John Lennon Solo Albums Poll

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.

if he was with Bowie and Elton in 1974, he did coke

That was '75 I think?

Elton was '74.

Nilsson was around so Brandy Alexander and Cocaine periods were running simultaneously.

there's a funny bit in the last BBC documentary where he explains the horrible reasoning behind getting Nilsson, Ringo, and Keith Moon in a house in Malibu or something ("At least that way I thought they couldn't get in much trouble....bad idea!"). The brandy bottle was out by 10 am and they'd be falling all over the floor. The nightmare lasted until Lennon quit cold turkey and took the Nilsson tapes back to NYC with him.

if he was with Bowie and Elton in 1974, he did coke

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, November 16, 2017 3:58 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Given that there's a very well known bootleg floating around from this period where Lennon is offering Stevie Wonder a "toot", I'd say yes.

Harrison also on the devils dandruff in the '70s, too.

he did hard drugs pretty consistently from the mid-60's on. like when the FBI was spying on him to figure out if he was a threat to national security, the report came back "Mr. Lennon is constantly impaired by narcotics."

and the "house husband" period = reclusive junkie years

Anyway, to drag the conversation away from the mythology and back to the music, I'd say Lennon had two great periods. One, of course, was from 'Please Please Me' (the song) up to and including Revolver (the "Beatle John" period, if you'd like) and the other was from The Beatles up to 'Happy Xmas (War is Over)' (the "I'm not Beatle John, I'm John" period)

Even though he still came up with 'Strawberry Fields Forever', the bulk of 'A Day in the Life' and 'I Am the Walrus', all of which are thoroughly classic, there's this sense that Lennon had got a bit lazy during their psychedelic period, contributing half of 'Baby You're a Rich Man' and dashing off 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite' and 'Good Morning Good Morning' for the sake of having something to record (even if they're still great songs, IMO) and not to mention joke things like 'You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)' ... by the following year, he'd pretty much hit upon the hard-edged approach that would define his solo material.

Across the Universe was written in late '67/early '68, too

I should mention that while all members of The Beatles contributed some shockingly sub-par material to The Beatles, they also contributed some great stuff. In John's case: 'Dear Prudence', 'Happiness is a Warm Gun', 'I'm So Tired', 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey', 'Sexy Sadie' and 'Julia'

why are we discussing TWA here?

We're discussing Lennon's songwriting periods.

let's talk about the mythology instead

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 ?

― AlXTC from Paris, Thursday, November 16, 2017 3:16 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Imagine was the last Lennon album to be worked on in the UK, so aside from a few select tracks you may be onto something.

Pussy Cats is up there with his best work imo

Pussy cats rules!

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

The thought of having to cram all those solo classics plus all those great deep cuts is making my head spin... even more so when I factor in Lennon and Harrison too!

*onto a ballot

walls and bridges got robbed in this! not that it's the best but I'd put it right behind Imagine in 3rd place, barely edging out Double Fantasy

also re: mind games yeah that album sounds like shit. did the yoko remix a few years ago fix any of that?

re: Walls and Bridges - really? I totally hate "Whatever Gets You Through the Night's" exhausting and forced jollity. "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out" is the keep off that one imo.

keeper

walls and bridges got robbed in this! not that it's the best but I'd put it right behind Imagine in 3rd place, barely edging out Double Fantasy

― akm, Thursday, November 16, 2017 5:57 PM

insanity

it has great songs on it, "nobody loves you," "scared", "bless you", "#9 dream", "steel and glass", "Old dirt road"....I mean, those are great. It's such a great bottoming out album. I do like the demo versions of some of these that were on Menlove Ave slightly more than the final versions but still.