# xmcd CD database file
#
# Track frame offsets:
#	150
#	13382
#	25660
#	45942
#	61622
#	76972
#	95290
#	112620
#	128267
#	141730
#
# Disc length: 2077 seconds
#
# Revision: 10
# Processed by: cddbd v1.5.2PL0 Copyright (c) Steve Scherf et al.
# Submitted via: CDex 1.51
#
DISCID=6c081b0a
DTITLE=Electric Light Orchestra / Balance Of Power
DYEAR=1986
DGENRE=Rock
TTITLE0=Heaven Only Knows
TTITLE1=So Serious
TTITLE2=Getting To The Point
TTITLE3=Secret Lives
TTITLE4=Is It Alright
TTITLE5=Sorrow About To Fall
TTITLE6=Without Someone
TTITLE7=Calling America
TTITLE8=Endless Lies
TTITLE9=Send It
EXTD=Originally Released March 1986\nCD Edition Released 1986\nRemastered + Expanded CD Edition Released March 20, 2007 \n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: After mining the Beatles gold mine for all those catchy hooks, by the time that Balance of Power was released, 
EXTD=Jeff Lynne and company had pretty much found that once-rich vein going dry. This album did contain yet another Top 40 hit with "Calling America," but by the mid-'80s, ELO were finding their audience and their inspiration on the wane. Not truly memor
EXTD=able, but passable. [In 2007 Epic/Legacy reissued Balance of Power with seven bonus cuts, including alternate takes of "Heaven Only Knows," "Secret Lives" and "Sorrow About to Fall," U.K. b-sides "Caught in a Trap" and "Destination Unknown" and the 
EXTD=previously unreleased "In for the Kill" and "Opening."] -- James Chrispell\n\nAmazon.com Product Description\nThis was the Last Studio Album from Elo (Before the Comeback Zoom), Issued in 1986. The Original 10 Track Album Includes Three Tracks that 
EXTD=were Originally Issued as Singles, and of the Seven Bonus Tracks Five Are Previously Unreleased and the Other Two were Issued as UK Only B-sides. \n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nFinal ELO album before "Zoom" , March 21, 2007\nReviewer: My Science Fi
EXTD=ction Twin (My Little Blue Window, USA)\nJeff Lynne had wanted to quit recording albums under the ELO name for some time. He felt that the formula for ELO was limiting his abilities as a songwriter/producer. He stepped forward with a fine final albu
EXTD=m. "Balance of Power" has a handful of terrific songs including the great "Calling America". This exapnded edition features alternate mixes of "Heaven Only Knows" with a introduction (put on as a separate track)that was missing from the final album 
EXTD=and "Secret Lives"(an alternate take) that are better than the final released versions in my opinion. "Sorrow About to Fall" is an alternate mix of the album track. \n\nWe also get two sublime b-sides "Destination Unknown" and "Caught in a Trap". Th
EXTD=e songs were previous released on the first ELO boxed set but rightfully regain their place next to the stronger tracks on this next-to-last ELO album. When Lynne would return as ELO only Richard Tandy would play on "Zoom". Here the band is a trio o
EXTD=f Lynne, long time drummer Bev Bevan (who also was a member of the Move with Lynne and the only member on every album by ELO except "Zoom")and long-time collaborator Richard Tandy playing keyboards and sythesizer strings. Lynne plays both guitar and
EXTD= bass. \n\nAlthough the production and use of electronic drums date the album, they add a charm to the album. While this is far from my favorite ELO album, Lynne's best qualities as a songwriter--a strong sense of melody, creative arrangements and p
EXTD=roduction touches dominate the album. \n\nYou can also hear the influence of Steve Windwood's "Arc of A Diver" and "Back in the High Life Again" with Richard Tandy playing a sythesizer with a similar sound to Winwood's on the popular singles from th
EXTD=ose albums. \n\nI'd give "Balance of Power" 3 1/2 stars with the addition of the alternate mixes/versions and the inclusion of the two fine B-sides. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nswansong....til 2001, September 18, 2006\nReviewer: Daniel Silverm
EXTD=an "Seedy Road" (brooklyn)\nCritics and fans alike seem to regard Balance of Power, ELO's final studio LP from 1986, as little more than a footnote to the band's illustrious hit-making career. Yet the album is a superbly crafted and consistently app
