John Lennon Albums (13)
What The Critics Say
Following quickly on the heels of Live in New York City, a second posthumous Lennon release emerged from Yoko Ono's archives, with one side devoted to outtakes from the wild Rock & Roll sessions and the other to alternate takes from Walls and Bridges. The Rock & Roll side draws mostly from the first Phil Spector-produced sessions in Hollywood, which collapsed amidst storied incidents of '70s excess. There are two hitherto unreleased Lennon songs on board: "Here We Go Again" (co-written with Spector), a fairly uneventful song massively overproduced, and "Rock & Roll People," which has a more Spartan production by Lennon and a nice kick to it. "Angel Baby," originally put out on the unauthorized Roots album, makes a raucous first official appearance here. "Since My Baby Left Me" sounds like a glorified party tape, giving listeners a taste of the madness of those sessions, and a lumbering rendition of Spector's chestnut "To Know Her Is to Love Her" closes the side. The Walls and Bridges alternates ("Steel and Glass," "Scared," "Old Dirt Road," "Nobody Loves You," and "Bless You") lack the orchestrations of the master takes, and they are better off for it; indeed, "Steel and Glass" and "Scared" take on an especially starker power. By today's standards, this would be a pretty meager harvest of unheard Lennon, recommendable only to completists and the really dedicated fan. But in those pre-Lost Lennon Tapes/Lennon Anthology days, it was a tantalizing look into the vault. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
'Live in New York City'
Release Date 1/1/1985
Tracks 11
Label Capitol
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What The Critics Say
John Lennon's concert appearances during his solo years were rare and scattered about, so any live document is worth hearing. Yet this one, the fabled One to One concert at Madison Square Garden, doesn't live up to its legend, however noble the cause (a benefit for the Willowbrook School for Children). Much of the problem, one suspects, is that Lennon concerts tended to be quick, casual one-offs; this material might have really rocked if John had broken the tunes in on the road first. Also, the Plastic Ono Elephants Memory Band is a fairly crude bunch of bashers, with Stan Bronstein's flailing sax and surprisingly poor drumming, despite the support of Jim Keltner. So Lennon is pretty much left to his own devices. In the first few numbers he sounds distracted, not in full command, even disconnected from the band. A core primal scream piece "Well Well Well" is given a perfunctory run-through; "Instant Karma" sounds stiff, with embarrassing drum breaks ("We'll get it right next time," John says); and he makes only one reference to his Beatle past with a heavy-handed "Come Together." Things do improve later on when "Mother" and "Cold Turkey" work up a good lather, and "Hound Dog" is not bad, although the concluding "Give Peace a Chance" is limited to the brief excerpt included on Shaved Fish. Phil Spector was the original producer of the recording, and it's one of his murkier jobs, not nearly as focused as his work on The Concert for Bangla Desh in the very same arena the year before. More from the concert, including some of Yoko's numbers, can be found on the companion video cassette released at the same time. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The sessions for 1980's Double Fantasy were supposed to yield two albums, the second to be released at a future time, but Lennon's assassination tragically halted the project in its tracks. A bit over three years later, Yoko Ono issued tapes of many of the songs planned for that album under the title Milk and Honey, laid out in the same John-Yoko-John-Yoko dialogue fashion as its predecessor. Not unexpectedly, it's a rougher, less polished product, lacking the finishing touches and additional takes that Lennon most likely would have called for. Nevertheless, Lennon's songs at this point in their development were often quite strong, tougher than those on Double Fantasy in general, and the ad libs and studio chatter that might not have made the final cut give us more of a glimpse of Lennon's delightfully quirky personality. "Nobody Told Me," the advance single off the album, is a rollicking, quizzical piece of work, maybe the best thing to come out of John's 1980 sessions, despite the unfinished-sounding transition to the chorus. "Borrowed Time," another single, is a thoughtful, sparely worded meditation on growing older attached to a Caribbean beat. Yoko's contributions, while not as strong as John's, are surprisingly listenable -- the reggae-based "Don't Be Scared," in particular -- and more current in texture, and her lyrics do tend to answer John's songs. As the album comes toward the close, the tone turns sentimental, culminating with one of John's loveliest tunes, "Grow Old With Me," as presented on a home-recorded cassette in lieu of a studio recording. The ironies of this song and some of the other Lennon material are obviously poignant in the light of the cruel events of December 8, 1980; that and the fact that these songs haven't been as exposed as much as those on Double Fantasy lead some to prefer this sequel. