The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.amazon.com/New-Magnetic-Wonder-Apples-Stereo/dp/B000JRYO9C/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-1514635-5264950?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1173018078&sr=1-1

It doesn't get any more happy pop than this and for me it's impossible to be in a bad mood after listening to this record. If you're in a bad mood I recommend popping this little baby in the CD player.

I didn't own a whole lot of albums when I was a kid. My collection was so small that I could tell you something about how I acquired every one them. For instance, the first piece of vinyl I ever owned was Queen's A Night At The Opera which was given to me for my birthday by David Gubin. I think it was around my tenth birthday and I look back on it now and wonder how much I really understood about Freddie Mercury and his androgyny. I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 at the time. I just knew Bohemian Rhapsody was just about the coolest song ever. One of the other albums I owned was Electric Light Orchestra's Out Of The Blue. I acquired that one via hard work. OK, maybe it wasn't all that hard, but when I was a kid it seemed like hard work to me. My dad and I had traveled to Memphis with Coach Morgan and his wife to show coins at a flea market. (Both my Dad and Coach are numismatists, assuming the old Coach is still alive). I think maybe Coach Morgan's wife sold some of her handicrafts too. The woman at the booth across from them sold a variety of crap and some of it included some albums. Most were old, but there were a few brand new ones too. She wanted to go to lunch for an hour and in return for me 'watching the shop', she let me pick out an album of my choice. I obviously chose ELO otherwise the story wouldn't make sense here. This wasn't just any run of the mill version though. It was the double album one with the cardboard spaceship that you could build inside. I wonder what that would be worth today with the spaceship stuff still intact. Oh yeah, Ebay.

I loved that album and to this day I complain that there is not enough ELO being played in the world today. Well, in lieu of Jeff Lynne putting the band back together we have the Apples In Stereo. I shouldn't say that they sound exactly like ELO because they don't. They do borrow a lot of the same pop sensibilities however. They also borrow heavily from The Beach Boys and The Beatles, as do three quarters of the bands in the world, however the Apples are better at it than most who dare mimic. They do fall short on a couple of occasions, most notably the eight or ten filler tracks usually of no more than a minute in length. To me, they are kind of annoying. I guess if this were a hip-hop album those would be called skits, but the ones on this release aren't near as entertaining. There are a number of good songs on here, my favorites being the lead track Can You Feel It?, the pure pop goodness of Sunndal Song, and 7 Stars which is divined straight from the soul of Jeff Lynne. Overall the CD is worthy of an iTunes purchase; don't sell yourself short by just buying the popular tunes.