I’ve always kinda known Mr. Blue Sky and it’s not a bad song but some of their others are just amazing. They join so many dots, between the Beatles, Queen, disco, prog rock etc. Lovely lush arrangements, and great vocals. Surely they’re due a revival?
Love them, love them, have always loved them!
Growing up, I thought they WERE an orchestra. 
Still on every playlist I make. 
‘Turn to Stone’ is possibly one of the damn-coolest songs to ever grace my ears… sometimes I just can’t get it out of my head.
Xanadu ruined their reputation 
Time was one was the first albums I bought, still listen to it 30 years later.
I was sworn to silence on penalty of catapult!
True that.
I saw that.
The first concert I ever went to was an ELO show, I think it was the tour for the “Time” album. I was a wee BaneSidhe, so my dad took me and it was excellent. I still have all their stuff on my iTunes [yes, even the Xanadu soundtrack]; they still rock majorly.
There’s several clips on youTube of Jeff Lynne’s version of ELO doing something like Storytellers…here’s the link for my fave : - YouTube
Whose reputation didn’t it ruin?
Well I know why I haven’t told you this, at least 
My parents kept their 8-track player hooked up to their stereo long after they had sold (or thrown away) the last of their 8-tracks.
One day when I was in high school I found a bunch of 8-tracks in a thrift store and I bought them on a whim. ELO’s A New World Record was in the bunch, and this was the 8-track I listened to most. So much so, that I eventually killed the tape.
Many years later a friend dubbed me a copy of his Time CD onto a 90 minute cassette. I still have this tape, and listen to it every now and then.
ELO are fantastic. (I’m glad that you discovered them An Gadaí.) Such an amazing band with such a deep sound. And I always end up listening to them on the crappiest formats imaginable!
Is this stealth-threatshitting?
Pretty much, yep.
We thought you knew.
Is it irony that one of ELO’s founding members was turned, not to stone, but to mush, by agiant bale of hay just last year?
Dig a little deeper and check out the proto-ELO, The Move. It was a shame that Roy Wood left ELO early on, his style had a little more edge than Lynne. I always thought of him as kind of a Lennon to Lynne’s McCartney, but Lennon wasn’t half the instrumentalist that Wood is. (His solo album, Boulders, is a solo tour-de-force comparable to some of Todd Rundgren’s work.)
But if you ever get a chance to see the stage musical version of Xanadu, don’t miss it! I had tears of laughter streaming down my face. A loving tribute (and nose tweak) to both ELO and the Eighties in general.
Re: The Move, I love listening the Move version of “Do Ya” side by side with the ELO version. It’s like watching Evil Dead I and Evil Dead II: both are different, but both are awesome.
