The one album Jeff Lynne admitted was a “disappointment”
Jeff Lynne‘s career isn’t littered with regrets. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has lived out his wildest dreams, including considering Bob Dylan and George Harrison as bandmates.
There have been very few mistakes that he’s made along the way, even if there are a handful of decisions he’s made that he likely wouldn’t repeat with the benefit of hindsight.
At the turn of the century, Lynne had to determine what he wanted to do next after spending the 1990s as part of The Beatles’ inner circle. That relationship began when he worked closely with George Harrison on Cloud Nine before co-founding The Traveling Wilburys together. Harrison also brought him in to assist The Beatles on their Anthology project.
He also worked behind the scenes during the ’90s on solo material by The Fab Four’s Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. However, after a decade, it was finally time to return to the front of the stage in 2001. Yet, rather than release music under his own name, he brought back the Electric Light Orchestra in 2001.
Their first record back was Zoom, which was essentially a solo endeavour from Lynne. The album was the first in 15 years to be released under the Electric Light Orchestra banner, but it was slightly disenginous to claim it was an ELO record. Rather than bringing the band back together, drummer Bev Bevan wasn’t involved in the project and Richard Tandy, who remained a member of the touring band, only contributed to one track on Zoom.
Lynne rationalised the decision to release the album as Electric Light Orchestra because he felt the material belonged on an ELO record. There was no masterful plan of deceit at play, but the general public didn’t take to the LP, which failed to sell as Lynne had envisaged.
Reflecting on the record to Uncut in 2014, Lynne said of Zoom: “There was some [argy-bargy] over the name, but there has never been any doubt about who is ELO! There hadn’t been anything out as ELO for such a long time, but there was no real deep significance in returning to it. Really I just fancied making a record. I had six or seven songs ready to go, and it was just something I felt like doing at the time. I kept it pretty straight.”
Although he remains proud of the record, Lynne admitted to feeling downtrodden by the lacklustre reception Zoom received. Considering Electric Light Orchestra were once one of the biggest names in music, it only just made its way into the UK Top 40 and peaked at 94th on the US chart. While he didn’t make records with his eyes only fixated on chart positions, the poor sales did correlate to general antipathy to the release.
He admitted: “I suppose it was a bit disappointing that it didn’t do better, but a lot of people like it, I get lots of nice things said about Zoom. You don’t let these disappointments weigh you down, you just have to think of something else.”
While there are likely many things that Lynne would change about Zoom, he fully stands by his decision to release it as Electric Light Orchestra, which began a new chapter for the band. Ultimately, without Lynne, there is no ELO, and he’s earned the right to decide whether to use the name.
Zoom was, technically, the final Electric Light Orchestra album. Going forward, future releases were billed as Jeff Lynne’s ELO, a more appropriate name that reflected the chapter of the band’s story. Although his career does include two solo albums, it’s always been ELO that has been the best vessel for his artistry. For that reason, there was no way that he was ever going to let it erode into the history books entirely.
