John Lennon released Imagine

Imagine John Lennon

Released: September 9, 1971 Peak: 11 US, 12 UK, 2 CN, 12 AU, 13 DF Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, 0.3 UK, 10.0 world (includes US and UK), 26.27 EAS Genre: rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Imagine (9/24/71, 3 BB, 2 CB, 2 GR, 1 HR, 7 AC, 1 CL, 20 AR, 1 UK, 1 CN, 1 AU, 1 DF) Crippled Inside (33 DF) Jealous Guy (11/30/85, 80 BB, 64 CB, 12 AR, 22 AC, 4 CL, 12 AR, 65 UK, 5 DF) It’s So Hard I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier (49 CL, 28 DF) Gimme Some Truth (36 CL, 24 DF) Oh My Love How Do You Sleep? (36 CL, 29 DF) How? Oh Yoko! (37 DF) Total Running Time: 39:29

Rating: 4.407 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Following Up Plastic Ono Band After the Beatles broke up, John Lennon released his first solo album, the “angsty Plastic Ono Band.“ EK That primal-scream therapy excursion with Plastic Ono Band is “a searing personal statement in which a brilliant artist bares the depths of his soul.” EK It “garnered the lion’s share of the acclaim” EK because Lennon “spoke those early critics’ language.” EK “Once Lennon had exorcised his personal demons he felt free to rant against the wrongs of the world and make a vain plea for tolerance.” PR He “softened up on his second solo album,” 500 exploring “calmer, more conventional territory.” AM “He’s still sour but it’s been tempered with a little sweetness.” JM “If Imagine doesn't have the thematic sweep of Plastic Ono Band, it is nevertheless a remarkable collection of songs.” AM It is his “most consistent solo work” TM and may be “his most important recording.” ZS Imagine is “a well-crafted collection of songs…to listen to on a Friday night.” EK “Lennon would never be able to better again.” AM The Multi-Faceted Lennon “We get to see the many sides of a complicated man come together.” JM This is “a self-portrait of a man at the same time sensitive and aggressive, insecure and bold, introspective but socially aware.” RD We see “four sides of Lennon clearly on display. We get Peacenik Lennon, Sharp-Tongued Lennon, Confessional Lennon, and Old School Rocker Lennon.” JM “The result is music defined by confrontation and conflict – yet at its core it retains a hint of touching school kid earnestness.” TM This is “self-analysis, love, venom, and politics with a backbeat.” ZS The Players Lennon is accompanied by “a stellar cast.” RD His ex-Beatle bandmate George Harrison shows up on guitar on a few songs. The album also features famed keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, who’s impressive resume includes work with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks. Several different drummers worked on the album. Alan White, best known for his work with Yes, does the lion’s share of the work but studio drummer extraordinaire Jim Keltner does duty on a couple of tracks and drummer Jim Gordon, best known for Derek and the Dominos, also turns in a performance. Jazz saxophonist King Curtis also turns up on a couple of songs and Klaus Voormann, best known for working with Manfred Mann, plays bass throughout the album. Phil Spector The album was produced by Phil Spector, who’d also done the Beatles’ Let It Be. His “orchestrated but still rough production” RD made Imagine Lennon’s “most accomplished, balanced solo record.” RD Spector and Lennon recorded the album in the studio he built at Tittenhurst, his English mansion. RD The Songs Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album. “Imagine” “Outside of the Beatles, Imagine is probably the first thing most people would connect with Lennon.” JM It “goes down as John’s best song ever.” KN It is “a beautiful, multi-layered plea for everyone to see the humanity within each other” JM and envision “a world with no gods, possessions, or classes, where everyone is equal.” AM It became “a career-defining standard” EK which was “a pretty different animal from Lennon’s more sloganeering anthems…Instead of creating an ‘us vs. them’ dichotomy, ‘Imagine’ challenges the listener to move beyond everything that our culture deems importance: materialism, nationalism, and our own concepts of heaven and hell.” EK “I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier” Peacenik Lennon makes appearances on the “hypnotic antiwar song” AM I Don't Want to Be a Soldier and “Imagine.” “Jealous Guy” Confessional Lennon “showed himself capable of insane romanticism” CL with songs like “the aching confessional” TM Jealous Guy. Underneath the sweet strings…lies a broken and scared man).” AM Keno’s Classic Rock Album Reviews speculates that it might be about Yoko Ono, Lennon’s former wife Cynthia, and his son Julian. KN “Oh Yoko” The “irresistible Oh Yoko” 500 was a tribute to “the newfound center in John’s life provided by Yoko.” RD The song “has a sense of joy to it that makes it seem way more universal than a song with the word ‘Yoko’ in the title has any right to be.” EK “Oh My Love” On Oh My Love “the melody is absolutely gorgeous, straightforward but shot through with surprise chord changes and melodic flourishes, especially in the descending lines of the verses. Couple that with the sparse lyrics that repeat variations on a theme throughout the song…and you have…a lost classic.” EK “How Do You Sleep” Sharp-Tongued Lennon “nearly ruins the album with the bullying How Do You Sleep,” EK a petty and unnecessary “evisceration of Paul McCartney.” 500 Lennon “may have been a dreamer, but he wasn’t forgiving of those whom he felt had betrayed him.” PR His bandmate “wasn’t dumping toxic waste or running a crooked old folks home; he was writing silly love songs and arguing about royalties or whatever. The song seems like a pretty egregious overreaction.” EK “Give Me Some Truth” and “Crippled Inside” Old School Rocker Lennon makes appearances with the “bitter hard rock” AM of “the stinging Give Me Some Truth” 500 and “the jaunty Crippled Inside.” AM They make for “excellent honky-tonk social critique” JM framed in “a mocking assault at an acquaintance.” AM The former “was yet another song directed at those in power.” KN

