Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are a British rock group from Birmingham, England who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001. ELO were formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne's desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones. After Wood's departure following the band's debut record, Lynne wrote and arranged all of the group's original compositions and produced every album.
Despite early singles success in the United Kingdom, the band were initially more successful in the United States, billed as "The English guys with the big fiddles". They soon gained a cult following despite lukewarm reviews back in their native United Kingdom. By the mid-1970s, they had become one of the biggest-selling acts in music. From 1972 to 1986, ELO accumulated 27 Top-40 hit singles in both the UK and the US. The group also scored 20 Top 20 UK hit singles, as well as 19 Top-20 hit singles in the US (as charted by Billboard Magazine). The band also holds the record for having the most Billboard Hot 100, Top 40 hits of any group in US chart history without ever having a number one single.
ELO collected 19 CRIA, 21 RIAA and 38 BPI awards, and sold over 50 million records worldwide during the group's active period of recording and touring.
Read more about Electric Light Orchestra: Band Name and Logo, Discography
Famous quotes containing the words electric, light and/or orchestra:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Almost like a god looking at her terribly out of the everlasting dark, she had felt the eyes of that horse; great glowing, fearsome eyes, arched with a question, and containing a white blade of light like a threat. What was his non-human question, and his uncanny threat? She didnt know. He was some splendid demon, and she must worship him.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Pop Wyman ruled here with a firm but gentle hand; no drunken man was ever served at the bar; no married man was allowed to play at the tables; across the face of the large clock was written Please Dont Swear, and over the orchestra appeared the gentle admonition, Dont Shoot the PianistHes Doing His Damndest.”
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program. Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State (The WPA Guide to Colorado)