Lynne's comments on the album's concept are as follows: in 1981, a man drifts into a state of twilight ("Twilight"), where he appears to have entered the year 2095, meets a Gynoid ("Yours Truly, 2095"), and reflects on the 1980s, "back when things were so uncomplicated" ("Ticket to the Moon"). Walking down the same street from a hundred years before, he is dismayed by the plastic flowers and ivory towers which have grown on top of it ("The Way Life's Meant to Be"). As he remains in this future period, he looks out his window depressed, watching the world go by ("Rain Is Falling"). He attempts to send a letter in the form of a dream to his girlfriend in the past, but fails ("From the End of the World"). Beaumont, however, joked that the album's "lyrical vision of the year 2095 – moon tourism! Hovercars! Smartphone spouses! – is still giving Elon Musk bad ideas."
Release and reception
Contemporary reviews
Time reached number 1 in the UK Albums Chart, maintaining the position for two weeks. The change in the band's sound, particularly the lack of orchestral strings, came as a considerable shock to some ELO fans.
Deborah Frost of Rolling Stone called the storytelling a "superfluous ... thematic conceit" and said that, with the reliance on synthesised sounds, "If ELO's not careful, they're going to end up becoming the kind of cheese that squirts out of an aerosol can."
Retrospective reviews
In his retrospective review for PopMatters, Kevin Mathews says that, despite Lynne's decision to embrace a new, synth-pop sound, "In essence ... Time remained a quintessential ELO album." Mathews adds: "Once again, Lynne's melodic craft, technical expertise, production skills and encyclopaedic pop authority made Time a treasure for all true connoisseurs of classic pop music. Surprisingly, this re-issue reveals an artist ahead of his time as Time stands head-and-shoulders above the hip electro-pop records of the day."
The Quietus Joseph Stannard said that Time is a "very good album indeed", highlighting "Twilight" as "the most exciting song ever recorded ... Pulsating, momentous, charged with purpose and overstuffed with hooks, counter-hooks, sub-hooks and semi-hooks, 'Twilight' makes being abducted by time travellers sound like the most fun you can have." Writing in The Guardian, Beaumont listed "Twilight" as the 10th best song of ELO's career "for its space-age cathedral sizzle, warp-speed pacing and the sort of brazen futuristic hooklines that proved they gave that Flash Gordon gig to the wrong band".
AllMusic's James Chrispell assessed the album as less-than-great formulaic work by ELO, noting a resemblance to work by the Alan Parsons Project and Wings rather than Lynne's "fascination with Pepper-era Beatles".
The Independent ranked Time as 17th on their list of 20 most underrated albums, with Beaumont writing that "its sonics would more quickly become a blueprint for Eighties synthpop and inspire the likes of Daft Punk, Grandaddy and Ladyhawke."
In 1983, the tracks "Prologue" and "Twilight" were used as the soundtrack for the Daicon IV opening animation, an animated music video created for the 1983 Nihon SF Taikai convention. According to academic Mark W. MacWilliams, the convention would go down as "one of the most famous otaku events of all time". "Hold On Tight" was also used in a post-feature short that showcased the production work of Daicon IV. The song was later featured in "Join the Coffee Achievers", a 2008 Honda Accord car ad campaign, and included in the 2011 Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts film Larry Crowne.
The 2010 Apples In Stereo album Travellers In Space and Time was heavily influenced by Time.
Track listing
Personnel
ELO
- Bill Bottrell – engineer
- Mack – engineer
- Rainer Pietsch – string conductor
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
!scope=col | Chart (1981–1982)
!scope=col | Peak<br />position
|-
!scope=row|Argentinian Albums Chart
|align="center"|4
|-
!scope=row |Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
|align="center" |3
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)
| align="center"| 3
|-
|-
! scope="row"|Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)
|19
|-
!scope=row |Japanese Albums (Oricon)
|align="center" |36
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Spanish Albums (AFYVE)
| align="center"| 1
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope=row|US CashBox Top 100 Albums
|align="center"|9
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
!scope=col | Chart (1981)
!scope=col | Peak<br />position
|-
!scope=row |Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
|16
|-
|-
!scope=row| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| 41
|-
!scope=row |UK Albums (OCC)
|21
|}