Yoko Ono Albums (13)
What The Critics Say
She's really back; one of the most gloriously influential and notorious women in the history of rock has returned with a new album at the age of 76, and thank goodness. With Between My Head and the Sky, Yoko Ono has courageously and outrageously revived the Plastic Ono Band moniker; a group she and husband John Lennon formed together; only this time, instead of the late John, it's with the couple's son Sean Lennon. Audacious? Oh yeah, but wait until you hear it! On 2007's Yes, I'm a Witch, Ono gave a bunch of her old tracks to artists like J. Spaceman, Chan Marshall, DJ Spooky, and the Flaming Lips, to name a few, and re-recorded them. This time out, she surrounded herself with New York studio players, Sean's own band, and guests such as Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto, and members of Cornelius. The end result is a stunning collection of 16 wildly diverse tracks that were written in six days and recorded very quickly. The centerpiece is an electronic-cum-acid rock spoken word peace called "The Sun Is Down," with screaming guitars, crisscrossing beats and breaks, and Honda offering sung vocal support drifting entrancingly in the backdrop. Then there is the funkier material, such as the wonderfully surreal "Ask the Elephant," with some stellar feedback and heavy guitar work by Sean, and the overtly rockist title track, where Ono speaks more emphatically than she has in decades. This isn't just rock as spoken word, it's got groove, crunch, noise, and vulnerability as well as authority, and in places, yes, her trademark ululating wail. "Watching the Rain" is a midtempo ballad with shimmering blips and beats, her singing voice is expressive in its limited range, and her words are deeply moving. The shamanistic, trance-like quality of "Moving Mountains" melds acid folk and new production styles with a beautiful layer of horns -- trumpets mainly -- in the background. Come to think of it, there are a lot of trumpets on this record. Ultimately, however, Between My Head and the Sky is perhaps the most accessible album she's recorded, and yet the most forward looking, too, because it is ultimately contemporary in that it takes the past into account while pushing its margins to the breaking point and pointing to the known -- check the jazzed-up funky reggae in "Hashire, Hashire." This set is not full of ballads; there is little of the fragility of Walking on Thin Ice here, though its desire to heal individuals and the world is ever present, and has none of the overt self-conscious excesses of Plastic Ono Band projects of the past. This is a deeply focused, wonderfully colorful, and deeply expressive work that showcases a collaboration between mother and son and displays depth, strength, creativity in spades, and intense beauty. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Yoko Ono inspires either reverence or indignation whenever her name is mentioned. Being the surviving widow of John Lennon is no easy task, either. But for the last six decades, Ono has been an artist first and foremost. Lennon helped to make her a recording artist. Her own records have been both celebrated and reviled, but her catalog stands on its own and it holds up as a reflection of the artist in her time. Yes, I'm a Witch is a collaborative album with a twist: each of the 16 artists involved with this project was given Ono's entire catalog to listen to and pick a track. They were given the vocal tracks to each song they chose and were also able to pick any instrumental tracks they wanted to use. Most decided to keep just the vocal. The collaborating artists in this amazing mix are Hank Shocklee, Cat Power, Jason Pierce of Spiritualized, the Flaming Lips, Le Tigre, Porcupine Tree, Shitake Monkey, Polyphonic Spree, Antony (with Hahn Rowe), the Apples in Stereo, DJ Spooky, Peaches, the Blow Up, Craig Armstrong, the Brother Brothers, and the Sleepy Jackson. That said, this is no ordinary collaboration. There isn't anything lazy or lackluster about the way these artists use Ono's vocals and her phrasing -- and in some cases the accompanying music. The sum total is not only that Ono is relevant in the 21st century, but more than that, it's -- perhaps -- that the 21st century is ready for Ono. Beginning with Shocklee's "Witch Shocktronica," Ono's manifesto (which is also offered as an outro near the end of the album), her voice and words are woven into, juxtaposed against, folded on top of, and haunted like a ghost through the middle of each of these songs. All of them are performed as such. Check the new electro futurism of "Kiss Kiss Kiss" with Peaches, where Ono's songs and her trademark yowl are set into the heart of the beats here. Then there's Shitake Monkey's "O'Oh," where he sets Ono's killer singsong verses against a wall of samples and breaks,. The track includes a killer sample of the opening riff of Grover Washington, Jr.'s classic "Mister Magic" as the base groove. The Blow Up use "Everyman Everywoman" as a full-on psychedelic rave-up worthy of the Kinks circa 1965. Le Tigre drop the bass-throbbing bomb electronic funk with horn loops and backing choruses on "Sisters O Sisters." The Apples in Stereo choose "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" and turn it into a psych rock love ballad full of vulnerability, ringing bells, and sweeping refrains outlined with synth strings and a big fat keyboard through the middle. The Brother Brothers make "Yes, I'm a Witch" into a towering industrial funk metal groover. Cat Power merely illustrates Ono's voice with a piano and her own subdued backing vocals on "Revelations." The glorious treatment Pierce gives to "Walking on Thin Ice" underscores the loss and heartbreak in the lyric before turning into an acid-drenched celebration of life where tears are part of everything at one time or another. The violence in the mix offers a different dimension to the sparse delivery of the original and brings back the feeling of chaos that Ono must have felt with Lennon suddenly gone. It's among the most impressive selections on the set. Antony and Hahn Rowe's treatment of "Toyboat" is everything you would expect from him: it's tender, simple, childlike. Antony's reverbed piano lines the cut as drum loops and Rowe's double- and triple-tracked violin float around Ono's vocal. It's the most beautiful thing here. The Flaming Lips simply do their thing to "Cambridge 1969/2007." It sounds more like a Lips tune than anything, and the artist's individual identity suffers a bit because of that huge wall of music and noise they construct. There are a few titles that don't work very well, such as the Sleepy Jackson's synthetic disco take on "I'm Moving On" and Polyphonic's all-too-brief "You and I," but most of it's a wonder and a new manner of hearing Ono, not through a lens, but through a prism, as part of a swirling wave of color, texture, rhythm, and artifice that brings her rightful place to the forefront. Highly recommended. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Sometime in New York City'