EXTD=ealing pop record (there's not a single clinker in this ten-track bunch, a rare accomplishment indeed for a singles-oriented band) and is of historic importance when viewed as Jeff Lynne's opening bid for artistic credibility in a post-Xanadu age, w
EXTD=hich ultimately proved so successful that he realized his life's dream, that is, to work with the, um, Beatles. \n\nLynne abandons the excesses of his previous few outings here, stripping the short, simply structured songs to their melodic and harmo
EXTD=nic core, with synths playing a far more subtle role than previously. Even the cover graphic indicates a retreat of sorts, replacing ornate adolescent silliness with a simple visual pun. \n\n"Getting to the Point," the first and finest of the record
EXTD='s three ballads, explores with a new-found maturity the dying embers of a relationship, with the first-ever appearance of solo sax on an ELO record. "Without Someone" is similarly restrained in tone, also calmly reflecting on a lost love. Finally, 
EXTD=the initially off-putting "Endless Lies," with its operatic chorus, finally clicks when one realizes the song is a tribute to future-Lynne collaborator Roy Orbison. \n\nThe remaining seven brief pop-rockers are uniformly excellent. "Sorrow About to 
EXTD=Fall" makes an inspired swipe of FOREIGNER's "Urgent," with sax again stepping into the spotlight, while "Is it Alright" (sic), a simple letter checking up on a friend who felt the need to move on, deftly weaves together several joyously Beatle-esqu
EXTD=e, octave-leaping melodies with a latter-day Steve Winwood synth pattern and a mildly sinister bass chug. "Calling America," a minor stateside hit, is a similar exploration of a friend who has left town, which bemoans high technology's inability to 
EXTD=connect the two across the Atlantic; a far cry from the excessive technofascism of 1981's Time LP. \n\nThe final track, "Send It," inclusively ends the string of album-closing "rock and roll" numbers begun with Discovery's "Don't Bring Me Down," and
EXTD= continuing through Time's "Hold on Tight" and Secret Messages' "Rock 'N' Roll is King." The song succeeds especially when set in low relief to the previous album-closers' synth-based clutter, which betrayed their hollow insincerity. Here, the melod
EXTD=y and the steady beat carry the song along handsomely, and the album arrives at the terminal in tip-top condition. \n\nWithin the year Lynne was already collaborating with George Harrison on a number of projects, and his production career began in e
EXTD=arnest, offering his now-stripped-and-clean sound to the likes of Del Shannon, and fellow Traveling Wilburys Roy Orbison and Tom Petty (Bob Dylan approached Daniel Lanois for his first post-Wilburys project, to the likely disappointment of Lynne). \
EXTD=n\nAfter his work with Ringo Starr on the excellent Time Takes Time record, the pieces were in place for Lynne to make his final move. Since his teen days with the Idle Race, singing of John and Paul and Ringo and George's "lovely tunes," Jeff Lynne
EXTD=, a good-natured working-class lad from a northern industrial city, imagined a better life. In 1995, reality caught up with imagination, and "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" are the glorious if sadly incomplete results. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REV
EXTD=IEW\nOut of the Box, September 10, 2006\nReviewer: J. B. Christian "Sans l'dulconants Artificiels" (Orlando, FL)\nThis is the last ELO album, for all intents and purposes. And it's missing several things: \n\nIt's missing, most notably, the strings
EXTD=. Every reviewer can and will comment on the lack of even a Time-style synthesized orchestra. \n\nAlso missing is Kelly Groucutt, which people will tell you because they want to feel intelligent. \n\nBut the major draw for me, and others, i imagine,
EXTD= is the pervasive sadness that is felt, from one song to the next. Not the tired feeling of someone who doesn't care anymore, but the depressing end to a fifteen-year career with largely the same group of people. Jeff sounds completely down througho
