can blame him after Evil Woman, which’s repetitive chorus has been much hailed as a work of genius during decades?). That guitar solo in the middle is the one standout part of the track. Also, I don’t usually give much importance to lyrics, but when did Jeff’s get so lousy?
10)
Alone in the universe: the verse is pretty much a ripoff of “Can’t get it out of my head”. Another not-unpleasant song, but boring, predictable and it does never explode or provoke any strong emotion (except maaaybe by the end of the guitar solo). There are no hooks, no good riffs, no melody twists, no harmonic unexpected turns, nothing memorable. It just flows irrelevantly into nothing and then fades away.
11)
Fault line: brace yourselves, here comes the bonus tracks! And no Jeff Lynne album is such if the bonus tracks aren’t better than at least half of the “official” material. This one is not the exception IMO. I like this little track, it’s pleasant and makes you tap your feet along with the rhythm. It’s slower than his typical rockabilly songs (or, as some call it, “technobilly”), it sounds a bit more country. The harmonies are great. Nice little solo with arpeggios. Nothing extraordinary, not a masterpiece, but definitely a possitive note for this one.
12)
Blue: another good bonus track, this should have been there as a non-bonus track. The melody is quite fluent and convincing, with some surf rock influences on it. I like the cadence that closes each verse. It’s quite lively and features a nice middle eight, and in the whole it’s no doubt more inspired than most of the “official” stuff.
They say the peak of creativity in a human being’s life starts in the late teenage and goes on approximately until 25 or in some cases 30, then slowly and gradually starting to descend, although a good dose might still last until your late 30s or even early 40s. Well, it looks Jeff Lynne’s case confirms that rule.
If there’s something this album lacks is creativity. Much of it’s material gives me the feeling that “I’ve heard this before”. We could easily relate WIWAB to “Forecast” and “Steppin’ out”, “Love and Rain” to “Showdown”, “Alone in the universe” to “Can’t get it out of my head” and a few others to songs Jeff has written previously. And, in all of the cases, they are not as good as the songs they ressemble to.
It’s not just being similar to other songs: even some of those which aren’t are surprisingly predictable and their melody doesn’t sound innovative or the product of inspiration (let alone the inspiration of a pop genius like Jeff Lynne). Too much of the material is plain, dull, flat, boring and doesn’t transmit much in terms of emotions. Jeff Lynne used to come up with incredibly creative things, things so different to each other that you could never have predicted what was coming next. I mean, songs like “Above the clouds”, “Jungle” or “Fire on high”… you may like them or not, but you can’t deny they were unpredictable and incredibly creative, different to any other thing. That has been lost in this album.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there are many plainly bad songs on this album (probably just "The sun will shine on you"), but there are too many "barely OK" songs, and that's way too low for Jeff Lynne. Most songs you get the sensation than anyone could have written them, as they don't sound anything special.
Unfortunately, making it all on his own terms seems to have narrowed Jeff’s musical horizons a lot, until everything he does sounds too much to something old Jeff Lynne wrote. One thing I used to love about him is that his styles were so wide you couldn’t tag him into a certain musical genre; now you certainly can, as most of what he does sounds too much like his old self.
The same goes for the production work: he has narrowed down the tools that he uses to a ridiculous point. The snare is always the same in every single song, and it sounds terrible –it’s been sounding terrible since “Armchair Theatre”-. And it always does the same fills. The strumming of the guitars, the bass, everything has been so standardized… it’s as if he had married to one durms sound, one guitar sound, one bass sound and he’s trying to do all the songs with those. On the possitives’ side, his singing is still great, particularly for a man his age. I was impressed by that.
There are, though, two songs which escape from these general conclusions, in most everything but the production: “Dirty to the bone” (which gives me the same feeling of ectasy I got when I discovered the best ELO songs) and “Ain’t it a drag”. Those two are fantastic and the album pretty much sums up to them for me (plus the bonus tracks, which are two pleasant little relaxed songs, and maybe WIWAB, which is just OK). All in all, I think these two song made the album worthwhile. The general quality of the album is clearly lower than I was expecting, but I’m not frustrated by that fact because I got to have two new Jeff Lynne great songs. I’m happy about that, although I cannot say I liked the whole album.