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.

This double-live CD, made on BJH's last tour with Wooly Wolstenholme, is one of the better live albums to come out of the progressive rock genre. Though not as exciting as Genesis Live or as majestic as Yessongs, it shows the group in excellent form, playing and harmonizing beautifully and doing many of their best songs, among them "Child of the Universe," "Rock and Roll Star," "Poor Man's Moody Blues," "For No One," and "Mockingbird" (the latter never sounded more beautiful)…

Premiata Forneria Marconi's third Italian album (their fourth if one counts the 1973 release Photos of Ghosts, the English version of Per un Amico) came out shortly before ELP's Manticore imprint released its English version under the title The World Became the World…

Former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover's first true solo album is an ambitious concept built around the properties and powers of the four elements – earth, wind, water, and fire – with the four principle tracks dedicated to each one in turn. Recorded with the Munich Philharmonic, plus an impressive arsenal of keyboards, percussion, and wind, the sound of the album is vast, yet never so prepossessing as to leave the listener feeling at all alienated by another ham-fisted attempt to meld rock with the classics…

PFM were already Italy's premiere progressive rock band when Emerson, Lake & Palmer signed them to the British trio's own Manticore label in 1972 and turned to King Crimson alumnus Peter Sinfield to write English-language words (sung phonetically) for this, the Italian group's debut international release…

One of the most celebrated albums in all of pop music, Fleetwood Mac's multi-platinum Rumours, gets a luscious, symphonic treatment on this very special release!Arranged and recorded by the world famous Royal Philharmonic at London's own Abbey Road Studio with special guest appearance by Peter Frampton!Experience this album like you never have before!

Jeff Lynne reportedly regards this album and its follow-up, Out of the Blue, as the high points in the band's history. One might be better off opting for A New World Record over its successor, however, as a more modest-sized creation chock full of superb songs that are produced even better. Opening with the opulently orchestrated "Tightrope," which heralds the perfect production found throughout this album, A New World Record contains seven of the best songs ever to come out of the group. The Beatles influence is present, to be sure, but developed to a very high degree of sophistication and on Lynne's own terms, rather than being imitative of specific songs. "Telephone Line" might be the best Lennon-McCartney collaboration that never was, lyrical and soaring in a way that manages to echo elements of Revolver and the Beatles without ever mimicking them.

The Alan Parsons Project was a progressive rock music entity comprised of engineer/ producer Alan Parsons and songwriter, musician and manager Eric Woolfson. They released 10 concept albums between 1976 – 1987 and have sold over 50 million albums world-wide. Their focus was on very high quality studio sound production and they recorded most of their work at Abbey Road Studios in London. They used a variety of different lead vocalists and musicians on every album – choosing who they felt was the best for each song rather than being constrained to moulding the material for one specific artist. They have been name-checked in The Simpsons and Austin Powers film and their music is used regularly in adverts, films, sporting events and is often sampled by US rap artists.

Iron Duke is a Danish 1970's symphonic rock band. The 1974 debut album First Salvo line up was: Tommy Hansen, Jens Olesen, Hans Resen and Claus Sarup. The music of Iron Duke is keyboard oriented from the 70's and like ELP, they re-arrange classical songs with their first album in 1974. The second album was released in 1977 and contains rock versions of Danish songs. The song "Rockin Edward" adapted from "Per Gynt suite" and from the first album is probably the best one. They recorded a song for the benefit EP Greenpeace Sange Med in 1983.

After the success of the re-released first album of Twenty Sixty Six And Then MIG comes up now with a complex Collectors Premium edition of two further classics by Geff Harrison.
After the break-up of Twenty Sixty Six And Then, Geff Harrison became the singer with among other bands Kin Ping Meh, before he made his dream come true: to collaborate with a big orchestra, the London Symphonic-Rock Orchestra. Ralph Siegel was persuaded to finance the whole project. Trevor Jones who had also worked with the Moody Blues sat in the producer’s chair…

Electric Light Orchestra's more modest follow-up to Eldorado is a very solid album, if not as bold or unified. It was also their first recorded at Musicland in Munich, which became Jeff Lynne's preferred venue for cutting records. At the time, he was also generating songs at a breakneck pace and had perfected the majestic, quasi-Beatles-type style (sort of high-wattage Magical Mystery Tour) introduced two albums earlier. The sound is stripped down a bit on Face the Music, Louis Clark's orchestral contributions generally more subdued than on Eldorado, even when they compete with the band, as on "Strange Magic." The soulful "Evil Woman" was one of the most respectable chart hits of its era, and one of the best songs that Lynne ever wrote (reportedly in 30 minutes), while "Strange Magic" showed off his writing in a more ethereal vein.

Electric Light Orchestra's third album showed a marked advancement, with a fuller, more cohesive sound from the band as a whole and major improvements in Jeff Lynne's singing and songwriting. This is where the band took on its familiar sound, Lynne's voice suddenly showing an attractive expressiveness reminiscent of John Lennon in his early solo years, and also sporting a convincing white British soulful quality that was utterly lacking earlier. The group also plugged the holes that made its work seem so close to being ragged on those earlier records. "Showdown" and "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" (the latter featuring Marc Bolan on double lead guitar with Lynne) became AM radio fixtures while "Daybreaker" became a concert opener for the group and, along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King," kept the group's FM/art rock credentials in order.

Although ELO quickly became Jeff Lynne's baby, it was launched as a collaboration between Lynne and his bandmates in the Move, multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood, and drummer Bev Bevan. Indeed, the label on ELO's first album reads "Move Enterprises Ltd. presents the services of the Electric Light Orchestra," and most histories claim that the initial idea for the spin-off group combining rock and classical music was Wood's, not Lynne's. Wood and Lynne split the songwriting duties on Electric Light Orchestra, much as they did on late-period Move albums, but it seems like their visions of what ELO was were widely divergent. Wood's songs are clearly more classically influenced, with the string and horn sections driving the songs rather than merely coloring them, as they do on Lynne's tunes.

For the ELO lover who enjoyed the full sound from the early days heavy on cello and classical strings to accompany the developing ELO sound. These recordings were done live in the BBC studio in three seperate sessions during 1972-1974 and are made without a live audience. Great cuts from the first three ELO albums are featured and performed in grand style. If you enjoy early ELO, you won't be disappointed with this set.