With all due respect to the great wisdom of the venerable "Top 500 Reviewer" Ms. Scott, I still think she is a touch off the mark (i.e barking mad) when she denies the influence of disco on one of ELO's most  blatantly commercial offerings, the 1979 "Discovery" album. One  listen to the opening track is all you need to tell you that Jeff Lynne  spent his time since "Out Of The Blue" boogie-ing to the  "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack which was so prevalent at the  time. Several tracks are littered with fast, tinny, disco hi-hats and  "Last Train To London" sports a particularly funky disco-esque  bass-line. It made me shake my booty anyway. That said, it would be unfair  to say that the album is unenjoyable: the swooping strings of "Shine A  Little Love", the ridiculous Beatles homage / pastiche / rip-off of  "Diary of Horace Wimp" and the stomping drum beat of "Don't  Bring Me Down" ("grrrrrrrrrroooooossssss! ") are all moments  that stick in the mind, but as usual, Jeff Lynne sticks doggedly to his  workable pop formula for the 70's : bolting "classical" music  onto whatever type of music was popular at the time -  "progressive" rock for the earlier albums then disco in  "Discovery"'s case.  This album probably marked ELO's zenith in  commerciality: it was downhill all the way to the sad finale of  the 1986  "Balance of Power" project after this ... this was the era of a  seemingly, uninvincible, multi-million unit shifting, stadium rocking ELO  ... how were we to know "Xanadu" was just around the corner ?
With all due respect to the great wisdom of the venerable "Top 500 Reviewer" Ms. Scott, I still think she is a touch off the mark (i. e barking mad) when she denies the influence of disco on one of ELO's most  blatantly commercial offerings, the 1979 "Discovery" album. One  listen to the opening track is all you need to tell you that Jeff Lynne  spent his time since "Out Of The Blue" boogie-ing to the  "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack which was so prevalent at the  time. Several tracks are littered with fast, tinny, disco hi-hats and  "Last Train To London" sports a particularly funky disco-esque  bass-line. It made me shake my booty anyway. That said, it would be unfair  to say that the album is unenjoyable: the swooping strings of "Shine A  Little Love", the ridiculous Beatles homage / pastiche / rip-off of  "Diary of Horace Wimp" and the stomping drum beat of "Don't  Bring Me Down" ("grrrrrrrrrroooooossssss! ") are all moments  that stick in the mind, but as usual, Jeff Lynne sticks doggedly to his  workable pop formula for the 70's : bolting "classical" music  onto whatever type of music was popular at the time -  "progressive" rock for the earlier albums then disco in  "Discovery"'s case. This album probably marked ELO's zenith in  commerciality: it was downhill all the way to the sad finale of  the 1986  "Balance of Power" project after this... this was the era of a  seemingly, uninvincible, multi-million unit shifting, stadium rocking ELO... how were we to know "Xanadu" was just around the corner?