Electric Light Orchestra (colloquially known as ELO) is majorly popular for their 1977 hit “Mr. Blue Sky,” but their third studio album—“On The Third Day”—has a charm that has since been overshadowed. Their fourth track, “New World Rising/Ocean Breakup Reprise,” is a sort of Beatlesque medley that resembles the Beatle album “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and that album’s reprise, as well as Paul McCartney’s 1971 record “Ram.”
Just like the band name and 70s era might entail, the songs got a more electric, new-aged version of the 60s pop and rock boy band, but John Lennon (The Beatles rhythm guitarist) actually admired ELO and called them ‘The Sons of The Beatles.’ They’re like a continuation of what The Beatles could have been if they never broke up at the turn of the decade. Jeff Lynne, ELO’s lead, even helped produce some work on The Beatles anthology collections in the mid-90s.
But the band has its own identity, they are not strung to their connections with the famed ‘fab four.’ “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” is a rugged, classic rock song that sticks out like a thorn among the symphonic epics and electric power synths.
