''Earthrise'' is a concept album originally released in 1985 in the UK (USA 1984), written by former

Electric Light Orchestra The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1970 by songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood with drummer Bev Bevan. Their music is characterised by a fusion of pop, classical a ...

(ELO) member

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 important in ...

and David Morgan, both from Birmingham, UK. Morgan also wrote songs for 1960s band

The Move The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. For most of their caree ...

. The album was inspired by the iconic photo of the earth taken during the

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. These ...

mission. The album's story is about a space explorer who longs to return to his one love on Earth, only to eventually find that true love has always been with him — inside. The album's synthesizer-heavy rock sound is similar to ELO's 1981 album ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. Although the album was well received by ELO fans, it was not a commercial success, largely due to the absence of marketing. Rock Legacy released a remastered special edition on CD in 2011. On November 9, 2019, to commemorate the 50th year of the moon landings, the

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides professional education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly res ...

performed an orchestral version of ''Earthrise'' with Tandy and Morgan.

Track listing

The track order of the original 1986 release, on LP and cassette with the FMRevolver label, is:

Original track listing

CD issue

The remastered CD, released on 18 August 2011, contains the following tracks, some of which are previously unreleased or bonus.

Personnel

Personnel list according to the 1986 reissue liner notes. Earthrise *

- keyboards, bass guitar, guitar, producer * Dave Morgan - keyboards, vocoder, vocals, guitar, producer * Haydon James Simpson / Jim Simpson - drums, guitar, on "Zero Zero" * Tony Clarkin - guitar on "Ria" * Bob Wilson - guitar * Martin Smith - guitar on Secret (uncredited on re-issue) * Shirley Miller - backing vocals on "Princeton" *

Carl Wayne Carl Wayne (born Colin David Tooley; 18 August 1943 – 31 August 2004) was an English singer and actor. He is best remembered as the lead singer of The Move in the 1960s. Early days Wayne was born in Winson Green, Birmingham, and grew up in ...

- vocals on "Princeton" * Kevin Peek - guitar on "Princeton" * Richard Bailey - keyboards, guitar on "Princeton" *

Graham Preskett Graham Donald Harry Preskett is a British composer and musician who has been active since the early 1970s. He appeared on the Mott the Hoople albums ''Mott'' (1973) and ''The Hoople'' (1974), playing violin on both, and arranging and conducting o ...

- keyboards, string arrangements on "Princeton" * David Bellinger - keyboards on "Spaceship Earth" * Brian Badhams - bass guitar on "Princeton" *

Mike Giles Michael Bryce Giles (born 27 December 1959) is a British mathematician and computer scientist. He is a Professor of Scientific Computing and Head of Department at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Hugh’s Coll ...

- drums on "Princeton" Production * Steve Lipson - engineer, producer * Chris Bellman - mastering

Release history

References

External links

Earthrise
on

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.
David Morgan
on

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. {{Authority control 1984 albums Electric Light Orchestra albums produced by Stephen Lipson