Track Listing

1. Prologue
2. Twilight
3. Yours truly, 2095
4. Ticket to the moon
5. The way life's meant to be
6. Another heart breaks
7. Rain is falling
8. From the end of the world
9. The lights go down
10. Here is the news
11. 21st century man
12. Hold on tight
13. Epilogue
14. The bouncer (bonus track)
15. When time stood still (bonus track)
16. Julie don't live here (bonus track)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2990 in Music
• Released on: 2001-06-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
Time was the last truly great album from the Electric Light Orchestra, released as their world-conquering fame was starting to ebb. A concept album (in itself a brave undertaking by 1981), Time is set at the end of the 21st century and is populated by a host of space-age themes and characters. What's most remarkable about the album is how all this science fiction silliness is salvaged by the overall exuberance of the playing. "Yours Truly, 2095" uses a number of ELO hallmarks--a catchy synth riff, sweeping strings and over-the-top-production--to tell it's tale, of a man in love with a robot, and become the album's highlight (and what should have been a hit single). Other tracks such as the epic "Twilight" and "Hold On Tight"--which practically bounces along like an overexcited puppy--also stand amongst ELO's finest works. Moreover, critical darlings Grandaddy have frequently stated the album's influence on the recording of their excellent The Sophtware Slump, proof that this futuristic concept album was itself years ahead of its time. --Robert Burrow

CD Description
The Electric Light Orchestra was in a precarious position by 1981. Not only was Jeff Lynne's brand of immaculately produced Beatlesque pop out of critical fashion in those new-wave days, there was a new brand of video-friendly bubblegum onthe rise that made such classic radio hits as "Sweet Talkin' Woman" sound passT. The band's heavily hyped participationin the box-office flop XANADU, including the title duet with star Olivia Newton-John, hadn't helped.
Typically, though, 1981's TIME finds Lynne and company ignoring trends and simply doing what they do best: pristine, endlessly-multitracked, ultra-melodic pop. There's a theme of sorts running through the record, a meditation on sci-fi apocalypse that runs through songs like "Yours Truly, 2095" and "From the End of the World". The concept is easy enough to ignore, as the real focus, as always, is on Lynne's immense melodic and production skills. TIME is an underrated gem.

Customer Reviews

Ahead of its time.
This album is one of ELO's later creations, and by this stage they had dropped their two cello-ists, (?), and violinist, (the brilliant Mik Kaminski), and instead relied on the heavy use of synths to create their symphonic sound. This gives the album a very electronic sound, but still the 'full' sound that ELO have allways had.
While I preffered the strings, this works particularly well for the futuristic theme of the album and the fantastic arrangement is still there. I like to think that ELO started off Orchestral, (Eldorado), and gradually became more and more electric, (Balance of power).
The songs are varied, from the very mellow 'Ticket to the moon', to the incredibly upbeat 'Yours Truly', (full of futuristic bleeps and swooshes), and 'Hold on Tight'.
For me this album has a deeper meaning, on the one hand I think it's a fun album about the future, but on the other hand I feel that there's a sadness to it focussing on how time changes everything. The future painted is often a sad one with the protagonists of each song feeling alientated or lonely. The inclusion of the bonus track, 'July Don't Live Here Any More' seems to add to that theme. I think that this album is about change, and this could be due to the changes Lynn was going through at the time. This was to be their live swansong.
Ultimately though, the album ends on a very positive note with the hit rocker 'Hold On Tight', which is all about holding onto your dreams - a more positive aspect of the future!
ELO deserve a lot more credit than they receive, and this fun, ambitious album demonstrates that.

Brilliant reissue
ELO has many great albums, sadly they are now regarded as a singles band, hence a plethora of Greatest Hits Packages. This album combines classic ELO (Rain is Falling) with a new harder electronic sound. The result a brilliant album. For those who hated Discovery and Xanadu this was ELO back to form. This is probably in my top 3 of ELO albums with practically no weak tracks (apart from the pointless Another Heart Breaks). This cd brings with it the brilliant When Time Stood Still which should have been on the original album, as well as two other strong b sides. Sound wise this is a vast improvement on the previous cd version and is the definitive version of this great album. Highlights include Hold On Tight, Twilight, 21st Century Man (could have been written by John Lennon), From the End of the World, Here is the News (years ahead of its time with sampling etc) and Ticket to the Moon.

Many of these songs are for some reason not on many of the Greatest Hits packages so it is well worth buying for that reason alone. Along with Eldorado this is ELO's most thematically linked album. The concept is that of a B science fiction movie and it works - brilliantly.

Oddball album in ELO catalogue improves with Time
It is difficult to form rational opinion on music heard for the first time so long ago, and at such an impressionable age. I was 12 when my parents got Time, and so the music always for me resonates with memories from that vanished 1981 era.
On buying this newly remastered version of Time two things jump out: just how well the music and the sound has stood up over the past 20 years; and how the music is unlike anything else in the ELO canon.
Commercially, the band were on the slide bigtime. Artistically the sense of cohesion created by the theme of time travel, combined with the ever-present focus on melody and a heavier-than-normal dash of moody introspection, results in an album that has dated marginally, if at all. The sense of sadness that runs through the album is - with hindsight - a deliciously overt signal of the underlying tension within ELO at the time, and for me is always linked with reminders of the general crapiness of the UK back then (Toxteth, Brixton, Bristol et al).
Buy this album and listen to it as a whole, not a batch of singles a la Out of the Blue or Discovery, and enjoy.