ELO’s First

Just listening to a first German (Harvest) vinyl pressing. Haven’t heard this album before now. Enjoying the Wood wonkiness, but I find the vocals rather grating. The album as a whole seems well recorded but those vocals! They sound overdriven at times and truthfully hard to understand (a lyric sheet would have been helpful).
Maybe I’m being too critical. Any comments on this one appreciated.

 

There was a lyric sheet in the first UK pressings but it's very hard to find one with it now. I've never seen one.

A very strange album and far less commercial than ELO would become. I don't know what to think of it to be honest! The Move's Message From the Country album compliments it well. If they weren't recorded at the same time there's not much in it. I think they were.

 

Good in places but more austere than the later stuff. Sound a lot like what it probably was: an experiment, without a sense of cohesion. Agree about the vocals.

 

Great album!

 

I like it, especially 10538 and Mr. Radio. Try this link for lyrics: ELO Remaster Series - NO ANSWER - LYRICS

 

I love it. It's a baroque, unique, weird yet lovable thing.

 

The first 2 ELO's are the only ones that matter to me. Great Stuff!

 

And it kicked off a great run of ELO catalog album closer's

 

Look at Me Now is a brilliant song.

 

I love how raunchy the strings sound on the 1st two albums; after Roy Wood left it got a little more mainstream.

 

I completely agree - the grinding cellos sound amazing to my ears.

Being conditioned to the ELO sound on the hits I heard back in the 70s, I found this album a bit of a shock when I first heard it a couple of years ago. However, it quickly became my favourite of theirs. It's like its own little world of weird and wonderful sounds. 10538 Overture is a great opening declaration of the ELO "agenda".

 

Ironic, ain't it, that a few years down the line Wood was charting with a series of very commercial Spectoresque numbers! A genuine treasure. Me? I like ELO up to an including a New World Record, but quite like Out of the Blue and Zoom and love Lynne's first solo.
Love playing Queen of the Hours on Halloween (along with My Solution, Lady Eleanor, Monster Mash and Look Out, There's a Monster Coming...)

 

Same here. The band's string section had a great nitty-gritty quality on their first 3 albums. Beginning with Eldorado Jeff Lynne decided to augment the string section (and practically bury them) with full orchestrations. I love those later albums, too, and A New World Record is my all-time favorite but they lost a certain edge after On the Third Day and the live The Lights Went Out In Long Beach.

 

I was more or less indifferent to this album except for 10538 Overture (which is on various compilations) until I got the anniversary release with the Quad remix and ripped that to stereo with Windows Audio Extractor, that remix sounded so neat for whatever reason, I played it like half a dozen times, now it's a favorite album. I wish they had a Quad remix like that of the 2nd album floating around somewhere.

 

On The Third Day is a masterpiece, still meaning to pick up an original UK

 

Since Roy Wood intended for No Answer to be a one-off experiment, can it be considered the last Move album as well as the first ELO album? It's certainly transitional.

 

Lyric sheets seem to be common with the US pressings.

 

I had the yellow lyric sheet with my first UK pressing, which has unfortunately long since disappeared.

 

Not heard any other versions to compare, but the original UK Warner Bros does sound very nice indeed. I'd be surprised if any other versions can better it.

 

The sessions for ELO/No Answer and Message From The Country did indeed overlap, with the plan supposedly being to keep songs with more prominent saxophone or woodwind parts for The Move's final release, while everything else - especially material featuring strings - went on to form the debut of the band this one evolved into.

Most of the strings on that first ELO album were Roy overdubbing multiple cello parts himself, which is why that record had more of a "gritty" sound compared to later efforts, when Jeff started augmenting the core group instrumental tracks by adding full orchestral and choral arrangements on top of these, starting with Eldorado.

Despite writing reams about ELO's output in the late 1970s and early-to-mid '80s, I must confess to not being all that knowledgeable when it comes to their initial work together. On the other hand, I find it interesting that Roy began work on a follow-up despite intending for ELO's debut to be its lone studio statement (he left to form Wizzard prior to the abandoning of a concept album that was to have been called The Lost Planet). Above all his former colleagues, Roy always seemed like the kind of person to fear being put in the same box for too long, resulting in a prolific streak that saw him adopt various styles over the course of just a few years - this musical inconsistency might have led to a wealth of hits, but I also feel it was ultimately to the detriment of his endurance as a popular artist. Also, it probably doesn't help that he's something of a perfectionist who took increasingly more time between projects to the point where a collection of covers he announced a while back has now sadly disappeared from the proverbial radar. I really do hope we've not heard the last from such a talent, even if he is occasionally his own worst enemy. By contrast, Jeff found his place by chipping away at the foundation he helped establish, honing ELO's sound through On The Third Day to Alone In The Universe and hopefully beyond...

 

Man, someone needs to make a double album out of the material. If well sequenced, it would sound glorious! Picture that, the Electric Move Orchestra

 

Anyone liking this album needs to own Roy Wood's "Boulders." It's one of the greatest overlooked solo LP's ever.

 

What is a good choice, mastering
wise, for cd?

 

For all practical purposes, it could just as easily have been labeled another "Move" record. "Look At Me Now" is a great example of how something can obviously be inspired by another record (Eleanor Rigby) and yet still be different enough to be a great track in it's own right. There's an argument to be made that "Starlight" (from the "Out Of The Blue" album) is musically a remake of "Mr. Radio." Very similar chord progression.

 

I (No Answer)-compact disc
2012's Peter Mew has some heavy handed compression on it.
Chris Herles did the old US, not sure on the UK.
Japan CSCS 6026 CSR 1990 has a different mastering, probably sourced from their tapes. <-- This is the one I grab. (excellent soundstage)