Electric Light Orchestra‘s self-titled debut album is released in the UK, though it proves to be the last released collaboration between founders (and former Move members) Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne; Wood leaves the band after an unpromising live debut. The album is released in the US in March 1972, where a phone call to clarify the album’s title results in a misunderstood written note that leads to the American release going out under the unintentional title No Answer. 
Electric Light Orchestra‘s second album is released in the UK, featuring the single “Roll Over Beethoven” and ELO’s longest song ever, “Kuiama,” clocking in at over 11 minutes.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s third album, On The Third Day, is released, featuring the singles “Showdown” and “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle”.
Warner Bros. Records releases – in Europe only – the Electric Light Orchestra live album The Night The Light Went On (In Long Beach) (over the objections of Jeff Lynne).
Electric Light Orchestra‘s fourth album, Eldorado, is released, featuring the single “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head”. This is the first ELO album with a full orchestra (as opposed to previous albums’ practice of overdubbing three string players endlessly), and the first to be released in the US before its UK release date.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s fourth album, Face The Music, is released, featuring the singles “Evil Woman” and “Strange Magic”. The band lineup featured on this album stays largely intact through the early 1980s.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s sixth album, A New World Record, is released, featuring the singles “Livin’ Thing”, “Telephone Line” and “Rockaria!”; the record goes gold and then platinum by the end of the year. This is the group’s first album to sport artwork with the now-familiar ELO logo, created from a mirrored image of the upper part of a Wurlitzer jukebox; following the post-Star Wars science fiction revival, future albums render this logo as a flying saucer.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s seventh album, Out Of The Blue, is released, featuring the singles “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”, “Turn To Stone” and “Mr. Blue Sky”. Perhaps reflecting the now-widespread fascination with science fiction, this is the first ELO album to depict the band’s logo as a giant spaceship, a theme which is carried over into the extravagant set for the world tour that takes up ELO’s schedule for the next year.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s eighth album, Discovery, is released, featuring the singles “Don’t Bring Me Down”, “Last Train To London” and “Shine A Little Love”. The album is later criticized for being the point at which ELO became part of the disco fad, and is significant in that it’s the first ELO album without the band’s usual resident trio of string players.
MCA Records releases an album of songs from the upcoming movie musical Xanadu, with the first side of the LP devoted to songs performed by Electric Light Orchestra, and the other filled with songs by Olivia Newton-John (who also stars in the film). Hit singles from the album include the ELO/ONJ team-up “Xanadu”, Olivia Newton-John’s “Magic”, and ELO’s “All Over The World” and “I’m Alive”. The album is a bigger hit with critics and the public than the movie (which premieres well after the album’s release).
Electric Light Orchestra‘s ninth album, the science fiction/time travel concept album Time, is released, featuring the singles “Hold On Tight”, “Here Is The News” and “Twilight”. For the first time, almost all of the album’s string parts are played on keyboards. 
Electric Light Orchestra‘s ninth album, the science fiction/time travel concept album Secret Messages, is released, featuring the single “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King”. Originally a double album (slated to include the legendary lost song “Beatles Forever”), Secret Messages is pared down to a single LP late in production, and the resulting orphaned tracks become the source of most of the group’s unreleased songs for several box sets to come.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s eleventh album, Balance Of Power, is released, featuring the single “Calling America”. This is the final release by ELO before Jeff Lynne officially disbands the group, as well as the final album containing anything remotely resembling the lineup of ELO’s ’70s heyday. Drummer Bev Bevan later recuits new musicians and other former ELO members to form ELO Part II.
EMI Records releases the compilation album A Message From The Country: The Jeff Lynne Years, 1968-1973, collecting highlights from Lynne’s work with Idle Race, The Move, and ELO.
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.
EMI Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra 2-disc set Early ELO: 1971-1973, gathering the band’s early material as well as alternate mixes and an unreleased song.
Edel Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra live album Live At Wembley 1978, an archival recording from the band’s legendary late ’70s Out Of The Blue tour.
Edel Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra live album Live At Winterland 1976, an archival concert recording.
Eagle Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra live album Live At The BBC.
Eagle Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra album The BBC Sessions, collecting material the band performed on BBC Radio.
Epic Records releases the Electric Light Orchestra box set Flashback, a greatest hits package with numerous unreleased and newly recorded tracks.
The first Electric Light Orchestra album is re-released in the UK in an expanded, remastered form, featuring numerous previously unreleases mixes and other curiosities. This two-disc edition is a British exclusive, though copies inevitably make their way across the Atlantic to die-hard fans.
EMI Records releases a UK-only remastered, expanded edition of the second Electric Light Orchestra album, Electric Light Orchestra II, featuring a bonus CD bearing the 1972 album’s unused work-in-progress title, The Lost Planet. The bonus disc includes numerous previously unissued songs, including demos from a session to test out prospective new lead singers before Jeff Lynne took that mantle as well, following the departure of co-founder Roy Wood. Though a remastered Electric Light Orchestra II is later issued in North America, it does not include the second disc or its contents.
Reverberations Records releases the album Homemade Spaceship: The Music Of ELO by Parthenon Huxley, a member of The Orchestra (the successors to ELO Part II). The album covers numerous classic ELO songs, but with radically different arrangements.
Epic Records releases a remastered and expanded edition of the Electric Light Orchestra album On The Third Day.
Epic Records releases a remastered and expanded edition of the Electric Light Orchestra album Face The Music.
Epic Records releases a remastered and expanded edition of the Electric Light Orchestra album Out Of The Blue.
Epic Records releases a remastered and expanded edition of the Electric Light Orchestra album Balance Of Power.
Columbia Records releases the album Alone In The Universe by Jeff Lynne’s ELO (effectively a Jeff Lynne solo record branded as the revived Electric Light Orchestra to much fanfare), featuring the single “When I Was A Boy”. Unusually, the often studio-bound Lynne launches a major tour to support the album.
American Laundromat Records releases the Juliana Hatfield single I’m Alive / When I Was A Boy, an pair of covers accompanying the album Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO.