Eldorado (Mobile Fidelity)＜完全生産限定盤＞

エレクトリック・ライト・オーケストラ 1974年発売『Eldorado』をモービル・フィデリティ社のSACDハイブリッド盤で発売

エレクトリック・ライト・オーケストラの1974年作品『エルドラド』。74年11月9日付最高16位を記録。発売一週間でミリオンセラーとなり、ELOにとってアメリカで初のゴールドディスクとなった。
商業的な面においての成功のみならず、内容においてもジェフ・リンの才能が完全に開花しており、ELOサウンドはここに確立する。黄金郷(エルドラド)を夢みてさすらいの旅を続ける夢想家の話を歌ったトータル・アルバムでありながらポップでヒット性の高い独立した曲としても聴けるというところに、このグループの幅と奥行きを感じる。
シングル「Can't Get It Out of My Head」(邦題:見果てぬ夢)」は75年1月25日付最高9位を記録し、全米で初のTOP10入りを果たした。ジャケットのアートワークは映画『オズの魔法使い』のワン・シーンを使用したものである。

This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he'd wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group's music had been self-contained -- Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra -- it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time. Indeed, Eldorado was strongly reminiscent in some ways of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not that it could ever have the same impact or be as distinctive, but it had its feet planted in so many richly melodic and varied musical traditions, yet made it all work in a rock context, that it did recall the Beatles classic. It was a very romantic work, especially on the opening "Eldorado Overture," which was steeped in a wistful 1920s/1930s notion of popular fantasy (embodied in movies and novels like James Hilton's Lost Horizon and Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge) about disillusioned seekers. It boasted Lynne's best single up to that time, "Can't Get It Out of My Head," which most radio listeners could never get out of their respective heads, either. The integration of the orchestra would become even more thorough on future albums, but Eldorado was notable for mixing the band and orchestra (and a choir) in ways that did no violence to the best elements of both. ~ Bruce Eder