About Secret Messages by Electric Light Orchestra Album
Originally released by Jet Records in 1983. The record was originally planned to be a double album, but was thwarted by Jet's distributor, CBS Records, claiming that producing a double vinyl album would be too expensive. This version of the album was digitally recorded and was to have been ELO's first compact disc. Six of the songs from the intended double album appeared as B-sides and reappeared on the Afterglow box set in 1990, including a string-laden eight-minute long tribute to the band's home town (Birmingham) entitled "Hello My Old Friend". The album was re-released in 2018 with the original 1983 tracklisting, with the notable exception of "Beatles Forever", which ELO frontman Jeff Lynne refused to include. Some of the transitions and backwards-masked messages are also switched around from the original version.
