Fans of Electric Light Orchestra have pointed to one album from Jeff Lynne’s discography and labelled it “one of the best albums ever”.
Others have since dubbed it “pure genius” and are adamant on it being the defining moment of the band. The album in question, 1981’s Time, provided a shock to fans at the time as it ditched the orchestral strings in favour of new instrumental options of the time. Frontman Lynne chose to make electronics the focal point rather than the previous string sections which can be heard on the band’s biggest hits.
But contemporary views of the album now favour the change and overall sound of Time, which topped the charts on its release. Not only are fans labelling it one of, if not the best, part of ELO’s discography but are claiming it could be in the conversation as one of the best of all time.
A post to the ELO Reddit page tipped Time as a greatest of all time contender. One user wrote: “Is it realistic to say Time is genuinely one of the best albums written ever? I mean it has the best opening to an album I’ve ever heard and just an otherworldly list of songs, not to mention the 3 amazing songs (Bouncer, Time Stood Still, Julie Don’t Live Here) that aren’t even included on the album.
“Just wondering how Time would rank compared to albums that ARE recognized as some of the best ever. I feel as tho I’m very biased so I want a more realistic view.” Fellow ELO fans were equally stunned by Time as one revealed they listened to the album multiple times a week.
They revealed: “Time is my favorite album. I listen to it several times a week. It’s pure genius.” Another added: “Time is one of the few albums I consider just perfect start to finish, it sounds so 80’s but modern at the same time, every song is gold. I was quite underwhelmed when I didn’t find any album from ELO with that sound. I like their 70’s signature sound, but Time hits different.”
The concept album charts a trip from the 1980s to the distant future of 2095 and proved a hit with fans despite the instrumental change-ups. One fan joked: “My favorite album, and my kids will be listening to it (hopefully) in 2095. I think that one album will live on forever.”
Some have even suggested they prefer it to The Beatles’ opus Abbey Road or Pink Floyd powerhouse Wish You Were Here. They wrote: “Personally, I dropped my ratings for Wish You Were Here and Abbey Road from 100 to 99 on album of the year after listening to Time because it just hit different.”
But not everyone was on board with the best-ever album being Time. One user recalled: “Prologue, Twilight, and Yours Truly, 2095 were my entry into ELO when I watched an AMV many years ago, they just flow so well. When I got more into ELO I recognized some of the songs, I had heard them before in the radio when I was a small child, Rockaria being the most memorable one. I still consider Twilight one of the best songs ever written by anyone, but the entire album for me is only third place with Out Of The Blue second and Eldorado being my favorite album.”
This is one of the best openings to an album ever.
So good, it was sampled by Cher!
I love this album
Awesome album! To me, this was the last of the best ELO original albums. Their other best original albums started with El Dorado in 1974.
My favourite ELO album and the soundtrack to my college days back in the good old 1980s…
The Way Life’s Meant To Be is epic!
I am 44 and recently discovered this album after losing my uncle, he was a big ELO fan and reason they are my favorite band. This album was ahead of its time. The lights go down!
With its ivory towers and its plastic flowers, I wish I was back in 1981
As beautiful as the Xanadu soundtrack
Here is the News was really good too. I especially liked the original video where Jeff is flipping through the paper tape like it’s a stock ticker. It’s not (but it could be) – it’s a computer generated program on that tape – I know because we had paper tape reader/punchers on the 3 AP style teletypes attached to our school computer that was programmed for BASIC.
I learned how to program on that computer and spent pretty much my entire freshman year in the computer lab, and I never took the class – I learned by watching the other kids, asking questions, and reading the printouts that were discarded in the trash :) this was 1974…
I was at that concert. It was fantastic! Hold on tight to your dreams!
I first listened to Time when my mother bought the record back in 1981. It became one of the soundtracks to my childhood. It’s an incredible sci-fi rock opera that often gets overlooked. Daringly brilliant, ahead of its *ahem* time. I rediscovered it just recently and burst into tears – holy sh- the nostalgia! It’s definitely my favourite ELO album.
I am a elo fan in a minority hate the album after listening to there early albums all great in different ways this seems so lame no band members and just Richard tandy contract filler album
Damn, that’s scathing. Not even a little praise for the concept? The vocal arrangements on Ticket to the Moon? The clever integration of nursery rhymes on ‘Rain is Falling’? Or the sheer satyrical lyrical brilliance of a commentary on communism and how hollow and false the future was looking even in the heady 1980’s?
Wow. That’s sad.
