Usually when a band peaks, they spiral, progressively, into middling numbers which can only echo the glory days. Electric Light Orchestra had a bit more life in them than most after their defining album, Out of the Blue, hit store shelves. A drop-off is at hand for Discovery, but not in quality. In album space, in what Jeff Lynne had to say so soon after the release and tour of their best work. It is an adaptation no artist likes to make and to do it so soon, when the previous album roars away, seems like a great frustration for future projects, if anything. It means Discovery feels like spare parts and despite holding a heavier, rock focus in songs like Don’t Bring Me Down, there is no escaping the slimmer experience.
Disco was the aim of this selection and while it marked the first top slot on the charts for E.L.O., something feels missing. A slight funk edge can be heard in the likes of Last Train to London, which would be the finest part of the album if it were not for the straight-shooting and prog-styled closer, Don’t Bring Me Down. But start earlier than that, with the mood-setting transitional piece, Shine a Little Love. Little more than a chance to connect Out of the Blue to Discovery, the opening track serves its purpose well and reduces those shock space melodies of the previous year with the integral Lynne and Richard Tandy qualities. Dragging those joys along for the next ride is no small feat and E.L.O. should and were congratulated for their glorious opening piece. Wild, deep and joyous in all the right spots, yet Confusion cannot back this confident beginning.
A decent song in every right but not the one you return to time and again. Discovery suffers from the A New World Record effect, an album which needs to work back-to-back with all its songs, rather than something to pick and choose. It may be more a middle ground, lifting Last Train to London for late-night train rides and Don’t Bring Me Down as a sardonic slap at doubters all around you, but the satisfaction of proving them wrong is an ultimate high from Lynne. Despite those glories, there are still the soppy, unrefined likes of Need Her Love which is a far plainer construction than, say, The Diary of Horace Wimp. On another listen it is the likes of Midnight Blue which feel more grounded and confident in their tone.
On the Run is still a letdown and so too is Discovery to some degree. There is a commercial twang to this one – Lynne runs and writes with the top of the charts in mind. No harm with that but it does have an impact on the frivolity and freedom which E.L.O. performs. A New World Record and Out of the Blue had the confidence and swagger of artists clawing their way to the top while Discovery feels defanged. Plodding in spots but ultimately hosting some of the very best songs the band would ever put out. Don’t Bring Me Down marks a perfect closer and provides the band with a platform of unreal support as they head into the next century. How fast they would squander it…