Resources and Related Links: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine KN Keno’s Classic Rock Album Reviews EK Eric Klinger, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) CL Colin Larkin (1998). Virgin All-Time Top 1000 Albums. Virgin Books: London, England. Page 56. RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 252. JM Jason Mendelsohn, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. PR Paul Roland (2001). CD Guide to Pop & Rock. B.T. Batsford LTD: London. Page 153. 500 Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ZS Zagat Survey (2003). Music Guide: 1,000 Top Albums of All Time. Coordinator: Pat Blashill. Music Editor: Holly George-Warren. Editors: Betsy Andrews and Randi Gollin. Zagat Survey, LLC: New York, NY. Page 145. Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 9/9/2013; last updated 11/24/2024.

John Lennon released Plastic Ono Band

Plastic Ono Band John Lennon

Released: December 11, 1970 Peak: 6 US, 11 UK, 2 CN, 3 AU, 13 DF Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, 0.06 UK Genre: rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Mother (12/28/70, 43 US, 7 CL) Hold On I Found Out (49 CL) Working Class Hero (6 CL) Isolation Remember Love (11/21/82, 41 UK, 40 CL) Well Well Well (48 CL) Look at Me God (7 CL) My Mummy’s Dead Total Running Time: 39:16 The Players: John Lennon (vocals, guitar, piano) Ringo Starr (drums) Klaus Voormann (bass) Phil Spector (piano on “Love”) Billy Preston (grand piano on “God”) Yoko Ono (“wind”) Mal Evans (“tea and sympathy”)

Rating: 4.425 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

The Introspective Beatle As a Beatle, John Lennon often delivered introspective works that revealed a soul struggling to keep it together (“Help!”) while offering nostalgic reflections (“Strawberry Fields Forever”) and concerns about the world around him (“Revolution,” “Come Together”). The radio-friendly nature of the material often disguised a troubled man in pain. Lennon had endured more than just the breakup of the Beatles. His marriage had ended and he “was smitten with artist Yoko Ono who had challenged him to rethink everything about being an artist and a man.” CM He’d also dealt with “heroin, a miscarriage, police harassment and just being one of the most famous people on earth. In early 1970 Lennon was in the midst of a full nervous breakdown.” CM Musical Therapy Lennon dove headfirst into the “proto-New Wage belief system” JG of Arthur Janov’s primal scream therapy, working directly with Janov himself. CM Lennon faced his parents abandoning him as a young child and realized that “all his life he had the need to be loved while under the surface a seething anger raged.” CM Musically, the revelation engulfed Lennon’s first official solo album, Plastic Ono Band. He threw out all pretenses of acting like nothing was wrong. He “created a harrowing set of unflinchingly personal songs, laying out all of his fears and angers for everyone to hear.” AM The album is “an often painful, soul-baring musical therapy session,” PR a “document of bare-bones despair” TL “Sometimes the listener feels embarrassed like an inadvertent eavesdropper.” JG Lennon told Rolling Stone, “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I think it’s realistic and it’s true to the me that has been developing over the years from my life.” CM “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.” AM “Which isn’t to say that the record is unlistenable.” AM “It is ultimately life-affirming.” AM “Few albums are ever as…difficult and rewarding.” AM “Always direct, hard-hitting and tender by turns, almost every track here is a gem.” DBW Bare-Bones Production “This is the ultimate in underproduced, but brilliantly written rock.” JA Lennon recorded these “stark, minimally-arranged songs” DBW with former Beatle bandmate Ringo Starr on drums and Klaus Voormann on bass. Billy Preston, who’d recorded with the Beatles on “Get Back,” also shows up for one track. The album is “majestically produced by Phil Spector” TL “in the most uncharacteristically minimal way imaginable.” JA Spector “resists the temptation to swamp the songs in saccharine-sweet strings and ethereal choirs, opting instead for a sparse, intimate sound which kept John’s emotionally draining confessional sharply in focus.” PR The album “in its echo-drenched, garage-rock crudity, is years ahead of punk.” 500 “Lennon’s voice is remarkably effect-free, and the only immediately apparent sound augmentations are echo and reverb that add weight and tension. The lack of typical Spector kitchen-sink production methods is telling, and suggests that for once Lennon held sway ove their joint productions.” JG The Singing and Songwriting In addition, Lennon’s “still-underrated singing stands with rock’s finest.” TL and “his melodies remain strong and memorable, which actually intensifies the pain and rage of the songs.” AM His “writing was never sharper.” TL “Lyrics were streamlined, instrumentation was sparse, and Yoko’s pretensions were almost totally absent.” JG The Album’s Legacy “Plastic Ono Band continues to be an incredibly moving listening experience” AZ which is “essential for anyone with even a passing interest in Lennon’s work” JA and “a must-own for any rock fan.” AZ The Songs On “rock & roll’s most self-revelatory recording” 500 he purges “just about everything there is to purge.” DBW He tackles “class, religion, and being abandoned by his parents” EW’12 while also charting his “his loss of faith in his…country, friends, fans, and idols,” AM “including his own former band (‘I don’t believe in Beatles,’ he sings in God).” 500 At a time when the “youthquake of the ‘60s was supposed to deliver utopias for everyone” CM Lennon sings, “the dream is over.” Lennon delivers “harrowing confessionals (Isolation),” JA and “deals with childhood loss in Mother,” 500 but “there’s also room for a fragile sense of possibility (see Hold On).” 500 On “Mother” Lennon sings, “Mother, you left me, but I never left you.” “It doesn’t get more real and honest than that and it is the central issue that his life and Plastic Ono Band pivots on.” CM Lennon also “milks every style he knew to the hilt;” JA “songs range from tough rock & rollers to piano-based ballads and spare folk songs.” TL He delivers “nihilistic protest songs (the masterful Working Class Hero, I Found Out),” JA “raging proto-punk” (Well Well Well), TL and “elegant, understated love songs” (Look at Me, Love). JA “Working Class Hero” stands out as “the greatest of his political songs. It focuses on one man and then jumps out, in the tradition of the song’s obvious antecedent, Bob Dylan.” JG Lennon “debunks not only the class system but also the entertainers like himself who churn out protest songs.” CG Notes: A 2000 CD reissue added “Power to the People” and “Do the Oz.” In 2021, a reissue added “Give Peace a Chance,” “Cold Turkey,” and “Instant Karma (We All Shine On).”

Resources and Related Links: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine JA John Alroy, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews AZ Amazon.com review by Dan Epstein CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Page 76. EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” JG Jimmy Guterman (1992). The Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Records of All Time. Citadel Press Book: New York, NY. Pages 138-9. PR Paul Roland (2001). CD Guide to Pop & Rock. B.T. Batsford LTD: London. Pages 152-3. 500 Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light DBW David Bertrand Wilson, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 12/11/2012; last updated 11/25/2024.