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The most distinctive thing about Double Fantasy, the last album John Lennon released during his lifetime, is the very thing that keeps it from being a graceful return to form from the singer/songwriter, returning to active duty after five years of self-imposed exile. As legend has it, Lennon spent those years in domestic bliss, being a husband, raising a baby, and, of course, baking bread. Double Fantasy was designed as a window into that bliss and, to that extent, he decided to make it a joint album with Yoko Ono, to illustrate how complete their union was. For her part, Ono decided to take a stab at pop and while these are relatively tuneful for her, they nevertheless disrupt the feel and flow of Lennon's material, which has a consistent tone and theme. He's surprisingly sentimental, not just when he's expressing love for his wife ("Dear Yoko," "Woman") and child ("Beautiful Boy [Darling Boy]"), but when he's coming to terms with his quiet years ("Watching the Wheels," "Cleanup Time") and his return to creative life. These are really nice tunes, and what's special about them is their niceness -- it's a sweet acceptance of middle age, which, of course, makes his assassination all the sadder. For that alone, Double Fantasy is noteworthy, yet it's hard not to think that it's a bit of a missed opportunity -- primarily because its themes would be stronger without the Ono songs, but also because the production is just a little bit too slick and constrained, sounding very much of its time. Ultimately, these complaints fall by the wayside because Lennon's best songs here cement the last part of his legend, capturing him at peace and in love. According to some reports, that perception was a bit of a fantasy, but sometimes the fantasy means more than the reality, and that's certainly the case here. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Although the chaotic sessions that spawned this album have passed into rock & roll legend and the recording's very genesis (as an out-of-court settlement between John Lennon and an aggrieved publisher) has often caused it to be slighted by many of the singer's biographers, Rock 'n' Roll, in fact, stands as a peak in his post-Imagine catalog: an album that catches him with nothing to prove and no need to try. Lennon could, after all, sing old rock & roll numbers with his mouth closed; he spent his entire career relaxing with off-the-cuff blasts through the music with which he grew up, and Rock 'n' Roll emerges the sound of him doing precisely that. Four songs survive from the fractious sessions with producer Phil Spector in late 1973 that ignited the album, and listeners to any of the posthumous compilations that also draw from those archives will know that the best tracks were left on the shelf -- "Be My Baby" and "Angel Baby" among them. But a gorgeous run through Lloyd Price's "Just Because" wraps up the album in fine style, while a trip through "You Can't Catch Me" contrarily captures a playful side that Lennon rarely revealed on vinyl. The remainder of the album was cut a year later with Lennon alone at the helm, and the mood remains buoyant. It might not, on first glance, seem essential to hear him running through nuggets like "Be Bop A Lula," "Peggy Sue," and "Bring It on Home to Me," but, again, Lennon has seldom sounded so gleeful as he does on these numbers, while the absence of the Spector trademark Wall-of-Sound production is scarcely noticeable -- as the object of one of Lennon's own productions, David Peel once pointed out, "John had the Wall of Sound down perfectly himself." Released in an age when both David Bowie and Bryan Ferry had already tracked back to musical times-gone-by (Pin-Ups and These Foolish Things, respectively), Rock 'n' Roll received short shrift from contemporary critics. As time passed, however, it has grown in stature, whereas those other albums have merely held their own. Today, Rock 'n' Roll sounds fresher than the rock & roll that inspired it in the first place. Imagine that. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After the hostile reaction to the politically charged Sometime in New York City, John Lennon moved away from explicit protest songs and returned to introspective songwriting with Mind Games. Lennon didn't leave politics behind -- he just tempered his opinions with humor on songs like "Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)," which happened to undercut the intention of the song. It also indicated the confusion that lies at the heart of the album. Lennon doesn't know which way to go, so he tries everything. There are lovely ballads like "Out of the Blue" and "One Day (At a Time)," forced, ham-fisted rockers like "Meat City" and "Tight A$," sweeping Spectoresque pop on "Mind Games," and many mid-tempo, indistinguishable pop/rockers. While the best numbers are among Lennon's finest, there's only a handful of them, and the remainder of the record is simply pleasant. But compared to Sometime in New York City, as well as the subsequent Walls and Bridges, Mind Games sounded like a return to form. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Some Time in New York City/Live Jam'
Release Date 1/1/1972
