Time

The ninth studio album, credited simply to ELO, was made by a four-piece of Lynne, Bevan, Tandy and Groucutt after Discovery had dropped the three-man string section, so the emphasis moved to electronics, with strings conducted by Rainer Pietsch. Its story follows a man from the 1980s taken to 2095, torn between the technology of the future and the memory of a past romance. It was the second ELO concept album after Eldorado. Lynne told Jim Ladd of KMET in 1981 that he pictured the man in bed, looking at the window, and that whether any of it was real had baffled him since he wrote it. Three more songs, planned for a double album, became B-sides when it was cut to one LP and were added to the 2001 CD.

It spent two weeks at number one in Britain and also topped the charts in Germany, Spain and Sweden, reaching 16 in the US. Reviews were mixed. Rolling Stone's Deborah Frost likened it to cheese from an aerosol can, while the Boston Globe's Frank Conte wrote that it soars. Later writers have been kinder. PopMatters found an artist ahead of his time, The Quietus's David Bennun called it "the least pretentious futuristic concept album ever made", and Igloo Magazine crowned it the king of hauntology. Mark Beaumont calls it ELO's most influential album, and Bennun counts the Flaming Lips, Daft Punk and Ladyhawke among its admirers. Sputnik Music notes that it divides ELO fans more than any other record.