EXTD=ut the album, trying to put his best face forward. It's sad, it's beautiful, and, with the ambiently blue songs throughout, it's nice to have a bit of the perky, pseudo-campy ELO back at the end with 'Send It' -- a fitting way to say goodbye.\n\n\nA
EXTD=MAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\neh...an interesting eh., September 7, 2005\nReviewer: Justin Hoenke (Meadville, PA)\nELO's final studio album (not counting the 2001 "comeback" Zoom) "Balance of Power" finds the bands ditching the orchestra and adding a V
EXTD=ERY HEAVY use of synths. \n\nThe first thing we'll discuss in my critique of this album is the songwriting. Every ELO/Jeff Lynne project up to this point had stunning songs that never got tiring. However, about half of this album finds Lynne just so
EXTD=unding more tired and bored than ever. It seems as if half the songs on this album were just put out as filler, and that's not something I'm used to with ELO. "Secret Lives" starts out dull, and once we get to the chorus you just dread it more. We'v
EXTD=e heard it all before, there's nothing new here. "Is It Alright" treads a fine line, having a remarkably boring verse section but a quite energetic and uplifting chorus. "Sorrow About To Fall" sounds a little too much like a Sade outtake, and "Witho
EXTD=ut Someone" sounds like it should've been in Karate Kid (part one or two only). \n\nNow we get to the worst of them all: the "Secret Messages" outtake "Endless Lies". I've given this song so many listens in an attempt to find SOMETHING good about it
EXTD=, however I just can't do it. The chorus is just too much for Lynne's voice to handle. He sounds crappier than ever. I don't feel what he's saying. There's this bland attempt at emotion that just makes me want to turn around and walk away. \n\nOK, t
EXTD=hat's enough negativity. I've got it all out of my system. There's a fair share of brilliance on this album. The only thing that saved this album from a dreadful one or two star rating were four songs that really raise the bar. "Heaven Only Knows" i
EXTD=s an amazing start off track, featuring a remarkable rhythm section at work, all backed up by some great backing vocals. It's an uplifting track that starts off the album on a great foot. Next up is "So Serious", which Lynne has named as his favorit
EXTD=e song on the album. It is the quintessential 80's pop song: great simple lyrics, a catchy hook, and neato synths galore. You just can't say no to the urge to sing along to the infectious chorus. Lynne sounds rejuvinated. \n\n"Getting To The Point" 
EXTD=is a striking, bombastic ballad that suffers a bit from sterile 80's production (saxophone? BAGH!) but it remains a good ol' tune at heart. We end our journey with the amazing Top 20 single "Calling America", which picks up with Lynne's telephone ob
EXTD=session right where "Telephone Line" left off. Once again, you just want to sing along. The chorus is infectious beyond belief. And Lynne's use of vocoder in the line "talk is cheap on satellite but all I get is static" on the specific word "static"
EXTD= is just brilliant. \n\nThe overall production of the album is a bit out of date this day in age. The synths and crisp electronic drum sounds remind me of being 7-8 years old thinking just how futuristic all this music sounded and how by 2005 we'd a
EXTD=ll have robots and drive around in Millenium Falcons of our own. But even though it's out of date, it still sounds refreshing, as this day in age many albums that go for this digital/high tech sound just fail. This sounds like the real thing. \n\nTh
EXTD=e oddest choice for the album is the dreadful saxophone that is used in a few tunes. WHY JEFF, WHY? Kenny G on an ELO song is not welcome. You should've put the orchestra back in where the sax is...that or some kick ass synths. \n\nI don't hate this
EXTD= album, I just don't like it as much as I would like to. I just feel as if Lynne was really bored with ELO at this point and would've just rather called it quits. I'll play this album from time to time, but you may catch me skipping a track or two. 
