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?