Following close on the heels of their career retrospective box set, Flashback, the Electric Light Orchestra, with Jeff Lynne, will be releasing a new album, Zoom, in June. I'll leave it to ELO fanatics to quibble over whether this is a Lynne solo album or a bona fide ELO reunion. The only other former ELO band member present is keyboardist Richard Tandy. Notably missing is drummer Bev Bevan, who was with Lynne even before ELO (the band evolved from the Move, a great 60s British pop band led by Roy Wood, who split with Lynne and Bevan after the first ELO album), not to mention the various bassists/string players from the old days, some of whom have been touring as ELO II over the past 15 years since Lynne folded the band.

As luck would have it, I stumbled across a promotional copy of Zoom in a used CD bin in the Village. The last ELO album that provided the same thrill upon picking it up was Out of the Blue. (Of course, the first time I picked it up was NOT unwrapping it under the Christmas tree-- it was when my brother and I unscrewed the lock on my father's closet to gander at all our presents about two weeks before Christmas.)

Everything after that was downhill. I cringed upon hearing Lynne's production of the "Beatles" song "Free as a Bird" featuring the recorded voice of the late John Lennon. That had to be the nadir -- even lower than the tinny, awful production he imparted to Dave Edmunds, George Harrison and the Traveling Wilburys along the way. The high points for Lynne in his post-ELO years were the single "Every Little Thing" from his otherwise lukewarm solo album, the production/songwriting work he contributed to the Roy Orbison's last album, Mystery Girl, and his production work on Paul McCartney's "comeback" album, Flaming Pie.

What do I want from an ELO album? I want weeping teenage boys breaking up with their girlfriends to call them up at 11:00 on a school night and play "Telephone Line" into the telephone's mouthpiece. I want 14-year-olds to start wearing really short 70s shorts, with white tube socks pulled up to their knees -- and I want them to get on 10-speed bicycles, drive to the town dump and dream of a better world while smashing bottles with rocks and listening to "Can't Get It Out of My Head" on a portable 8-track. I want middle-aged junior-high music teachers to perk up their ears, stroke their waxed Rollie Fingers mustaches and say, "That doesn't sound so bad -- almost as good as Neil Diamond." I want bombastic drums, swooping choirs, gigantic string sections swirling around retreaded Beatles melodies, all produced to sound as if it were some big blue spaceship stocked with afro-ed aliens responsible for this massive assault on the senses.

... so all I get on Zoom is a reasonably tasteful pop album from an obviously-talented man who knows how to play the game a little too well.

Come on, Jeff! Anyone who didn't appreciate ELO for their bombast, stated simply, just didn't understand the group. It was part of the deal -- why I became so enamored of those stunning ballads like "Strange Magic" that sounded like nothing else out there. Or fun little touches, like the opera singer at the start of "Rockaria" going "oops" and then cutting back into an aria ... that devolves into another heavy-handed Lynne Chuck Berry tribute. Or the great mariachi intro to "Living Thing" that breaks off into a classic 70s pop number, complete with chirpy, inhuman-sounding background vocals. ELO wasn't afraid to employ gimmicks -- vocoders, orchestras, and their secret weapon, that big, thudding sound Bevan pounded from his 500-piece Slingerland drum set.

Alas, it seems to be Lynne's idea to recreate ELO without all these guilty pleasures. Granted, it's a tasteful option, especially for pop fans who always found ELO a little over the top, and maybe the only one as hiring orchestras and choirs, not to mention booking months of studio time, requires a massive budget that he may no longer be privy to. Lynne dropped a hint of this new sound on the Flashback box set with his newly recorded version of "Xanadu" that had previously only appeared in 1980 with ELO backing Olivia Newton-John. The new "Xanadu" is a strangely good song, stripped of the huge production values heaped on the original and with Lynne singing lead -- in this context, the "less is more" equation works.

At its worst, Zoom sounds like outtakes from an aborted Tom Petty/George Harrison/Traveling Wilburys album. Uptempo numbers like "Alright" and "Melting in the Sun" come across as bland pop that any average band could put out. The album's big rock song, "All She Wanted," sounds like a second-rate rehash of "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" from their 1973 album On the Third Day, which still rocks harder than anything on this album. Another annoying Wilbury-ism of the album is simple, blues-based numbers like "Lonesome Lullaby" and "In My Own Time" that just sound like they'd have been b-side material for the band in 1976.

On the good side, there are a handful of solid ELO ballads. Songs like "Moment in Paradise," "Just for Love" and "Ordinary Dream" recall that high-school prom slow-dance vibe the band worked so well in its prime. Of course, the songs can't hold a candle to classics like "Can't Get It Out of My Head" and "Eldorado." But, again, that's my whole problem with the album -- it leans in the right direction but never quite get there. The good uptempo numbers -- "State of Mind" and "Easy Money" -- take basic pop riffs and use them well without really expanding on them in any sense.

It's a B- album from a man who's made A+ enough times in his life that one can't help but feel a little let down. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. But, take my word for it, throwing on any one of their albums in the 70s provided an immediate reaction of love or hate. Whether people like it or not, ELO was a cornerstone of 70s pop with their nutty, extravagant sound. The greatest criticism against them was that their songs were really bland, and were more the result of studio trickery -- a charge not helped by the fact that the band did often play live with backing tapes in the late 70s. (This was criminal in the 70s, but that sort of integrity is now long gone in the music industry as many stars can't play any instrument and basically have no musical talent -- just the way it is.) It seems to be Lynne's mission here to convince his critics that his songs didn't need studio tricks to prop them up, as opposed to pleasing old fans with a full-blown orchestral effort. It's a noble effort on his part, and who knows, maybe it's no longer his inclination to go over the top like that. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss their vocoder.

My only question: when the band tours later this summer, will they revive the gigantic blue fiberglass spaceship they constructed over every stadium they played on their 1978 tour? Or will they settle for a scaled-down version to dance around onstage a la Spinal Tap?