Tracks 16
Label Apple
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What The Critics Say
The first album co-billed to John Lennon and Yoko Ono to actually contain recognizable pop music, Sometime in New York City found the Lennons in an explicitly political phase. This was understandable -- at the time, Lennon was neck-deep in his struggle to remain in the United States, a conflict rooted in his antiwar and antiestablishment politics and the enmity of the Nixon administration. At the same time, having written, recorded, and released the music on the Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums -- and musically exorcising many of the emotional demons associated with aspects of his past, and working out a musical and publishing "divorce" from Paul McCartney -- he was now reveling in the freedom of being an ex-Beatle and exploring music and other subjects that he'd never felt fully free to delve into during the first decade of his career. This album was actually a long time in coming, as there had been hints of Lennon moving in this direction for years -- he'd long looked upon Bob Dylan with unabashed envy, emulating his sound at moments ("You've Got to Hide Your Love Away") and striving for some of the same mix of edginess and depth, once the group got beyond its original two-guitars-bass-drums and love songs sound; "Revolution" (and "Revolution No. 1") and the anthems "Give Peace a Chance" and "Power to the People" saw him trying to embrace outside subjects in his work, and Sometime in New York carried his writing a step further in this direction, introducing John Lennon, protest singer -- true, he was ten years late, in terms of the musical genre (even Joan Baez and Judy Collins were doing pop-style records by then), but it was a logical development given the time in Lennon's life and the strife-filled era with which it coincided. Seeking his own voice in all of its permutations, and living amid the bracing pace of New York City (which made London, much less Liverpool, look like a cultural and political backwater), Lennon entered a phase similar to Dylan's 1963-1964 period, represented by songs such as "The Ballad of Hollis Brown," "The Death of Emmett Till," and "Talking John Birch Society Blues." Except that where Dylan had toned down that side of his work, never officially releasing his versions of two of those songs (the two most confrontational, in fact), Lennon didn't hold back, delivering his topical songs with both barrels smoking, expounding on such topical subjects as radical feminism, the Attica prison riot, the treatment of activists John Sinclair and Angela Davis, and the rising strife in Northern Ireland (which was on its way to becoming for the British the same kind of military and political quagmire that Vietnam was for America). Lennon had some advantages in getting heard, as an ex-Beatle, not an up-and-coming talent as Dylan had been a decade earlier, and if the subject matter of his new songs puzzled or alienated some fans, he also still had a huge amount of rock & roll street cred, which was only enhanced at the time by his having made Nixon's enemies list; at the time, there were a lot of people to whom that mattered more than his past as a Beatle -- at the April 24 antiwar rally in New York in 1971, where he appeared with Yoko Ono and the Elephant's Memory Band, he showed himself to be among the few musicians who could get a quarter of a million or more people singing and chanting spontaneously, in unison. And Sometime in New York City was a logical progression from that event. Especially in the case of Lennon's songs, there is an appealing rock style to the material here, even if the lyrics limit the record's appeal. And even Yoko's songs have something to recommend them, "Sisters, O Sisters" representing a peculiar form of reggae-pop, "Born in a Prison" possessing a strange pop ambience, and "We're All Water" offering a preview of late-'70s punk/new wave rawness (Lena Lovich may well have worn out that track). At the time of its release in June of 1972, all except the most devoted fans were put off by the album's topicality and in-your-face didacticism, and the bonus live disc was challenging in other ways. Heard today, the studio disc rocks in enough of the right places, as well as drawing on influences ranging from blues to reggae, to surprise listeners and even delight them -- the relatively tuneless "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" manages to favorably recall elements of "Come Together," and both it and "New York City" have some of the best electric guitar ever heard on a Lennon album, while "John Sinclair" shows off Lennon's blues playing (on a steel National guitar, no less) brilliantly. Even those who were of the left at the time may wince at "Angela" some decades on, but "We're All Water" has lost none of its intellectual or musical resonances, even if Nixon and Mao are long dead. The Elephant's Memory Band may not be the best set of musicians that Lennon could have been working with, but that was less important than the fact that he seemed to respond to their club band R&B and jazz background with a roots-oriented approach to songwriting that's ultimately refreshing. Co-producer Phil Spector