Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

       In 1983 Jeff Lynne had decided he wanted to stop doing Electric Light Orchestra, although in 1986 they released Balance of Power , with only Lynne, Richard Tandy and Bev Bevan as the band. However, in 1990, Lynne released his first solo album, Armchair Theatre , which had Tandy performing on six songs. Bevan had wanted to continue doing E.L.O. so in 1989 he formed Electric Light Orchestra Part II, with Louis Clark arranging the strings as he had on previous E.L.O. albums. Kelly Groucutt and Mik Kaminsky started their own band: Orkestra. They had six songs on the soundtrack of 1989's Summer Job which were on Orkestra's first record, Beyond the Dream , released in 1991.      When I did my first "what if Jeff Lynne included contributions from other band members" E.L.O album in July 2023 there were songs I wanted to include but avoided because I only wanted to use songs sung by Lynne or Groucutt since they were the lead vocalists on the earlier E.L....

       Here is another in the "what if Jeff Lynne let other members of E.L.O. have their compositions on the albums" series. This week I reconfigured the 1981 album Time. In 1981 E.L.O. bassist Kelly Groucutt was recording his debut album, Kelly, with other ELOers Richard Tandy, Bev Bevan and Louis Clark. From that album I grabbed "I'll Cry Tomorrow" and "Sea of Dreams". 1981 also saw the release of an album of "production music" called Building Tension. Half was by John Cameron and the other half by our own Louis Clark. I pulled "Unease" from there.        To make room for these I removed three songs from the original album; "Another Heart Breaks", "The Lights Go Down" and "Hold on Tight". Although that last song is a banger, it doesn't seem to fit the album. In this alternate reality it would still be released as a single, so the "coffee achievers" would still have their anthem.      I u...