EXTD=I recommend this album to those who are \nJeff Lynne/ELO nuts and that's about it. Any casual listener will just think it's total crap and trade it away. Enjoy it for what it is, and avoid some of it like the plague.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\
EXTD=nLiving in the modern world, November 19, 2004\nReviewer: Dr. Emil Shuffhausen (Central Gulf Coast)\nIt has been noted repeatedly here that BALANCE OF POWER is ELO sans the orchestra. As such, it is both a document of its times (the mid-80s) and som
EXTD=ewhat weaker for it. "There's a sorrow about to fall," Jeff Lynne ominously intones on this 1986 album. And he was correct...this was the last Electric Light Orchestra album on which Lynne has appeared until 2001's superb ZOOM. Lyrically, BALANCE OF
EXTD= POWER anticipates the break-up, and reflects ELO's declining commercial fortunes: "Can it really be so serious/To be all broken up and delirious/I guess we've really been out of touch/But can it really be so serious?" Lynne asks on the sharp, new-w
EXTD=avey "So Serious" (a classic, must hear track). In ELO's best 80s ballad, "Getting to the Point," Jeff seems sadly resigned: "All I can do is watch it burn, burn, burn." The saxophone may be startling to some ELO purists, but it's a fantastic piece 
EXTD=of work all the same and suits the track perfectly. "Without Someone" is another lonely, lovely ballad about loss. "Heaven Only Knows" and "Secret Lives" are upbeat pop numbers, and "Endless Lies" is fairly adventurous musically. "Send It" is a grea
EXTD=t fast-paced country song with some vintage Jeff Lynne production touches. The biggest hit here, and definitely a classic pop standard, is "Calling America," which is essentially keyboard based with a nice guitar solo. The harmonies are very sweet i
EXTD=ndeed on this cut, and if it is destined to be ELO's "TOP 40" swansong, then it's a nice one to go out on. The album itself inexplicably stalled at #49 on BILLBOARD's album charts. Perhaps it was "out of touch" with the prevailing "hair band" ethic 
EXTD=of the day (remember Bon Jovi, Warrant, Cinderella, Poison, et al?). Forget the chart numbers...this is a very well done pop album that's still "music to my ears." Take it for what it is; if you are looking for the big orchestral sound, it's not her
EXTD=e. But if you want smart, concise, well-crafted pop gems, this CD has what you are looking for. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nVery much under-rated, January 8, 2001\nReviewer: A music fan\nThis album to me is a personal little gem. It's a great 
EXTD=album that no one has ever heard of, and it makes it that much more special and enjoyable for me. The only flaws with this album are due to the fact that it was done in 1986. Seems like in that year, everyone was trading in their drum kits and orche
EXTD=stras for synthesizers. For the people who slam this album for it's use of synthesizers, it wasnt just ELO doing this. The Moody Blues "The Other Side of Life" and Boston's "Third Stage", both excellent albums in '86, suffer from "1986-itis". If you
EXTD= can get past the synthesizer sound of that era, and listen to the melodies, you can still hear that classic ELO sound lying beneath. You will also find that those melodies are some of the finest that Jeff Lynne has ever done. The harmonies on "Gett
EXTD=ing to the Point" and "Without Someone" (Lynne's best unnoticed song) rival the quality of Brian Wilson's. I have to deduct a star because of the admittedly bad songs Secret Lives, Endless Lies, and Send It. If you try to put your mind in a time war
EXTD=p and pretend its 1986 again, you'll enjoy this album very much.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nMaybe No Orchestra, But Terrific Jeff Lynne, November 14, 2000\nReviewer: A music fan\nGet over it, ELO traditionalists. Anyone who hasnt pre-determine
EXTD=d what this cd should sound like: this is terrific pop music, with catchy melodies and hooks, tight production and arrangement and some of Lynne's best vocals ever. Endless Lies, Getting to the Point, and Without Someone show Jeff's vocal power on b
EXTD=allads, and Heaven Only Knows, Is It Alright and Send It are terrificly catchy up-tempo pop. OK, the orchestral part of ELO is no longer present, but there IS a very well orchestrated synth pop production value that, to someone who is open to the gr
EXTD=oup not rehashing warmed over ELO, is very enjoyable. I enjoy early ELO as much or more than anyone, but unlike several other reviewers, I always realized that ELO's strength was ALWAYS Jeff Lynne's vocals and song-writing. The orchestral part of EL
EXTD=O was peripheral to, not the core, of what ELO was all about. I recommend this cd to anyone wanting high quality pop music.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nELO lies in state in a "Miami Vice" suit. Pity., July 25, 2000\nReviewer: Paul Williams (NOT
EXTD=TING HILL, LONDON United Kingdom)\nIt shouldn't have ended this way. Jeff Lynne always was an unashamed Beatlemaniac, so why didn't he finish the ELO project with an album people could look back on with warmth like "Abbey Road" (Note to Beatle stalk
