John Lennon Solo Albums Poll

Elliot Mintz is, or was, effectively PR for Yoko - and constantly put out a stream of stories patching up the mythology of John and Yoko as the great romance, minimising the Lost Weekend period, and glossing over John's depression of the mid-to late 70s.

Fred Seaman's assessment:

"She (Yoko) told Mintz to play up her role as businesswoman and to publicize her reliance on psychics. Mintz had once told me that he did not think that press reports about Yoko's confidence in psychics were good for her image. I was therefore astonished when he agreed with everything Yoko said. He was a consummate sycophant."

Really into Walls and Bridges today, especially this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSS2ABconDg

I'm...not fond of Woman.

if i recall, the original demo on the lennon anthology has some real power, but the MOR production on double fantasy really takes the life out of it.

I'm...not fond of Woman🕸.

was just thinking about how pathetic double fantasy & the interviews he gave in 1980 would be seen if he had lived longer

the contrast between the playfulness and inventiveness of lennon's earlier lyrics and shit like "after all, it is written in the stars" is p depressing to me. and yeah the "little child inside the man" stuff suggests that lennon spent a little too much time absorbing, i don't know, self-help books and psychobabble during his period of exile. the double fantasy stuff i honestly enjoy most is the lighthearted stuff like "starting over."

CLEANUP TIME

I love 'Woman' - beautiful song. Lennon was pretty much spent creatively by 1972, but he still turned out the odd gem.

Love it too, mostly for sentimental reasons

I mostly prefer Yoko's tracks on Double Fantasy to John's, though.

Season of Glass is a better album

yes and yes

I would have voted for John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band like everyone else, but second choice would have been Walls & Bridges, surprised it got no votes.

I think there's three great songs on Walls & Bridges, and two of 'em were singles.

been thinking how being freed from the Beatles really invigorated his songwriting, so many great songs (and def a fair amount of his best) came out in that '69-'72 period. And then around when he splits with Yoko he seemed to mostly lose the plot.

Yeah, '69-'72 was a great period for him artistically (with the exception of Some Time in New York City,I guess.

But: 'Give Peace a Chance', 'Instant Karma!', 'Cold Turkey', 'Mother', 'Working Class Hero', 'Imagine', 'Jealous Guy', 'Oh My Love', 'Gimme Some Truth', 'Happy Xmas (War is Over)' ... I mean, you can't fuck with any of those.

and that production/mixing style he hit on with Spector with the pounding rhythm section + slapback vocal echo was such a great combo. Gives the grooves in things like "How Do You Sleep" a real oomph.

xp

Lennon loved slap-back on his voice, didn't he? It's on his better Double Fantasy songs. Too bad the drum sound is so awful on that record.

But: 'Give Peace a Chance', 'Instant Karma!', 'Cold Turkey', 'Mother', 'Working Class Hero', 'Imagine', 'Jealous Guy', 'Oh My Love', 'Gimme Some Truth', 'Happy Xmas (War is Over)' ... I mean, you can't fuck with any of those.

Well, you can, but that much should be obvious.

Even after that there was 'Mind Games', '#9 Dream', 'What You Got', 'Woman' and 'Nobody Told Me' ... he could still write a great song, just not as many of them. The arrangements of a lot of Lennon's solo stuff can render a lot of it feeling really samey, though. I wish his solo career was a touch more diverse.

xpost:

Nah, all of those tracks are flawless. Perfect.

yeah his sound got really limp w out Ringo and Voorman and Spector imo

Bring on the Lucie and One Day at a Time are hidden gems on Mind Games

agreed that POB and Imagine are two of the best produced records ever, rhythm section is just incredible

After The Beatles broke up, you could have been forgiven for thinking John and Paul would come out with mammoth blockbuster releases and George's record would have been less popular, but John put out this raw confessional record, George put out a mammoth blockbuster and Paul put out a record of him pissing about like it was no big deal.

In hindsight, by the time Band on the Run came out in '73, both John and George were already past their prime - whereas Paul just went from strength to strength commercially and still had many great songs in him.

I can't bear to listen to "What You Got" and "Going Down on Love." You know how on that Billy Joel thread certain 1986 sound like the Forgotten '80s of shitty sunglasses and terrible DX-7 sounds? Those two Lennon songs constitute the Forgotten '70s.

Ah yeah, I like 'Bring on the Lucie' too!

(x-post)

everyone so otm about the Mind Games deep cuts. i really like that album.

Me too. "Out the Blue" and "I Know" as well. And "Only People!"

Some "Julia"-like finger picking on the beginning of "Out the Blue."

Would be fun to take a crack at remixing that album, for sure.

Wrote on "I Know (I Know)" some years ago:

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2012/01/john-lennon-i-know-i-know-1973.html

it's remarkable how bad Mind Games sounds to me, compared to the mix on Pussycats, which sounds great

It's a shame. Gordon Edwards on bass. He's great on "I Know (I Know)!"

btw to any interested here, I am planning on running the solo Beatles poll after the Wu-Tang poll wraps up

debating whether Pussy Cats is eligible given the extent of Lennon (and Ringo's) involvement. Inclined to let any of George's Travelling Wilburys songs be eligible as well. Basically if a Beatle wrote it I'm inclined to let it in.

nice

So long as "Cheer Down" gets votes.

It will get one from me :)

Yeah, 'I Know (I Know)' and 'Out the Blue' aren't too bad. I think Mind Games could have turned out better if he'd been more focused on the songwriting front and had a team of musicians that could have injected a bit of excitement into the proceedings.

Lennon died a couple of months after I was born, so his songs were around a lot in my early childhood. I think 'Woman' was among some of the first songs I ever heard, and I still really like it for, yes sentimental reasons but also because I like the melody and overall sound. I think it's easy to look at a lot of these songs from the perspective of an adult music enthusiast and say 'oh but this is terribly cringey and maudlin', but I wasn't thinking that way when I was a kid, or even a naive teen, so I can't look at it in this objective way.

You remember "Woman" from when you were two months old? That's some power of recall.

I think that it’s normal that there are only 2-3 good/great songs on some of his solo albums because, in a way, that was his default rate in the Beatles after Revolver/quitting touring.
Iirc he was quite lazy after the beatlemania days (rightly so) and never as productive as McCartney. So it was a pain in the ass having to « produce » news songs whenever a new album was planned.
He was on fire again for a while with the band split but I suppose he went back to his « lazy » mode, hence the 2-3 songs + filler.

also, hard drugs.

LSD/Heroin : Pepper to Get Back
Cocaine : Abbey Road to Imagine
Heroin : the rest of the 70?

You remember "Woman" from when you were two months old? That's some power of recall.

― Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Thursday, November 16, 2017 11:00 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As far as I know, people back then would continue to play records they'd bought months, if not years after the fact

'68-'69 was Lennon's heroin period.

I was thinking that all his best work was done while he was still living in the UK. Has he done anyting on par with his best work after moving to NYC ?

Yoko got back on heroin in 1980, according to Philip Norman.

I was about to say Albert Goldman told a different story about Lennon's stopping heroin ca.1969.

LSD/Heroin : Pepper to Get Back
Cocaine : Abbey Road to Imagine
Heroin : the rest of the 70?

Brandy Alexanders: 1973-74.