Face The Music

In my opinion, this is ELO’s best CD/album. I bought the album back in ~1977, and I just recently bought the CD. Fire on High is my favorite track.

Crack noted in the middle section when opening and closing case - BUT - no other issues. The CD played GOOD in the CD player (no issues noted). Grew up with ELO (Thanks to my brothers trusting me to play the music on a record player back in the 1960's). GOOD music to listen, Sing-a-Long and dance to. Will - NEVER GET TIRED - of ELO.

Someone did me a favor by stealing my earlier copy of this CD. I ended up buying another one from Amazon.com, and this time around is better than the first time! While ELO was becoming a huge commercial success, but just before they quite figured out how to make a big orchestra rock and roll, that's when Face The Music appeared. The album had elements that would appeal to fans of ELO's earlier music (including the famous reverse-tracking intro to "Fire On High"), several songs that were clearly pop-oriented for mass appeal, and a handful of lovely but seemingly gratuitous short string interludes between songs. The net effect was rather like meeting another family one time while on vacation somewhere. Afterward, overall, you may have vaguely pleasant recollections of them, if reminded of a few specific details about how the kids behaved or how the mother fixed her pasta salad or how the father loved to tell stories about his career in grocery wholesaling...but their last name just never springs to mind in the course of a typical day. Face The Music is like that. There's no way you can ever forget hearing "Evil Woman" or "Strange Magic" or "Poker" or "Night Rider." But you may forget that they were all on the same album, along with other excellent material like the painfully beautiful "Waterfall" and "One Summer Dream." There wasn't a clinker in the bunch--with the possible exception of "Down Home Town," which must surely be an acquired taste. So...why am I glad someone stole my first CD of this album? Because, for largely incomprehensible reasons, when CBS released Face The Music on CD the first time, they butchered it! The intro to "Fire On High" was gone. So were those seemingly gratuitous orchestral interludes...which, once made conspicuous by their absence, actually turned out to be the glue that held the songs together as a unified whole. Fortunately, between those Dark Ages and now, someone prevailed upon CBS Records to put back the missing material. It's now the same album as when it was originally released by United Artists way back in 1975, lovingly transferred to digital form. It's been made whole again! The only drawback to the CD is that you can't truly play it backwards on average CD players, and thereby listen to the supposed secret message that seems to have so terrified the CBS executives. For those who haven't heard it and don't have analog means of reversing the track, you're missing things like footsteps running backward down a hallway, and a pingpong ball eerily bouncing in reverse time. Then comes a warning--seemingly intoned by Peter Ford-Robertson, although not credited--that says: "The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back." (Which is the meaning, from Greek, of the word "repent." Not exactly a satanic message, if I read my New Testament correctly!) And in the old days, of course, if you didn't turn back right then, the needle would drop off the end of the groove. This CD is the best opportunity to hear Face The Music the way it was meant to be, and the way you remember it being. Just like traveling back in time to get reacquainted with those nice folks you met on vacation once upon a time...

I had a lot of fun with my vinyl copy of this album when I'd get into arguements with people as to whether or not backward masking was used on records. I'd plop this record down on the turntable and run the "Fire on High" track backwards and you'd clearly hear "The music is reversible, but time is not...turn back...turn back...turn back." Also, at the beginning of the song Down Home Town they've got "Face the mighty waterfall" backward masked into the intro. I won't repeat what everyone else wrote. I think most of us know where this album fits into the history of ELO and what the songs are like, but what we're wondering is whether or not to pony up the money to but another copy of it. Well, I listened to this version through my computer on nice Sennheiser headphones and I can't tell where the improvement in sound happened. Perhaps I can hear it on some of the quieter passages. However, I can say that the "stripped down" Evil Woman is very cool, especially with the additional verse that isn't on the original. Also, the Waterfall instrumental is great. The "strange magic" single edit is the same truncated and out-of-context version that I got rather sick of when it was played on the radio all the time. The alternative version of Fire on High sounds like the intro to an old Twilight Zone episode only it goes on and on and on. It was interesting but I'll probably skip it next time I listen to this CD. So, should you but this again? Sure, there's just enough here to warrent spending the money. Of course, if you don't own it in any form then here's your chance to get a truly great 1970's progressive power-pop period piece that you'll find to be a lot of fun.

Fast delivery Perfect condition no cracked jewel case My favorite ELO album haven't listened to the bonus tracks yet I think it's ELO's most consistent album song for song they hold up to any standard happy camper here highly recommended

Pressed on sturdy 180 gram vinyl! This one of my favorite ELO albums along with On The Third Day and A New World Record. Fire On High is a wonderful instrumental with different musical textures and changing tempos. This song used to scare the bejeezus out of me with the backwards message at the beginning! One Summer Dream is another one of my favorites as well as the legendary Evil Woman. Poker is a good rocking song, too. Strange Magic is wonderful slow "ditty" (as Jeff Lynne would say). I had previously bought Face The Music on cd and the folks who mastered the cd had apparently "fell asleep at the wheel", as the intro to Evil Woman was erroneously burned (or cut) as the ending of the song Waterfall. So, if I wanted to listen to Evil Woman in it's entirety I had to select the song Waterfall and skip towards the end of that song. These little things irritate me. So I bought the vinyl album....PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

L'inizio del periodo classico. Altamente consigliato.

Recibido en perfecto estado y en fecha.

Great record, but where is the rest of the art work that came with the original album?

Pour tous les nostalgiques d'un temps passé, celui de l'adolescence, où on découvrait de nouveaux groupes. ELO a peuplé mon jeune univers musical et continu, même quelques dizaines d'années plus tard à le remplir de ses sonorités ! À écouter plus particulièrement, Evil woman, ou encore Strange magic ...

Danke für diese CD. Sie ist in einem sehr gutem Zustand. Ich habe sehr viel Freude mit ihr. Danke Grüße Udo 71