Release Date 11/16/2005
Tracks 15
Label Toshiba EMI
See Album Tracklist and Review
'Blueprint for a Sunrise'
Release Date 1/1/2001
Tracks 11
Label Capitol
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What The Critics Say
Blueprint for Sunrise is something of a companion piece (almost 30 years down the road) to 1973's Feeling the Space, both being Ono's ruminations on the position and persistence of women in the world. There's still some anger present, but this time it's tempered with acceptance, but not resignation. Although she's made some concessions toward the pop world, Yoko is still firmly entrenched in the avant-garde fringes of rock. Most songs feature some of Yoko's trademark vocalizing, and a couple seem to be live recordings with mostly improvised accompaniment. The best moments of the album, however, come when the outside tendencies are reigned in, and something more resembling conventional songs come forward. The insistent funk groove with blasts of guitar noise on "It's Time for Action!" and Marley-flavored reggae of "I'm Not Getting Enough" are particularly successful, as are the Rhodes-led "Wouldnit Swing" and the piano-driven rocker "Soul Got Out of the Box." "I Remember Everything" is a surprisingly tender love song. Yoko Ono is still an acquired taste, to say the least, but Blueprint for a Sunrise hits as often as it misses. ~ Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Recorded in 1974 but unreleased at the time, this 1997 disc marks the first time A Story has been available as a proper album, although the material had already seen the light of day as part of the Onobox six-disc set. In keeping with the general trend of Yoko Ono's early-'70s albums, it marked a drift from the screeching avant-gardisms of her earliest Apple work to something that increasingly approached mainstream singer/songwriter accessibility; the Brecker Brothers even play on a couple of tracks. That's not to say, however, that this was terribly accessible or mainstream, either by the standards of 1974 or 1997. The lyrics have an odd tension between witty optimism and blunt angst (often in the same song), and the vocals, while conforming much more to standard pop phrasing, are still way too flighty and shaky for easy radio play. It may have been the most listenable of Ono's efforts at the time it was recorded, yet at the same time it was also her least distinguished. Truth to tell, she sounds like nothing as much as an eccentric singer/songwriter whose originality was too quirky to capture a wide audience and too mild to get a sizable cult one, in the mold of forgotten performers like Essra Mohawk. Yet "Hard Times Are Over" may have been her first song to carry anything resembling mainstream pop appeal, with its Harrison-esque slide guitar flourishes. The 1997 CD includes three bonus tracks of previously unreleased solo piano recital-type versions of "Anatano Te" (Your Hands) and "Extension," and a 1986 a cappella live version of "Now or Never." ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
'Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band'
Release Date 6/3/1997
Tracks 9
Label Rykodisc
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What The Critics Say
Recorded concurrently with John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album, Yoko's features the same musicians, namely John, Ringo Starr, and Klaus Voormann along with the Ornette Coleman Quartet on one cut. Unlike John's record, however, Yoko's is much more a "jam"-sounding record. And while there are definite songs, lyrics are mainly vocal improvisations. Still, if avant-garde is your cup of tea, then check this one out. It's good, if only to hear John Lennon really get the guitar cranking on the opening cut, "Why." The 1997 CD reissue adds three bonus cuts: a previously unreleased version of "Open Your Box" (which would be used as the flip side to John Lennon's "Power to the People" single), the previously unreleased, 16-minute improv piece "The South Wind," and a previously unreleased 44-second snippet of "Something More Abstract." ~ James Chrispell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"The making of the album served as a purging of my angst, pain and fear," writes Yoko Ono in a sleeve note to her first new album in a decade. "I hope it will for you, too." The angst, pain, and fear she cites come both from her childhood in war-torn Japan and such current-day scourges as AIDS. Ono returns to primal screaming on some tracks to express those feelings, and the album's music, played by IMA, a trio featuring her son, Sean Ono Lennon, matches her fury with hard rock and funk worthy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In the '80s, Ono turned to pop/rock without achieving a commercial breakthrough. Here, she returns to the abrasive style of her '70s work, which has turned out to be more influential on a generation of alternative rockers. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'It's Alright (I See Rainbows)'
Release Date 1/1/1982
Tracks 12
Label Polydor
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Although still mourning the death of John Lennon, Yoko found herself looking toward the future with It's Alright. With a more upbeat pop approach, Yoko found herself played on some radio stations with the cut "Never Say Goodbye," even if it contained soundbites from John calling out her name. She'd gone through hell and now was finding her own place in the world of rock music. The CD reissue has two previously unreleased bonus tracks: a vocal/piano version of "Beautiful Boys" and a version of "You're the One" from the Milk and Honey sessions. ~ James Chrispell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After John Lennon's murder, Yoko took her anguish into the recording studio and emerged with this raw collection of songs. From the gunshots before the cut "No, No, No" to John's bloody glasses on the cover, this is harrowing stuff indeed. But it's surprisingly good, if only for the fact that the whole world was feeling similarly at the time. One of the most essential Yoko Ono releases, it's powerful and chilling. The CD reissue adds two bonus cuts: the single "Walking on Thin Ice" and a previously unreleased version of "I Don't Know Why," an a cappella home cassette recording made the day after Lennon's assassination. ~ James Chrispell, All Music Guide
