Discovery marks a commercial high for Electric Light Orchestra. It also brings on some of their best works. After what was a tremendous experience with Out of the Blue, a shift into marrying the culturally popular sounds of the time with the unique ear Jeff Lynne has for disco and lighter orchestral tone is made. It was a success, no doubt about it, and Discovery as a wider project stands the test of time. So too does its single, Don’t Bring Me Down, one of the very best songs the band put out. Experiencing this at a time when YouTube playlists of liked songs were the only way to engage in music, not on a half-broken, lime-green iPod, was wonderful. Don’t Bring Me Down is more than memories. It may be a nostalgic mainstay of those long-forgotten playlists, but it is also a tremendous understanding of disco in the dying days of the 1970s.
That percussion, the barely audible count from one, is etched into the brain. Swaggering instrumentals, the noise which would define the band, to some degree, more than Mr. Blue Sky or Evil Woman ever would. Distorted spots, the crashing cymbals and the adamant lyrical drive, all piece together on Don’t Bring Me Down, an optimistic powerhouse. Don’t Bring Me Down serves as a crucially upbeat track, one where defiance in the face of a look at past flames, former stomping halls and the past as a place you can visit are pulled apart. Tape loop brilliance is not just innovative but a step in a dangerous new direction for the band. Orchestra works are absent, the first single from ELO to do so. A bold effort, and a successful one, too. This still stands as a necessary move from ELO, one which would hear the band shift from a stereotypical sound.
Moving on from strings is not an upgrade or a downgrade. It is just a sidestep of a style they had taken to the end of its road. Don’t Bring Me Down lasts on as a wonderful piece of work, one of those songs which is held together by the freedom of moving yourself to a hit song on a club floor. Where you can find a dancefloor playing Don’t Bring Me Down outside of a sticky Wetherspoons is unknowable, and yet ELO never loses sight of the booming club scene, the out-there experiences which form the very core message of Don’t Bring Me Down. Pair it with B-Side effort Dreaming 4000, an oft-forgotten track which features on On the Third Day, and it sounds as though ELO are hinting at only returning to their string sections if they can provide that same boom.
At their best, they would serve as backing other instrumental efforts. Don’t Bring Me Down has no orchestra to it. Electric Light does not have as strong a ring to it. A song which could be argued as one of their best. Memorable instrumental sections, gut-wrenching lyrical work and a vocal performance from Lynne hammers home the doubts and disgust of a memory yanked back into a foggy past. It is not that we cannot or will not remember, but the future looks so bright. A future for ELO, in this instance, is one without string sections. It would serve the band well through Discovery, and their test of the waters with Don’t Bring Me Down is more of a dive into a deeper ocean of their sound.
