Four years after the band’s formal breakup, CBS Records releases (with cooperation from frontman Jeff Lynne) a three-CD Electric Light Orchestra box set, Afterglow. Serving primarily as an elaborate greatest hits collection, the primary draw is the third disc, featuring many previously unheard songs that were “orphaned” when the group’s 1983 album Secret Messages was cut down from a double album to a single LP shortly before publication. 
This wonderful three-disc set arrived at the height of my ELO-worship, but I only wish I’d had my CD player at the time. Very seldom in my music review pages will you hear me complain about the quality of anything other than the music itself, but here I have to offer you, the consumer, a strong warning: if you’re going to get Afterglow, get it on CD. Even if you don’t have a CD player, get the discs and have someone make you a copy of them on tape and then put the discs away. The cassettes on which Afterglow was duplicated were hideously cheap, and I went through two cassette copies of the third and most important volume of the set before I finally bought the CD box set. That’s the end of my consumer warning.
The reason the third CD is the most important is because it features several previously unavailable songs which were B-sides to singles from the 1980s, or were tracks deleted from Time and Secret Messages prior to pressing. The Time B-side “When Time Stood Still” is worth the cost of the entire set, being one of the best examples of what really made ELO great in the 80s. Other highlights of the “new” material include “Buildings Have Eyes”, the jazzy “No Way Out”, the dreamy “Mandalay”, and the epic-length and too-consciously-trying-to-be-Beatlesque “Hello My Old Friend”, all tracks which would have made 1983’s Secret Messages not only a double album, but a great double album, at least on a par with Out Of The Blue. The rest of the box set consists of usually well-chosen tracks from throughout the band’s history, though as always I like the album tracks better than the singles, so the box set’s emphasis 
on ELO’s popular fare leaves me high and dry. Curious omissions from the set include the music from 1980’s Xanadu (removed from the set at the request of Jeff Lynne, according to Rolling Stone), and the beautiful instrumental B-side “After All”, which I only have as a scratched-up 45 and desperately want on CD. Perhaps someday…
Disc 1
- 10538 Overture (5:33)
- Mr. Radio (5:06)
- Kuiama (11:19)
- In Old England Town (Boogie #2) (6:04)
- Mama (7:05)
- Roll Over Beethoven (8:09)
- Bluebird Is Dead (4:24)
- Ma-Ma-Ma Belle (3:52)
- Showdown (4:09)
- Can’t Get It Out Of My Head (4:25)
- Boy Blue (5:23)
- One Summer Dream (5:47)
Disc 2
- Evil Woman (4:18)
- Tightrope (5:04)
- Strange Magic (4:32)
- Do Ya (3:44)
- Nightrider (4:24)
- Waterfall (4:11)
- Rockaria! (3:13)
- Telephone Line (4:40)
- So Fine (3:54)
- Livin’ Thing (3:33)
- Mr. Blue Sky (3:47)
- Sweet Is The Night (3:26)
- Turn To Stone (3:48)
- Sweet Talkin’ Woman (3:48)
- Steppin’ Out (4:39)
- Midnight Blue (4:18)
- Don’t Bring Me Down (4:03)
Disc 3
- Prologue (1:16)
- Twilight (3:33)
- Julie Don’t Live Here (3:40)
- Shine a Little Love (4:39)
- When Time Stood Still (3:33)
- Rain is Falling (2:57)
- Bouncer (3:13)
- Hello My Old Friend (7:51)
- Hold On Tight (3:06)
- Four Little Diamonds (4:08)
- Mandalay (5:19)
- Buildings Have Eyes (3:55)
- So Serious (2:39)
- A Matter of Fact (3:58)
- No Way Out (3:23)
- Getting to the Point (4:28)
- Destination Unknown (4:05)
- Rock ‘n’ Roll is King (3:07)
Released by: Epic
Release date: 1990
Disc one total running time: 72:11
Disc two total running time: 69:31
Disc three total running time: 68:50
1992 music review by Earl Green