gives most of the music a larger-than-life ambience, with a reverb-drenched, rhythm-heavy approach recalling his Wall of Sound productions, which gives a lot of even the most didactic songs a big-band pop/rock smoothness, when the songs weren't lean and stripped down like "John Sinclair" (which sounds in terms of texture like a Furry Lewis side from 1930). Sometime in New York City was released with a "free" bonus disc containing a live medley of Lennon's "Cold Turkey" and Ono's "Don't Worry Kyoko," from an antiwar rally at the Lyceum in London with George Harrison, and an appearance by the Lennons at a Mothers of Invention concert from the Fillmore East. The Lyceum tracks were well recorded and, apart from both going on too long, exude a certain power; these may not be the songs you'd have had performed at the one recorded post-Beatles concert appearance by Lennon and Harrison, but "Cold Turkey" is good, if a little disorganized near the end, and "Don't Worry Kyoko" has some pretty fair rock & roll jamming going on behind Ono's vocal acrobatics; the Fillmore stuff sounds less good technically, and captures a spontaneous moment that's mostly wasted, though not without a moment of personal musical reflection from Lennon in "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)." Alas, the presence of the second disc now makes this the most expensive of all Lennon's CD releases, virtually ensuring that it remain the least known of his mainline albums, especially for any fans who weren't around in 1972. ~ Bruce Eder & William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After the harrowing Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon returned to calmer, more conventional territory with Imagine. While the album had a softer surface, it was only marginally less confessional than its predecessor. Underneath the sweet strings of "Jealous Guy" lies a broken and scared man, the jaunty "Crippled Inside" is a mocking assault at an acquaintance, and "Imagine" is a paean for peace in a world with no gods, possessions, or classes, where everyone is equal. And Lennon doesn't shy away from the hard rockers -- "How Do You Sleep" is a scathing attack on Paul McCartney, "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" is a hypnotic antiwar song, and "Give Me Some Truth" is bitter hard rock. If Imagine doesn't have the thematic sweep of Plastic Ono Band, it is nevertheless a remarkable collection of songs that Lennon would never be able to better again. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'
Release Date 1/1/1970
Tracks 13
Label Apple
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What The Critics Say
The cliché about singer/songwriters is that they sing confessionals direct from their heart, but John Lennon exploded the myth behind that cliché, as well as many others, on his first official solo record, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Inspired by his primal scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, Lennon created a harrowing set of unflinchingly personal songs, laying out all of his fears and angers for everyone to hear. It was a revolutionary record -- never before had a record been so explicitly introspective, and very few records made absolutely no concession to the audience's expectations, daring the listeners to meet all the artist's demands. Which isn't to say that the record is unlistenable. Lennon's songs range from tough rock & rollers to piano-based ballads and spare folk songs, and his melodies remain strong and memorable, which actually intensifies the pain and rage of the songs. Not much about Plastic Ono Band is hidden. Lennon presents everything on the surface, and the song titles -- "Mother," "I Found Out," "Working Class Hero," "Isolation," "God," "My Mummy's Dead" -- illustrate what each song is about, and charts his loss of faith in his parents, country, friends, fans, and idols. It's an unflinching document of bare-bones despair and pain, but for all its nihilism, it is ultimately life-affirming; it is unique not only in Lennon's catalog, but in all of popular music. Few albums are ever as harrowing, difficult, and rewarding as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The third and last of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's experimental albums to be released within a one-year period, Wedding Album, like Unfinished Music, No. 1: Two Virgins, was in some ways more notable for its packaging than for its content. It came in a box containing a facsimile of the Lennons' wedding certificate and a photograph of a piece of wedding cake. The record itself contained two selections, one of which consisted of nearly 25 minutes of Yoko Ono's wailing, while the other, "John and Yoko," featured the two, one in each stereo speaker, calling out the other's name for more than 22 minutes. Employing such limited lyrics, Lennon is the more expressive, Ono the more penetrating. [The 1997 CD reissue adds three bonus tracks, all sung by Ono: "Who Has Seen the Wind?" (the B-side of Lennon's "Instant Karma"), "Listen, the Snow Is Falling" (the B-side of "Happy Xmas"), and a previously unreleased version of "Don't Worry Kyoko."] ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
