At Last/So Fine...Can't Get It Out Of My Head.

Having bought and enjoyed Paul McCartney's album Kisses On The Bottom, I was looking forward to hearing Jeff Lynne's offering. As with his other new release Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best Of ELO, he plays all the instruments himself. You can see this in the video for Mercy Mercy, where in scenes remeniscent of the video for Coming Up by Paul McCartney, Lynne performs the song and you can see images of him juxtaposed so there are several Jeff Lynnes in the room, all playing their own instrument and making the song complete. It's a great album, but you'd expect nothing less, especially given that Lynne produced it himself too. This album is a re-recording of a hand-picked selection of songs from ELO's illustrious career, recorded and produced by their frontman Jeff Lynne. He plays every instrument and sings every vocal himself, so while it's not the original ELO lineup, it is the best of their best. The reworkings add something to the originals, albeit very subtly. After all, to the average ELO fan's ear, the songs were perfect anyway. However, Lynne's reworking of these masterpieces is tasteful and sympathetic to the originals, yet freshens and tidies them up. Coupled with the recent television coverage recently, this may well bring him a legion of new fans as it's also a great basic overview of some of ELO's best songs. It's certainly impressed this long-standing fan.