History
Jeff Lynne wrote the entire album in three and a half weeks after a sudden burst of creativity while hidden away in his rented chalet in the Swiss Alps. It took a further two months to record in Munich. The album had 4,000,000 pre-ordered copies and quickly went multi-Platinum upon release. Out of the Blue spawned five hit singles in different countries, and was ELO's most commercially successful studio album. It was also the first double album in the history of the UK music charts to generate four top twenty hit singles. Side three of the original double LP consisted of the symphonic Concerto for a Rainy Day, composed of four separate tracks which together made up a cohesive suite. The inclement weather effects heard on "Concerto" were real and recorded by Jeff Lynne during a very rainy summer in Munich 1977. The Concerto suite would be Lynne's last dabbling in symphonic rock.
Lynne considers A New World Record and Out of the Blue to be the group's crowning achievements and both sold extremely well, reaching multi-platinum according to RIAA Certification. Capital Radio and The Daily Mirror Rock and Pop Awards (forerunner to The Brit Awards) named it "Album of the Year" in 1978. Jeff Lynne, the album's composer, received his first Ivor Novello award for Outstanding Contributions to British Music the same year.
The large spaceship on the album's cover (by now symbolic of the group) was designed by Kosh with art by Shusei Nagaoka. It was based on the logo Kosh designed for ELO's previous album, A New World Record which connected with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind fever. It also looks like a space station with a docking shuttle from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The number JTLA 823 L2 which is featured on the shuttle arriving at the space station is the original catalogue number for the album. The album also included an insert of a cardboard cutout of the space station as well as a fold-out poster of the band members. The space theme was carried onto the live stage in the form of a huge glowing flying saucer stage set, inside which the band performed.
The US release of Out of the Blue was originally on Jet/United Artists Records. This changed after American copies of Out of the Blue that were deemed defective began appearing at discounted prices in record shops in the US and Canada shortly after Out of the Blue's release, affecting the album's sales. Jet sued UA and abruptly switched their distribution to CBS Records worldwide early in 1978. This eventually caused Jet to reassign the US distribution rights of this and all future and past ELO albums to US CBS Records under the Jet/Columbia logo.
Read more about this topic: Out Of The Blue (Electric Light Orchestra album)
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