EXTD=ers - I *know* "Let It Be" was released *after* "Abbey Rd." but the latter was recorded last, ok?), instead of the frequently dismal "Balance Of Power" ? One look at the tragically dated "80's-hip-graphics" sleeve reveals the album's contents withou
EXTD=t listening to a note : Jeff has done his old trick again, and followed fashion by mutating his sound into ghastly 80's synth-rock ... as a perceptive reviewer further down points out : er, where's the orchestra gone ? By 1986, the game was clearly 
EXTD=up for the once mighty ELO and the balance of power (hardee-ha-ha) had shifted away from them. Reduced to a mere three members (check out the hilarious sleeve photo of Jeff, Bev Bevan and Richard Tandy in their "Crockett & Tubbs" suits !) the band s
EXTD=ound like they are going through the motions for the vast majority of this album. It is hard to believe that the producer, Mack, had worked on some of their more grandiose earlier efforts. The production is so thin on some tracks that you could almo
EXTD=st think you were listening to a demo of an album, not a finished product. The whole CD sounds rushed and tired, as if they couldn't be really bothered with the whole thing anymore ... perhaps it would have been better if this album had never seen t
EXTD=he light of day and ELO had ended with the criminally underated, and almost forgotten "Secret Messages" album three years previously. Instead, we get treated to ten tracks of sequencers and drum machines plodding out fairly standard then-new Lynne c
EXTD=ompostions plus a leftover from the truncated "Secert Messages" (it was originally supposed to be a double album) ... I have given this album two stars because some of the songs *do* show promise, "Without Someone" for example, but have been let dow
EXTD=n so badly by poor production, that they fail to shine. Only the very beginning of the minor hit "Calling America" (complete with dumb, dumb lyrics) echos the glory days of ELO ... a real wasted opportunity. For sadists or completists only, I'm afra
EXTD=id.\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThis is Electric Light Orchestra without the orchestra., December 26, 1999\nReviewer: A music fan\nThis unhappy album probably could have been saved if Jeff Lynne hadn't decided to follow 80s trends. Simply put, 
EXTD=this is Electric Light Orchestra without the orchestra...a huge mistake. It was the special orchestrated touches that made ELO so memorable and beautiful, and without it ELO ceases here to be what Jeff Lynne originally envisioned--that is, a band th
EXTD=at would pick up with the orchestrated electronic fusion that The Beatles abandoned after "I Am The Walrus" (Lynne's own spoken ambition)--and becomes just another mechanical sounding, synth-driven band that sounds just like all the other klunky top
EXTD= ten synth-driven bands of the 80s. An appalling travesty included here is "So Serious", a wanna-be-Cars tune! Instead of Beatle influences, we get 80s ton ten pop influences, and it's for this reason why the album failed to sell. Jeff Lynne would n
EXTD=ever again be able to recapture with his own songwriting the kind of magic he was once able to pull, not even on his own solo album, I don't know, maybe he was just exhausted from being such a sought-after producer. There is only one song here I bou
EXTD=ght the CD for at all--"Heaven Only Knows", while being fully synthesized, has a wonderful melody so special that it is actually possible to ignore the fact that it has no orchestra to spice it up, but even so it makes me sigh sadly from a feeling o
EXTD=f "if only", as I yearn to hear this tune with Lynne's lush orchestra touches. For completists only. I just hope my comment here doesn't sound accidentally mean-spirited, I want to be kind here because it's hard to give a negative recommendation to 
EXTD=a band I've always loved so much.\n\n\nHalf.com Details \nProducer: Jeff Lynne \n\nAlbum Notes\nElectric Light Orchestra: Jeff Lynne (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, bass); Richard Tandy (piano, keyboards); Bev Bevan (drums, percussion).\n\nAdditi
EXTD=onal personnel: Christian Shnieder (saxophone).\n\nAll tracks have been digitally remastered.\n\n1986's BALANCE OF POWER, the last ELO album to feature Jeff Lynne--the rest of the group re-convened as ELO Part II in the late '90s with cult-fave sing
EXTD=er/guitarist Parthenon Huxley replacing Lynne--looks at first like a dubious attempt at '80s-style modernization. The cliched, dated graphics--and keyboard player Richard Tandy's red-flag credit for "programming"--notwithstanding, this is a fine exa
EXTD=mple of Lynne's '80s work. The opening "Heaven Only Knows" is a catchy tune with Lynne's trademark overdubbed Beatlesque harmonies that would have fit in well on OUT OF THE BLUE or DISCOVERY. The rest of the album is less immediately enthralling, bu
EXTD=t that's due to the slightly antiseptic, MIDI-heavy production, not the caliber of the songs. Listening past the surfaces reveals these songs to be a solid set of tunes well in Lynne's tradition of melodic pop. YEAR: 1986
EXTT0=
EXTT1=
EXTT2=
EXTT3=
EXTT4=
EXTT5=
EXTT6=
EXTT7=
EXTT8=
EXTT9=
PLAYORDER=
