Track Listing

1. Ocean Breakup/King of the Universe
2. Bluebird Is Dead
3. Oh No Not Susan
4. New World Rising/Ocean Breakup (Reprise)
5. Showdown
6. Daybreaker
7. Ma-Ma-Ma Belle
8. Dreaming of 4000
9. In the Hall of the Mountain King
10. Auntie (Ma-Ma-Ma Belle) [Take 1][*]
11. Auntie (Ma-Ma-Ma Belle) [Take 2][*]
12. Mambo (Dreaming of 4000) [Alternate Mix][*]
13. Everyone's Born to Die [*]
14. Interludes [#][*] - Electric Light Orchestra,

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #147554 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Limited Edition, Import
• Dimensions: .15 pounds

Customer Reviews

Ultra heavy and essential rock classic

After the disaster of "ELO2", many people must have started writing off Jeff Lynne. The first album was an extraordinary fusion of Beatles psychedelia and mediaeval instruments, but that was seen as Roy Wood's baby. The hit single "Roll Over Beethoven" shored up the dissolution, but it was a novelty record, a cover version, and a song botched on the album by being dragged out to twice its required length. However, it came as a kind of relief compared to Lynne's over-arranged and over-elaborate 10-minute tracks on the rest of the album, an uncomfortable mix of the classical motifs and a newly acquired Moog organ -- as if to make clear the anachronism in the band's name.

But then, suddenly, within months of "ELO2" in 1973, Lynne produced "On The Third Day", and here, with the benefit of hindsight, is the beginning of the true glory that was Electric Light Orchestra, without a doubt one of the greatest and most seminal pop bands of all time. The rush of creativity wouldn't slow up for another five years, five terrific albums and umpteen hit singles. In tempering the experimentation of "ELO2" with a return to Lynne's Idle Race pop roots (quirky, personal Beatlesque songs), he produced an album that was not only as radical a concept as "ELO2", but contained great melodies, interesting songs and a paired-down, memorable band sound that was entirely their own. Elsewhere I've called it "heavy metal with cellos", and that's about right -- a thundering sound like the creation of the world itself, centred around Bev Bevan's plodding, thumping, detuned drums. This is a rough-hewn, angry, furious sound, and it hardly lets up from the moment it crashes in to the moment it crashes out.

Already, there are strong intimations of what would follow. The first side of the (vinyl) "On The Third Day" is a suite of songs, linked by curious musical interludes and bookended by the nasty heavy metal thunder of "Ocean Breakup" -- a hazy conceptual structure that would be turned into the sweet, beautiful textures of 1974's "Eldorado", the band's masterpiece and one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

But we're not there yet: this is still a "difficult" album in many ways, still an uneasy mix of screeching violins, chunky cellos and Moog synthesizer, and that hazy concept -- on the third day of creation, the land is separated from the ocean -- is as symbolically ugly as the album's cover, which shows the band opening their shirts to display their navels, as if to say "this is my lineage back to Adam", but also probably to make some scary hairy beardy joke about pornography. This might be the beginning of the pop-friendly ELO, but their target audience here is still males -- and they're still hovering in the prog rock rack.

If more evidence is needed, take the chorus of "Oh No Not Susan", one of a pair of drum-crump blues songs sandwiched in the middle of the "Ocean Breakup" suite. Quietly omitted from the original lyric sheet, there's a curious F-word inserted in the middle of the line "They just don't mean a thing" which meant the band's ears were not on radio play. Then there's that brutal, near-Satanic edge -- an edge the band never quite shrugged off, and which made them interesting even when they'd turned into a disco group by the end of the decade. Muttered, half-heard words in the background (notably during the chorus of the sublime, soaring "King Of The Universe"), the backwards guitar solo in "Bluebird Is Dead", a superfluous but ultra-heavy "In The Hall Of The Mountain King" -- the violin is the devil's instrument, which made ELO the devil's band. The backwards message and infernal ice cream truck of "Fire On High" is just around the corner (on an album, incidentally, which still felt itself heavy enough to put an electric chair on the cover).

Today, all releases of "On The Third Day" come with Lynne's first hit single "Showdown" sandwiched into the album between the two sides, which is a shame as that single (funky, black, American) is completely at odds with the album's prog thunder. So you'll have to skip it, every time. But then in comes the quirky Moog instrumental "Daybreaker" and the ultra-heavy metal crunch of "Ma-Ma-Ma-Belle", and everything is forgiven. This is not just ELO at their heaviest and most outrageous, it's also got a macho swagger that puts it well at odds with later love songs and peons to the weather. This is a band proud of their big hair, beards, unfeasibly tight jeans and exposed navels. No rock fan should be ashamed to have them in their collection.

Let There Be Light!
This was the third outing for Lynne and company and it simply is one of the bands greatest efforts. Side one (Original LP) consists of a conceptual suite regarding Life ,Death and rebirth whilst side two had a collection of songs recorded during the ELO 2 sessions. Remastered and sounding better than ever. Recomended Prog Rock ELO at its best!

Not as good as I remembered!
I was a bit disappointed with this album. I bought it in a fit of nostalgia (ELO being my favourite band in my teenage years) having not heard it for many years. The music sounds dated and is not helped by the mix that to my ears sounds like the drums are a bit muddy and too prominent on many tracks (I have not heard the original CD in order to compare). Therefore some of the tunes, especially the novelty items like "In the Hall of the Mountain King", sound bombastic. The anthemic "Dreaming of 4000" is an exciting track and I enjoyed the Dylanesque "Everyone's Born to Die" (one of the bonus tracks) but really only the sublime "Showdown" (available elsewhere on some of the excellent Harvest Year compilations) hints at future magnificence. If you want to explore some early period ELO I would go for "Eldorado" instead.