Face the Music

The fifth album moved away from the large-scale classical sound of Eldorado toward more radio-friendly pop and rock, with the strings still prominent. It was the first ELO album to go platinum. The band recorded it at Musicland Studios in Munich for the first time, on the advice of Deep Purple. Lynne grew fond of the studio and of its engineer Mack. The backing orchestra was taped separately at De Lane Lea Studios in London.

Bassist Kelly Groucutt and cellist Melvyn Gale had replaced Mike de Albuquerque and Mike Edwards, and the line-up fans call the classic one began here. Four backing singers, Ellie Greenwich, Susan Collins, Nancy O'Neill and Margaret Raymond, are thanked in the notes but not credited as vocalists. Groucutt sings lead on Poker and shares it on Nightrider, which failed to chart.

Fire on High opens with a backward message spoken by Bev Bevan, "The music is reversible but time is not", a joke by Lynne after a Christian fundamentalist group accused him of hiding Satanic backward messages. Evil Woman was written in a few minutes near the end of the June 1975 sessions, meant as filler, and was released as a single a month after the album. Strange Magic followed in February 1976, with a guitar solo by Tandy. The album itself failed to chart in Britain. Lynne has called it the turning point for ELO.