It's also the one that features some of Jeff Lynne's best songwriting. "Fire on High" is a tremendous instrumental (almost a set piece) that opens the album. "Poker" is a wonderful pop-rock gem, while "Nightrider" is a pretty good example of progressive pop. "Waterfall" is a lovely ballad and "Strange Magic" is a spooky mood piece that became a second hit single. "Down Home Town" is a goofy stab at something that at least resembles bluegrass and "One Summer Dream" is a wonderfully melancholic album closer.

Over-all, a worthy follow-up to the majestic ELDORADO.

Face The Music-Turning Point
Definitely different from the rest of their material and more aimable towards radio play for the first time! Obviously a project full of album fillers turns out with a couple of loose hits that defines ELO to their main sound! Beginning with a largely, unusual introduction, "Face the Music" goes deep into a new direction for the band as the album noticeably tries many styles of formulas of music. The labyrinth "Fire On Hire" , to the hard-rocking "Poker" and the sweet and wonderful "Strange Magic" to the folk-influenced "Down Home Town." A different tone of production used here as cellos are evident, and guitars are often hidden. However, "Evil Woman" did find a way for Lynne to write hooks better as it came to be the fastest song he wrote! Very Pleasing to hear and definitely an ELO classic but more to come on other albums of theres.....

4.5 stars - A transitional album
Face The Music (1975.) Electric Light Orchestra's fifth album.

By 1975, Electric Light Orchestra had managed to create four excellent albums - Their self-titled debut (known in America as No Answer), Electric Light Orchestra II, On The Third Day, and Eldorado. It was amazing how few albums it took the band to recover from the loss of original co-frontman Roy Wood, but Jeff Lynne managed to take creative control and put it to good use. Although all four of these albums were great in their own way, the fact of the matter was simple - The band just wasn't achieving the mass popularity and radio air time that they so desperately needed. The band needed to broaden its horizons once more. For their fifth album, Face The Music, they did just that. The album was released in the latter months of 1975. Read on for my review.

It's with this album that Electric Light Orchestra began to take their music in a slightly more pop-oriented direction. Although this move has killed many a good musical artist (Def Leppard comes to mind), the Electric Light Orchestra is only strengthed by this transformation, which both improved their sound and brought them the popularity that they desired. More hits can be found here than on most other Electric Light Orchestra albums. Among them are the incredible instrumental Fire On High, the straight-up classic rocker Evil Woman, and the slow and melodic Strange Magic. These are the popular tunes here, but are by no means the only good products this album has to offer. Waterfall, for instance, is a beautiful ballad that sounds something like a cross between the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young classic Our House and Ozzy Osbourne's solo ballad I'm So Tired. And, of course, the band throws in the orchestral instrumentation that they are so widely known for. Nightrider is another excellent tune that fuses classic rock stylings with those you'd only expect from the band. If you wanted to introduce a friend of yours to Electric Light Orchestra, Nightrider would be a good first song to play for them - it beautifully demonstrates exactly what the band is all about. The fast-paced melodic stylings of Poker are also excellent. This song uses synthesizers more heavily than the other songs on the album, but it puts them to damn good use. Down Home Town has a bit more of a bluesy rock sound to it, and in this track, Jeff Lynne's vocals have a Van Morrison sound to them. And, of course, the band closes out the album with the excellent One Summer Dream. All in all, another damn fine album.

Over the years, this (like any other Electric Light Orchestra album) has been issued on CD a number of times worldwide, and remastered. However, some issues of the album are lacking the extended instrumental intro to Fire On High (the same part of the song that is cut when the song is played on the radio.) Fortunately, the readily available American version of the album has restored the intro. Make sure you're buying the latest American version of the album (the latest as of June 13, 2004), so that you don't get stiffed.

Face The Music marked another transitional period for everyone's favorite classical classic rockers. The band was really beginning to come of age and discover the sound that would go onto make them extremely successful. The band has released a number of damn good albums over the years, and while not the finest, this one does stand the test of time. If you're new to the band, this one makes an excellent starting point.

Solid, typical of their ground-breaking style
Comparisons between the sound of ELO and the sound of the late Beatles (Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour) are not unfounded. Yet ELO took the ideas flirted with by the Fab Four and made a hearty career of them, leaving behind several excellent recordings filled with swooping strings and galloping rhythms. "Face the Music" is one of the best of these.

Their sound may not have been totally original, but they broke new ground in several directions with the germ of an idea (hard rock with strings) that the Beatles had begun; ELO took it one step frther by making the string section a permanent part of the band, featuring virtuoso violinist Mik Kaminsky. While a few other groups were using this instrument to varying degrees of success (Kansas, Shooting Star, Pavlov's Dog), ELO had a pair of cellists as well, their backdrop as much an integral part of the sound as any other group's bass guitar.

FtM was the 5th LP from this group, the 4th since Jeff Lynne had taken leadership of the band from the restless Roy Wood, and it shows their continuing metamorphosis from a heavier-minded experiment into an extremely successful pop band with that special twist. Naturally this caused them to begin to slowly fall from favor with the serious-minded critics of the day, those who never seem to understand that music can be intelligent and popular at the same time. (I know, it's rare, but it does happen.)

Their first #1 hit, "Evil Woman," is here, along with the serene "Strange Magic," the hard-rocking "Poker," the funsy "Down Home Town," and my personal favorite, "Nightrider," which manages to be straight-ahead rock, yearning heartsick love song, and unforgettable hook-filled pop all at the same time. If there's a weak track here, it might be "One Summer Dream" or "Waterfall," though both are very listenable (they just don't stick in your mind as well).

While some of the group's other outings are more consistently excellent, this is close enough that a 4-1/2 star rating would be right on target. Nice cornerstone to a collection of any fan of '70s pop/rock.

Jeff Lynne
My association with the song "Fire on High," the opening track for the Electric Light Orchestra's 1975 album "Face the Music," is with the N.B.A. on C.B.S., back when Bill Russell was referring to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the "legendary tall person from Los Angeles." Of course, that was so long ago that the N.B.A. finals were on tape delay at night, because, after all, who would want to watch Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, or Julius Erving play hoops?

The Electric Light Orchestra was guitarist/composer Jeff Lynne's ambitious idea of talking pop music in the style of the Beatles and giving it classical arrangements (called "art pop" if I remember correctly). Not surprisingly after ELO stopped recording Lynne albums for George Harrison and Roy Orbison, and worked on the Beatles "Anthology" project. "Face the Music" is not quite as good as ELO's "Eldorado" album and represents something of a slight departure from the group's signature style in that the orchestral parts by Louis Clark are much more subdued.

The two hits off of the album was "Evil Woman" (#10), although "Strange Magic" (#14), but "Fire on High" still stands out for me as one of the great instrumental tracks of the Seventies. "Poker" is almost straight forward rock 'n' roll, while "Down Hown Town" is sort of country & western, showing that Lynne thought ELO could do pretty much anything. But the album just does not end as strong as it starts, with "One Summer Dream" being one of those songs where it ends and you are sort of surprised that was all there was to the album. Still, with three solid tracks, "Face the Music" is in the running for the third best ELO album, sandwiched between the two best, "Eldorado" and "A New World Record." Obviously, having all three is a good move if you want to get beyond their greatest hits album.