Electric Light Orchestra's third album showed a marked advancement, with a fuller, more cohesive sound from the band as a whole and major improvements in Jeff Lynne's singing and songwriting.
This is where the band took on its familiar sound, Lynne's voice suddenly showing an attractive expressiveness reminiscent of John Lennon in his early solo years, and also sporting a convincing white British soulful quality that was utterly lacking earlier.
The group also plugged the holes that made its work seem so close to being ragged on those earlier records.
"Showdown" and "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" (the latter featuring Marc Bolan on double lead guitar with Lynne) became AM radio fixtures while "Daybreaker" became a concert opener for the group and, along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King," kept the group's FM/art rock credentials in order.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bluebird Is DeadJeff Lynne | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 04:42 | 10 MB | 28 MB |
| 2 | Oh No Not SusanJeff Lynne | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 03:07 | 7 MB | 20 MB |
| 3 | ShowdownJeff Lynne | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 04:09 | 9 MB | 26 MB |
| 4 | DaybreakerJeff Lynne | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 03:51 | 8 MB | 26 MB |
| 5 | Ma-Ma-Ma BelleJeff Lynne | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 03:56 | 9 MB | 25 MB |
| 6 | Dreaming of 4000Jeff Lynne | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 05:04 | 11 MB | 30 MB |
| 7 | Everyone's Born To Die | Electric Light Orchestra | Play | 03:40 | 8 MB | 23 MB |
| 28 mins | 65 MB | |||||
| 28 mins | 179 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Richard Avedon | Photography |
| 2 | Bev Bevan | Drums, Vocals |
| 3 | Ted Blight | Cello |
| 4 | Douglas Bogey | Engineer |
| 5 | Bob Cato | Art Direction |
| 6 | Michael d'Albuquerque | Bass, Vocals |
| 7 | Mike Edwards | Cello |
| 8 | Electric Light Orchestra | Primary Artist |
| 9 | Joe Gastwirt | Remastering |
| 10 | Edvard Grieg | Composer |
| 11 | Mik Kaminski | Violin |
| 12 | John Kehe | Design |
| 13 | Jeff Lynne | Composer, Guitar, Keyboards, Producer, Synthesizer, Vocals |
| 14 | Dick Plant | Engineer |
| 15 | Richard Tandy | Keyboards, Moog Synthesizer, Piano, Synthesizer, Vocals |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |