999,845: The Move — Do Ya

For anyone who laments that The Beatles broke up too early, or imagines an alternate reality in which the Fab Four continue to push musical boundaries within the confines of their perfect pop craftsmanship, even to this day, think about Jeff Lynne for a second.

You'll remember him as The Electric Light Orchestra guy. The guy who eventually turned to producing songs all in exactly the same post-excitement, easy-listening style. Whether it was Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, or any of the other 1200 year-old Traveling Wilburys, you could tell a Jeff Lynne-produced song a mile away. You know, "Let's isolate some acoustic strumming, throw in some lazy slide guitar, and kick it up to medium!" This is the guy who actually thought ELO's combination of symphonic cues and cheesed out pop-rock picked up exactly where the Beatles left off.

And you what other geniuses thought that? The Beatles. Ringo Starr sought out Lynne's production work. George Harrison worked with Lynne so often that he was entirely absorbed through Lynne's porous cell wall, vanishing forever into the opaque, gelatinous interior. John Lennon, for crying out loud, described ELO as the Beatles' musical sons. And when three then-living Beatles needed someone to make Lennon's corpse presentable for a couple of mid-'90's "reunion" songs, who did they go to? Not a hale and lucid George Martin, God forbid. No, they did an end run around Paul's protests and straight to Jeff Lynne and his rainbow-spewing boredom machine. And even Paul came around after that, using Lynne for his Flaming Pie record.

Now imagine it wasn't just two utterly forgettable Beatles songs. Imagine forty years of incredibly sappy, lifeless, Jeff Lynne-esque, sub-MOR Beatles tunes. Imagine 25-odd entire albums of worthless—worthless!—Beatles music. The implications are nauseating.

Once upon a time, though, Jeff Lynne wasn't the polished, precision Swiss watch of mediocrity we know today. Once upon a time, that guy not only rocked, but he rocked messy. Before he and ELO began a decreasingly interesting attempt to build a nuclear cannon that could fire lukewarm ear-porridge out of every radio on Earth simultaneously, he was in a band called The Move that approximately 7 people in the United States were aware of. In the final length of its brief career, after Lynne joined, The Move was sludgy. And distorted. And heavy. And channeling the "Helter Skelter"-y side of the Beatles that ELO seemed never to acknowledge.

Check out The Move's version of "Do Ya", an ELO favorite. First! Think about the Do Ya you know. Strings. Cleanly guitars. Now plug in this one, crank the volume, and exult in rock n' roll bliss.