I’m not a fan of everything my favourite artists have done, but I’ll always leave balanced, constructive criticism, even if it’s ’well it’s not for me, but it’s still better than most of the stuff in the charts today. :/
Balance of Power was the album that Lynne made to fulfill his obligation. Time was a concept album without the string section. There are some studio strings on some of the songs. It was not just Tandy. This was Jeff Lynne and the rest of the crew. Are you sure you are thinking of the right album?
Over the years, ever since I first heard Time, probably in about 2008, I’ve always wanted to adapt it into a screenplay as a musical film with 80’s sensibility retro scifi elements. And yes, I had ideas that would incorporate the songs that were cut as part of the plot.
It was made for this. Played like that in my head even since I was a child in the ‘80s.
I knew back in ’81 when I got this album(vinyl)that this was a brilliant album, and haven’t been proved wrong
I have most of their albums on vinyl & cd.bought them on cd in the 80’s when cd’s became popular,but i put the vinyl away for safe keeping, im now 73.
When I saw ELO in concert in 1981, they opened with a spotlight on a little robot on stage. The electronic voice from the beginning of the album could be heard as they launched into the first couple of songs from the album. It was amazing!
Saw, them perform this album tour at Birmingham NEC. I remember when Roy Wood walked in to take his seat. Then after stuck in Birmingham New Street Station in the snow because the train broke down. Brilliant night.
This album sounded so futuristic when it was first released, now, 40+ years on, I STILL think it sounds futuristic, it’s a timeless classic.
ELO has become my favorite band over the years. Jeff Lynne has always been underrated as one of the finest songwriters and producers in the rock and roll world. My favorite song? Livin’ Thing.
Without a doubt, this album is tops for ELO. The only thing better is seeing them performing various songs from it!
Time was the first album I heard, when I was 13 in 1981. I have listened to it countless times since then. Back then, there would not be a new album until 1983, so I had to go to the older albums. I found that they were different, but I loved them just as much. The more I listen, the more they get under my skin and become part of me. I can’t listen to ELO while driving anymore, because every song invokes very strong emotions, and I can’t see where I am driving with tears overflowing my eyes. I jumped from Time to On The Third day, and was amazed by the difference and diversity. It took me years to get a complete collection of ELO and discover The Move and The Idle Race, Traveling Wilburys and Jeff’s other masterpieces, and more years to slowly take it all in and see a total picture: there are direct and tight threads that tie Jeff Lynne’s earliest work together with even the most recent, and everything in between. Motifs, lyric elements, themes, weather, blue, roundabouts and big ferris wheels. Love. Loss. Pain. And catharsis, healing – and I am not a spiritual person in any way. All fits in a huge and complex pattern. I still discover new things in the music. And the musical thread is at the same time woven together with my own life, having made up perhaps 70%-80% of its “soundtrack”. I don’t have a favorite album or song, and I recognise other artists as just as great as Jeff, but just a few: Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, the other Wilburys of course and the Beatles; and Beethoven, Prokofiev, Bach, Mussorgsky, Satie – my favorite classical composers. I don’t rank them, they are all above any ranking. Still Jeff Lynne is special. The others I listen to, but ELO has become a part of me. I don’t even have to put an ELO album on – I can hear it inside me always, I know it by heart, with my heart.
These are great memories! I’m just a couple of years older than you. Out of the blue was the very first album I ever owned. I wore needles out listening to that LP. It’s the first platter I spun on my new stereo system, including turntable, which I bought using paper route money. I think I was 12. If that doesn’t age me..!
This is my favourite ELO album. As a teen it had a huge influence on me. I remember still the sci-fi “movie” I had imagined everytime I played it….and that was a lot! It still is to this day one of my favourite albums. Listen to it it from start to finish everytime. It’s a story, a brilliant one at that. And I love a good story, especially one so well written musically and lyrically.
I love their early stuff with the strings, particularly new world record, el dorado, face the music, just beautiful, fantastic music lyrically vocally and everything else. Time was so different. And I loved it from the first moment I heard it. So many gorgeous lyrics and vocals. Ticket to the moon literally still sends shivers up my spine, so melancholy and poignant. Secret messages is incredibly underrated, though. I’m talking about the original release, not the later one with the mostly terrible bonus tracks. It’s a great album as well. The farewell concert in Indy was wonderful, it would be lunacy to complain. But man I wish he had done Ticket to the Moon and if I recall there was nothing from secret messages. Whatever, right? Thank you Jeff Lynne for decades of amazing music.
As a musician, learning these songs on guitar made me appreciate the musical genius of Jeff Lynne. The chord progressions. The intricate vocal layerings. Jeff needs to release isolated tracks on this and all his albums just to give the listeners full awareness of all the work put into the production. Time is great.