ELO ‘Out of the Blue’ Anniversary Picture Disc Due

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ELO’s Out of the Blue picture disc

The 40th anniversary vinyl picture disc of ELO’s top-selling double album, Out of the Blue, will be released on Nov. 24. The 2-LP edition, from Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings, was remastered from the original master tapes and includes a digital download of the album. Production issues delayed the title from its original Sept. 29 release date. The album has become a much-sought-after item since the original July 27 announcement of its release.

Out of the Blue is available for Order here.

ELO was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on April 7, 2017. On Oct. 6, Jeff Lynne announced the release of Wembley or Bust, a live album and concert film recorded at Jeff Lynne’s ELO June 24, 2017 performance.

Related: Dates have been added for the 2018 tour

From the announcement: “One of the indisputable masterpieces–and most commercially successful titles–in the ELO canon, Out of the Blue, the group’s seventh studio album, was originally released in October 1977. The musical and conceptual brainchild of Jeff Lynne, who wrote and produced the entire album, Out of the Blue is among the most ambitious double albums in classic rock history, a complex and visionary work that included, as the album’s complete Side 3, Lynne’s “Concerto for a Rainy Day,” a coherent song suite comprised of four movements and authentic ambient weather effects recorded by Lynne and incorporated into the soundscape of the record.”

Watch “Mr. Blue Sky,” the final song of Side 3

Out of the Blue was the first ELO album to feature the group’s logo as a three-dimensional flying saucer/space station, a visual motif central to ELO’s live shows. The album, which peaked at #4 on the Billboard album chart, has gone on to sell upwards of 10 million copies worldwide. It is the first double album in U.K. chart history to yield four Top 20 singles.

Those songs were “Turn to Stone” (#18 U.K., #13 U.S.), “Mr. Blue Sky” (#6 U.K., #35 U.S.), “Wild West Hero” (#6 U.K.) and “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” (#6 U.K., #17 U.K.).

“Forty years on, I would never have imagined that this music would take on a life of its own,” says Lynne.
Formed in Birmingham, England in 1970, ELO was designed to create progressive modern pop music combining classical and rock elements. Lynne has consistently been ELO’s guiding light and driving force, writing virtually all of the group’s original material while producing the albums.

From 1972 through 1986, their golden era of recording and touring, ELO racked up more combined U.K. and U.S. Top 40 hits than any other band while selling more than 50 million records worldwide. During the same period, ELO scored twenty Top 20 hits on the U.K. Singles Chart and fifteen Top 20 songs in the US.

More recently, recording and touring as Jeff Lynne’s ELO, saw the 2015 release of the album Alone In The Universe on Columbia Records, the first album of all-new music released by the band in over a decade.

The band recently played four U.K. shows in June and fans are eagerly clamoring for more dates.

Listen to the album’s beautiful closing number

Related: Recap of ELO’s June 21 concert in Sheffield, U.K.

Out Of The Blue 2-LP Picture Disc Track Listing

Side A
1. Turn to Stone
2. It’s Over
3. Sweet Talkin’ Woman
4. Across the Border

Side B
5. Night in the City
6. Starlight
7. Jungle
8. Believe Me Now
9. Steppin’ Out

Side C (Concerto for a Rainy Day)
10. Standin’ in the Rain
11. Big Wheels
12. Summer and Lightning
13. Mr. Blue Sky

Side D
14. Sweet Is the Night
15. The Whale
16. Birmingham Blues
17. Wild West Hero

 

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