I already have this one ... but when the dollar bin spit out a classic you take a chance. Yeah, this was in the dollar section for a reason. It looked pretty clean, but hidden in the grooves the Rice Krispie gremlins had set up shot and didn't wait for someone to pour the milk to bring out the snap crackle and pop and an honest to goodness skip. It was mainly the first cut, but it was annoying. I've gotten used to having a decent experience with my bin diving that I'm caught off guard when there are actually issues.
Like I said, I already have this so the main draw was having the gatefold. True, there were no liner notes, but the cover itself was okay to display if nothing else.
The big draw here of course was the band's ubiquitous hit, "Don't Bring Me Down" which somehow managed to be incredibly awesome with Bev Bevan's driving drums, and then just as quickly become irritating. The only other song I've ever truly worn out was "Shooz" by Styx. I mean I was head over heals with that song. I was a beginning guitar player and I had no idea how such a song could be played ... I can listen to the song now - but sparingly. Whereas with "Don't Bring Me Down" it's gone all the way round to being awesome again. Dang, even the kitschy "Brrrrruce" is fun again.
Discovery is an interesting album in that it is still very much a rock record, but it was steeped in odd mixture of disco infused rhythms and the layers backing vocals that were as much a part of the band's sound as were the strings. The first side alone is full of great songs from the opener "Shine a Little Love" to the oddly progressive and quirky "The Diary of Horace Wimp" that feels like an odd outtake that would have been at home on The Beatles White Album right before "Revolution 9" - turn me on, dead man indeed.
The second side opens with the infectious "Last Train to London" which I really shouldn't like as much as I do. It's really just a disco song with a great keyboard part. The rest of the songs are okay, but boy oh boy they did save the best for last. "Don't Bring Me Down" was an absolute perfect blending of the weird excess the band could bring to a pop song and killer riff and sing along chorus. I know people love to point to Phil Collins and Hugh Padham as defining the drum sound of the '80s, but I suspect the roots of that sound started with people loving what they heard on ELO records - especially on "Don't Bring Me Down" where everything was right up front and propelled the song forward. Who knows how much is Bev Bevan and how much came from the producers chair. I'll lean to Bev on this one.
Jeff Lynne wrote the songs and produced the album although the backing band was still pretty consistent with Bev Bevan on drums, and Kelly Groucutt on bass. Richard Tandy played the majority of the keyboards on the album and also assisted with the string and choir arrangements.
Discovery would end up going double platinum in the United States, and when they released their greatest hits album it would move four million copies. It was like the band could do no wrong. Like so many bands the turning of the clock into the new decade was like a finish line for so many great acts. Sure,
Xanadu would go double platinum, but when the band released
Time in 1981 people had moved on, and the band's heady commercial success was a thing of the past, the album would go gold and their follow up Secret Messages was certified gold in Canada, but that was pretty much all she wrote.
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