John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

This and YO/POB have so many moments of unfuckwithable Ringo brilliance.

otm...I like to think of them as one of the great double-album-that-never-were

Yeah the Starr-Voormann pocket rules.

Yeah, the songs and beats are not nearly as arranged as in The Beatles, but there is still hella groove.

? jim keltner is the drummer on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, not ringo

wwhahaaaaa? i'm totally wrong! wow, i never realized! go ringo

*cookie*

ha

Speaking of which, and this will be a real longshot, but is anyone familiar with a cover of "Love" from around '91 or so, came out (I think) not long after St. Etienne's cover of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and very much in the same vein (female singer, Soul II Soul-ish groove, etc.)? I heard it once, in a record store in Vancouver, thought it was great, didn't think to buy it, have never heard it since, have never been able to find anything about it on the web. I may have been stoned that day and imagined the whole thing. Please tell me I'm wrong.

― sw00ds,

I remember this! Early '91 and probably by The Dream Academy. Sounded like Danielle Dax's own cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows."

COOKIE

hold on could be my favorite song on this album

John's guitar and John's guitar sound = greatest ever?

the way it's mixed too. Scary shit.

COKIE

It was Ringo. There's a 'classic albums' documentary on this album in which he appears.

production on this album is amazing, lennon's guitar on "hold on" sounds like nothing else i've ever heard. there are also lots of weird, unsettling shifts within songs where it sounds like they cut from one take to another -- happens in the middle of "working class hero" and then in the 'I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO UNDERSTAND" part of "isolation," maybe a couple other places too. reminds me of the famous shift in PiL's "memories." used to bug me as a 14-year-old beatles fan who expected abbey road style production from everything, now i love it.

Keltner doesn't show up on Lennon's stuff until Imagine.

Voorman/Ringo rhythm section is a monster, also shows up on Don't Worry Kyoko on "Fly"

re: the changing guitar in "Working Class Hero," there's a funny bit in the Classic Albums doc where engineer Phil McDonald recalls John needing to re-do that last part of the song. Phil said, "Wait, you have to use the same guitar you used on the rest of the song!" John said, "Yeah, don't worry, it's the same one." Of course, John wasn't exactly meticulous about that sort of thing, and it wasn't the same guitar, which is why the sound changes.

Good bits here in which Voorman and Yoko praise Ringo's drumming here and on YO/POB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiayxqppujA

Always feel like one day I will end up being disappointed with this album, that the veil will torn away and the artifice and self-regard will be laid bare, an embarrassment for all to see, but it never happens like that, he really knew exactly what he was doing when he made this and hit right in the center of the bullseye.

I don't expect you to understand

Wish I could've voted in this. Mother. But a great album all around.

This thread uses *cookies*

This thread needs reposting of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVDpPX37fkU

Geirness is pain

New box set up on Spotify. I've only listened to a fraction of this, but hearing John, Ringo, Yoko and Klaus discuss arrangements of each song in the "Evolution Documentary" disc is a joy.

Haha these are so great. Ringo and John seem to be having a lot more fun than on those Fabs '69 out-takes, in fact Ringo barely speaks at all on those. Some of the songs on this album make it all sound so *easy*; Hold On especially, so it's a treat to hear they were actually enjoyable to make.

It’s wild to me how many takes they would do. Lennon’s talent and wit shines here ( he doesn’t sound nasty or irritated).

the episode of the song exploder podcast on 'god' is incredible. super highly recommended even if you do not like that podcast, because it's totally different from every other episode. just an awesome audio documentary on the making of the song with great archival interviews with john, ringo, klaus voorman, even john's psychologist arthur janov (john came up with the lyric 'god is a concept by which we measure our pain' during a therapy session) and clips from demos

https://songexploder.net/john-lennon

Earlier this year, I got an amazing email—the estate of John Lennon said that they have a treasure trove of audio material from his life, and they were wondering if I would be interested in making an episode around the song “God,” from John Lennon’s first solo album. I’ve never tried making a posthumous episode before, because hearing directly from the artist is at the heart of Song Exploder. But with all the interview archives that they have of him speaking, plus all the isolated tracks from the recordings, and the original demo, it actually seemed possible. So this is a very different and special episode of the show.

Cookieee

agreed

Hold on music A+
Lyrics C-

Still gets my pick for best on this album. Guitar has never sounded better before or since “hold on”

The cookie line bumps the lyrics from a d- to a c-

Every time I listen to hold on I think of sonic youths the diamond sea. One of the more distant pairings of instrumentally similar tracks in my mind

Coookie

Weird that “hold on” is on the bottom here and “isolation” won. They should switch places.

Looking at the tracklisting , song for song it's a very good album

Not just a great album, but it's the only solo Beatles LP that I would put on par with the Beatles' greatest work.

It competes with ATMP.

If I had to pick more genuine favorites, I'd probably include All Things Must Pass (minus the bonus disc of jams), the U.S. version of Band on the Run (minus "No Words"), Run Devil Run and some sort of hybrid of Chaos & Creation... and Memory Almost Full that pulls the best material from both albums.

it's no wild life. i'll take mumbo over mother any day

lennon really painted himself into a corner with the persona he established on/around this album

yoko's why and why not do for me what the first couple of tracks on this seem to do for everyone else - i guess they're supposed to mirror each other but the existentialism seems to come easier to her and she doesn't sound like she's swallowed a bunch of psychobabble - i'm sure she had done irl but she knows how to show not tell in a way he can't at this point

lennon really painted himself into a corner with the persona he established on/around this album

How do you define existentialism and how does it work itself out on this album?

This isn't any more on par with the Beatles than Ram. Two very different sides of a coin. Both very much a distillation of its creator's mindset at the time.

Lennon is introspective, sonically naked raw, existentially terrified, solitary and frazzled.

McCartney is extroverted, escapist, maximalist, feigning wild-eyed joie de vivre through a thinly-veiled vindictiveness.

Both are war-torn, cut to ribbons. Keen to show they don't need their old family because they have a new one, which they rely on greatly.

Except for the first and last tracks, I can barely stand Ram. A lot of it's just flat out irritating.

Nah it's all great.

It's just a total vibe all the way through. The only thing I can compare it to is maybe Skylarking by XTC

I love Skylarking but Ram has just way too many annoyances. Ever been around a peer or a performer who thinks they're doing a funny bit, particular a musical bit, that's really irritating and unfortunately they just keep doing it without getting the hint? That's what it feels like when I'm listening to Ram. I know Paul's used that voice on "Monkberry Moon Delight" before, but it was usually for a line or too, which was totally fine - stretched out over an entire song, it's f-ing irritating. "Uncle Albert" has a vast array of annoying vocal effects, a candidate for the worst #1 record I've ever heard from a major recording artist. And it just goes on and on..."Heart of the Country" is pleasant if inconsequential, "Smile Away" could be fun if I'm in the right mood, but the rest is the pits.

"Too Many People" and "Back Seat of My Car" is excellent - that would make a great double A-side single. If it was 1971 and I bought that 45, I would've bought Ram the next day with high expectations, and I would've been mightily disappointed.