''Balance of Power'' is the eleventh studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) released in 1986. It is the final album by the band to feature co-founder

Bev Bevan Beverley Bevan (born 25 November 1944) is an English rock musician, who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). After the end of ELO in 1986, he founded ELO Part II. Bevan also was drumm ...

on drums, as well as the last album to feature a significant contribution from keyboardist

Richard Tandy Richard Tandy (born 26 March 1948) is an English musician. He is best known as the keyboardist in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra ("ELO"). His palette of keyboards (including Minimoog, Clavinet, Mellotron, and piano) was an importan ...

Overview

''Balance of Power'' was the last studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra before their initial disbanding (the band would later reform in 2001 and again in 2014). By this time

Kelly Groucutt Kelly Groucutt (born Michael William Groucutt; 8 September 1945 – 19 February 2009) was an English musician, best known as the bassist and occasional vocalist for the rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) between 1974 and 1982. Early care ...

had departed and the group was pared down to a trio of

Jeff Lynne Jeffrey Lynne (born 30 December 1947) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder of the rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which was formed in 1970. As a songwriter, he has cont ...

(who doubled on bass as a result of Groucutt's absence), Richard Tandy and Bev Bevan. Recording for the album began in mid-1984, with a planned release for Spring 1985. The addition of several synthesizer tracks and mixing work by Reinhold Mack to the album caused its release to be pushed back to early 1986. ELO played some live concerts in the UK and Europe (their last for fifteen years), and for one UK show George Harrison performed as guest guitarist. The video for the single " Calling America" was shot in Paris, and contains shots of the band playing in front of Centre Georges Pompidou. A video was also made for the single " So Serious." The track "Endless Lies" was intended as an homage to Roy Orbison, and was originally recorded for the double LP version of ''

Secret Messages ''Secret Messages'' is the tenth studio album by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in 1983 on Jet Records. It was the last ELO album with bass guitarist Kelly Groucutt, conductor Louis Clark and a full orchestra, and the last ELO album t ...

''; it reappeared on this album in a slightly reworked and more compact form. The remastered version of the album was released on 26 February (UK) and 20 March (US) 2007 as part of the Sony/BMG Music Epic/Legacy series. Europe's CD releases were on CDEPC26467 (Epic) in March 1986. The US (ZK40048) and Japan (32DP407) CD releases were on CBS Associated.

Track listing

All songs written by

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

and acoustic guitars, Synclavier II computer synthesizer,

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, keyboards,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

, producer *

– drums, percussion, drum programming *

– keyboards, sequence programming ;Additional personnel *Christian Schneider –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

Bill Bottrell William A. Bottrell (born October 27, 1952) is an American record producer and songwriter. He has collaborated with Michael Jackson, Madonna, Electric Light Orchestra and Sheryl Crow. Biography Between 1967 and 1970, Bottrell attended Cr ...

–

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

* Mack – engineer

Tour line-up

*Jeff Lynne – lead vocals, electric guitar *Bev Bevan – drums *Richard Tandy – keyboards *

Louis Clark Louis Clark (27 February 1947 – 13 February 2021) was an English music arranger and keyboard player. He trained at Leeds College of Music. He is best known for his work with Electric Light Orchestra and '' Hooked on Classics''. Clark started ...

– string synthesizer *

Mik Kaminski Michael Kaminski (born 2 September 1951) is an English musician. He is best known for playing violin in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) between 1973 and 1979 and touring from 1981 to 1986, as well as being a member of Electric Ligh ...

–

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, synthesizer * Dave Morgan –

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

, acoustic guitar,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

*Martin Smith - bass guitar

Charts and certifications

Weekly Charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control Electric Light Orchestra albums Albums produced by Jeff Lynne 1986 albums Epic Records albums Jet Records albums