THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: Thrillho on 07 Nov 2006, 20:42
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Note: This post has nothing to do with albums produced by The Beatles as a group.
Now, a lot of John Lennon solo material is critically lauded, like Plastic Ono Band and Imagine.
I own 'Lennon Legend,' described as being his 20 best tracks without a duff one in there.
Several things struck me:
- Half of the songs, I think, I soporific dreck.
- Lennon's insistence on a constant delay on his voice in almost every song is irritating in the extreme. He has maybe one clean vocal on the entire collection. This annoys me.
- 'Cold Turkey' goes on for way too long. Now, I'm an advocate of lengthy music, I just think that the closing minute or so don't really go anywhere. I also think the production on this track is shit. The guitars are rocking like motherfuckers, but the drums are being played like it's 'Imagine.'
- I hate 'Imagine.'
- However, I also think there are quite a few great songs on here. 'Mother' has taken a while to sink into me, probably because it's so heart-wrenching. But now that I think about it, it's beautiful. The closing 'Mama don't go/Daddy come home bit' gets to me a lot. 'Instant Karma!' is a brilliant anthem, 'STand By Me' is a great cover and vocal, 'Give Peace A Chance' is great, 'Mind Games' is good...but it seems like the bad outweighs the good a lot.
So what's everyone else's opinion on Lennon's solo stuff?
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I hate 'Imagine.'
Me too.
I only heard Lennon's Plastic Ono Band record and liked it.
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Actually DynamiteKid, your opinion mimics mine quite a bit, although I haven't heard anything apart from Lennon Legend either, so I could probably stand to get a bit more information. I don't hate his solo stuff, I just think its a bit mediocre, although to be fair, I am comparing him to Paul McCartneys solo work when I say that and I have heard nearly every album Paul ever made, and there are a few shit ones, so I guess it might not seem as band when viewed as a whole discography. I mean, critics fawn and wank over the weirdest songs sometimes.
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The thing is, Lennon is way more lauded - as far as I can tell - because he's dead. He died in 1980, just as they were starting a follow up to 'Double Fantasy' and they were going to tour it. And now he's critically lauded. However, in a recent Q magazine, they had a page with his whole discography, and he only had about four albums worth listening to, one of which was Lennon Legend. Why is he so lauded when he has made so few great albums outside of the Beatles? As far as I can tell, because he's dead.
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I think Lennon had a good album (Plastic Ono Band) and a handful of great singles but overall, his solo career is quite bad.
Actually, i think the best exbeatle solo career was probably Ringo.
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i think both all things must pass and plastic ono band are far better than anything ringo did. But overall i think he comes out on top. He did a handful of slightly above average albums while Lennon and Harrison though had each a good album (although in harrison's case, i think it is overlong and meandering) and the rest of their careers is pretty crap.
Of course, we know paul never had a solo career
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Have you guys listened to the Imagine album? Its full of great rockers... 'How Do You Sleep?' is one of the meanest song i have, though i'm sure there are zillions of hip-hop tracks that beat it. Its best if you realize that 'The only good thing you've done is Yesterday/and since thats done you're just another day' was originally 'and you probably pinched that bitch anyway', but they made him change it
Instant Karma, Oh Yoko, I Don't Want To Be A Soldier and a few others... classic
Harrison's album does go on a bit too long, and as for Paul... 'Those freaks were right when they said you was dead'
and he was writing before 'Freedom'
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Clearly the best thing Ringo did:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/SatansSpeedDial/win001.jpg)
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the best exbeatle solo career (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Best)
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that reminds me of a joke i was told by a liverpudlian once.
The worst thing about the beatles is that they are dying off in the wrong order.
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I never told that as a joke.
Then again the Dante retelling i had to write when i was 15 had Paul in Hell, as his soul had been stolen by 'the pasty faced demon' (this was after he wrote 'Freedom') and Lennon's killer tortured at the centre of Hell....
i was a weird kid
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I saw a documentary on the making of Imagine, earlier this year. Thats the only major exposure I've had to he's solo stuff, made me really interested to pick up more, I really liked what I heard.
I thought the process he used to write the album was really interesting. John would bash something out on the piano and Yoko would go, "play it in this key" and bam all of a sudden it sounds about 10* better.Same thing with the guitars.
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I have to say that, in fact - outside of the horrible vocal delay thing I've mentioned - I really admire the recording techniques used on Ono Band and Imagine. Much like with Bob Dylan, I admire the 'fuck it, let's do it live and tweak the shit moments' technique, although Dylan often didn't even bother with the latter part.
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Clearly the best thing Ringo did:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/SatansSpeedDial/win001.jpg)
I agree so strongly it's frightening.