Teen beat XX- The Electric Light Orchestra

The Electric Light Orchestra and I go back in time buying the 45's as they came out in the 1970's and early 80's a good number in their colourful picture sleeves, playing them at school and home and later on getting a good number of their albums on cd having borrowed  them from either brothers, friends or the public library.

The Elo, were a band that defied the single or album orientation bias  many back then had issuing worthwhile albums and many memorable singles such as Telephone Line, All Over The World, Mr. Blue Sky, Don't Let Me Down and Rock and Roll Is King.

That can make having a compilation quite desirable however there's been a good number starting from 1979's Greatest Hits that in some ways is remains the perfect summary of the 1973-77 singles and double or even triple cd sets.

The one I remember getting in December 1997 was Light Years, a mid price British double issued on cd, cassette and mini disc which was jam packed full of material including edited versions from singles and an EP, in no particular order and suffered from being too consistently loud and bright so I relented and got the original Greatest Hits album on a cheap cd. 

I did briefly get 1991's Greatest Hits Vol II but that sounded very thin although the selection was very good so I got rid of it.

That did leave missing a selection of the later hits as most miss off anything from the  Zanadu soundtrack that gave us three hit singles and to which the title song had been re-recorded in 1991 for the Flashback cd  box set that was criticized for chopping off the very start and ends of a number of tracks.

The one pictured above most would consider the best of the bunch having most of the essential tracks including the very early tracks and was very well mastered by Vic Anesini in 1995 who did excellent work on a number of Columbia projects like the Simon & Garfunkel remasters.

It was only issued in North America and recently I obtained a copy to fill those gaps and having the European Zanadu soundtrack on cd that came out in 1998, the missing tracks from it aren't so much of an issue with me. 

It sounds really good with the extra resolution from using good tapes and taking extra care about how you make each track sounds.