Jeff Lynne
Long Wave
Release Date: Oct 9, 2012
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Album Rock
Record label: Frontiers Records
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Album Review: Long Wave by Jeff Lynne
Fairly Good, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
When Jeff Lynne was growing up, he listened to music on longwave radio, soaking up all the sounds coming through the big radio in the living room. His 2012 tribute to these days, appropriately called Long Wave, is a far-reaching salute to the glory days of pop in the years before the Beatles. It's too easy to peg this as a standards album, a designation that isn't quite accurate.
Based on rating 7/10
Usually when an older artist records a bunch of older songs it’s referred to as a vanity project, or worse, a desperate swing at the ever burgeoning old fart demographic. Everyone from Rod Stewart to Paul McCartney can be accused of being this narcissistic or cynical or both. I give Paul a bit of a pass because he regularly churns out new music and his choices for Kisses on the Bottom were far from pandering In Lynne’s case I have to think it derives from a desire to make music and perhaps a dearth of inspiration or desire on the songwriting front.
Based on rating 3.0/5
At just under 28 minutes, Jeff Lynne's Long Wave is a brief, bright, and gentle diversion. Lynne, the studio-rock maestro behind Electric Light Orchestra, says the album is a tribute to the songs of the early 1960s, an era when his love for music began. He tackles a range of styles from that time, including Broadway ballads, songbook standards, and rockabilly.
Based on rating C+
Every avowed Beatles fan rues and revels in the day when he or she turns 64, and Jeff Lynne is no different. The master wall-of-sounder turned 64 this year and released a double album (one of ELO hits and one of covers). He raises the question: Do we still need him? Will we still feed him? Of course we need you, Mr. Lynne.
Opinion: Very Good
The ELO man covers a selection of the songs that inspired him. Chris Roberts 2012 A mere 22 years after his last solo album, 1990’s Armchair Theatre, the man described by The Washington Times as “the fourth greatest record producer in history” returns with two. One, Mr. Blue Sky, features ELO classics.