A NEW WORLD RECORD

'''A New World Record''' is the sixth studio album by Electric Light Orchestra. It was released in 1976.

Contents

Overview

Trivia

Track listing

Bonus tracks (2006 remaster)

Personnel

Charts

Certifications

External links

Overview

The second album to be recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich, the LP proved to be the band's long awaited breakthrough in the UK: after seeing their previous three studio recordings fail to chart in their home market, ''A New World Record'' became their first top ten album in the UK , The LP became a huge global success and would consolidate the band's position as one of the biggest selling rock bands in the world, reaching multi-platinum status in the US and UK. The cover art features the famous ELO logo, designed by Kosh, for the first time. This logo would be included on several of the group's subsequent releases. The album included the hit singles "Telephone Line which became their first US Gold selling single," "Livin' Thing," and "Do Ya" (U.S.); and "Rockaria!" (UK). The focus is more on shorter pop songs, a trend which would continue throughout the rest of ELO's future albums. The album is generally considered to be amongst the band's finest recordings, perfectly blending lush strings with purposeful rock. In 2006, the album was remastered and released with bonus tracks on Sony's Epic/Legacy imprint. "Surrender" was also issued as a promotional single and an iTunes download single, which entered the top 100 download chart.
The bands frontman Jeff Lynne regards his own songwriting at this point to have reached a new high.
:– Jeff Lynne 2006 A New World Record remaster

Trivia

★ The cover prominently features New York's Empire State Building, which took the ''world record'' for tallest building in 1931, but at the time of release, ironically, had just recently lost its title to crosstown skyscraper World Trade Center in 1972 and Chicago's Sears Tower in 1974.

Track listing

All songs written by Jeff Lynne.
# "Tightrope" – 5:03
# "Telephone Line" – 4:38
# "Rockaria!" – 3:12
# "Mission (A World Record)" – 4:25
# "So Fine" – 3:54
# "Livin' Thing" – 3:31
# "Above the Clouds" – 2:16
# "Do Ya" – 3:43
# "Shangri-La" – 5:32

Bonus tracks (2006 remaster)

#

"Telephone Line" (Alternate vocal) – 4:41
#

"Surrender" (previously unreleased) – 2:37
#

"Tightrope" (alternate mix) – 4:55
#

"Above the Clouds" (Instrumental version) – 1:14
#

"So Fine" (Instrumental version) – 4:16
#

"Telephone Line" (Instrumental version) – 4:51

Personnel

★ Jeff Lynne - lead vocals, backing vocals, lead, rhythm and slide guitars, percussion, piano

★ Bev Bevan - drums, Minimoog drum, percussion, backing vocals

★ Richard Tandy - piano, Minimoog, Micromoog, polyphonic keyboard, electric guitars, clavinet, grand piano, Mellotron, percussion, backing vocals

★ Kelly Groucutt - vocals, bass, percussion, backing vocals

★ Mik Kaminski - violin

★ Hugh McDowell - cello

★ Melvyn Gale - cello

★ Orchestra and choral arrangements - Jeff Lynne, Richard Tandy and Louis Clark.

★ Orchestra conducted by Louis Clark.

Charts

'Album'

Year	Chart	Position
1976	Australia	1
1976	USA	5
1976	UK	6

'Single'

Year	Single	USA	UK
1976	"Livin' Thing"	13	4
1977	"Rockaria!"	Not Released	9
1977	"Do Ya"	24	Not Released
1977	"Telephone Line"	7	8

Certifications

Organization	Level	Date
RIAA – USA	Gold	October 25 1976
RIAA – USA	Platinum	December 6 1976
BPI – UK	Gold	January 14 1977
BPI – UK	Platinum	July 14 1979

External links

★ A New World Record Remastered info