(yes I understand)
I get into a habit of putting things on repeat until it becomes the background of every thought I have, and this album, Electric Light Orchestra's Discovery , their eighth studio album that was released in May 1979, is now the soundtrack of every idea, dream, misnomer, etc. I have in my skull. Every song on this thing is pure delight: caveman-electronica, disco for cornfields, sad but happy synth-pop. It presages the early 80s of Human League and Icehouse and OMD and Ultravox and so many other English postpunk New Wave aesthetes. But ELO was and is for losers. They never fit into a category that would have them, and this album is so blissfully unhinged and perfectly recorded I feel totally aligned with my 14-year-old nothing self pushing it into the 8-track in an old Chevy Malibu. It is everything, it is nothing. Here's the thing: I shoplifted the 8-track version back in the day. No kidding. Fr om Ayr-Way, the store that would...