Songoftheday 2/3/13 - It rolls like a train that's comin' on down the track She rolled over Beethoven and she gave Tchaikovsky back...

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - "Rock 'N' Roll Is King"
from the album Secret Messages (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's Song of the Day is by the British symphonic progressive rock group Electric Light Orchestra, who started out as an side-project of The Move under Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne at the end of the 60s. Incorporating classical instruments to rock compositions, the band released their first album No Answer in 1971, and from it had their first top-10 hit in the UK, "10538 Overture" which went to #9, as well as being a top-5 hit in France. Their sophomore effort, ELO 2, did even better, reaching American shores where their version of "Roll Over Beethoven" became their first minor his in the States, and reaching the top-40 in Germany and Holland.

But it wasn't until their fourth record, Eldorado, A Symphony, that ELO became an A-list act with their top-10 US hit "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" in 1974. They continued after that with "Evil Woman" the year after, which exposed them to their first big success in Canada and Australia. From 1977's A New World Record, the group scored their first top-5 hit in Britain with "Living Thing", which remains one of their biggest worldwide hit singles.With their mesh of rock guitars, orchestral flourishes, and funky backbeats, the group straddled the line between rock, pop, and disco throughout the 70s, and were rewarded with three more top-10 hits in America and nine more in the UK. Their biggest, "Don't Bring Me Down", reached #4 in the US and #3 in England, and was their highest non-collaboration single ever.

In 1980, the group teamed up with Olivia Newton-John to produce the soundtrack to her rollerskatastic movie Xanadu. The title track became their only #1 hit in their home country, but in a way, pigeonholed the group into the cheesy-disco territory. While their followup album, Time, scored another top-10 US hit with "Hold On Tight", disagreements and distractions delayed their next album, Secret Passages, which was meant to be a double album. When it was finally released in 1983, the first single, "Rock N Roll Is King", returned ELO to the top-20...

"Rock N Roll Is King" went to #19 on both the pop and rock radio charts, and scraped the top-40 of the adult-contemporary list. It was a bigger hit around the world, where it went top-5 in Canada, Ireland, and the Netherlands, and top-20 in Germany, England, and Australia. The album also was their final top-40 studio album in the US.

Up tomorrow: gender-bending gymnastics.