new introductory bit here.

This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Rock the Casbah," which is not new.

note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.

Lennon was the second Beatle out of the solo gate, releasing his own effort, Two Virgins, a few weeks behind George Harrison's Wonderwall Music. The Wedding Album, the third of three experimental tape loop experiments with Yoko, is quite possibly the worst album ever recorded. If anyone tells you they frequently listen to the track (I refuse to say "song") "John & Yoko," they're either lying or a masochist. Ryko's reissue includes three bonus Yoko A- and B-sides.

Lennon's first proper studio rock album, following the tape loop records, three singles and a live album, was John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It was written and recorded after some "primal scream" therapy sessions with Dr. Arthur Janov, so John felt compelled to shout about everything in his life that was bothering him. There's still some pretty good material, but did we really need all the screaming in "Well Well Well" and John's list of stuff he doesn't believe in anymore in "God"? No.

1971's Imagine was far superior to his earlier solo work, but John chose not to follow its blueprint of exquisitely-crafted romantic work when he moved to America in 1972 and got involved with the New York radical fringe. 1972's Sometime in New York City is a raucous recounting of various "topical" issues of various levels of controversy. Dated and stupid, the album missed the US top 40. With 1973's Mind Games, he tried to get back to the Imagine style, but failed to find something that gelled.

Around that time, he and Yoko separated. John ran off to Los Angeles with his secretary May Pang, began drinking to public extremes with Harry Nilsson, and looked up Phil Spector to produce Walls and Bridges. Spector's production is the only negative factor in Walls, a bitter, scared, pissed off and lonely album. There are a few gestures towards commerciality (indeed, "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" was his first US #1), and "#9 Dream" is quite beautiful, but the string and brass arrangements of some tracks (mainly "Steel and Glass") belie the incredible fury of the songwriting. It's a remarkable album, albeit one kept from being a masterpiece by Spector. Five months later, Rock n' Roll, an album of 50s and 60s rock covers was released, and this record certainly benefits from Spector's involvement.

John and Yoko reconciled in 1975. There was a singles compilation, called Shaved Fish, that November, and then they went into seclusion. John raised their son Sean and watched a lot of TV while Yoko parlayed their investments into millions of dollars. They returned to the studio in 1980, selecting twelve of several dozen cuts to form their incredibly weak joint comeback album Double Fantasy. Less than a month after its release, which was savaged by critics at the time, John was murdered on his way back from the studio.

Yoko has overseen John's catalog since his death. In 1984, she issued Milk and Honey, which was planned as the 1981 sequel to Fantasy and even Yoko's songs are better on this one. Other archive recordings showed up on Live in New York City, Menlove Avenue (1974 sessions with unreleased songs and pre-Spectorized versions of some of the Walls tracks), Imagine (the movie soundtrack, with two unreleased songs), The John Lennon Anthology and many episodes (and subsequent bootlegs) of a syndicated radio series.

JOHN LENNON: The John Lennon Collection (1982, UK #1, US #33, **)
When it was originally released in '82, six of the 17 tracks of this randomly assembled collection were from his final, weakest effort in 1980. The '89 CD issue adds "Cold Turkey" and a similarly raucous old B-side after the boring 1980 songs, making this flow even less well. Stick with Shaved Fish, the first Lennon hits collection, so you may avoid the 1980 material.

JOHN LENNON: Live in New York City (1986, UK #55, US #41, **)
A one-off 1972 concert from Lennon, who rarely performed live after the Beatles, archived in this 1986 issue and produced very well. Sadly, it's easy to see why Lennon didn't perform live all that much. His voice isn't that great here and he surrounds himself with a number of hopeless musicians, such as the forgettable Elephant's Memory Band. Some of the songs are still very powerful, although not the dated garbage from his ultra-political Sometime in New York City album that really starts the proceedings.

JOHN LENNON: The John Lennon Anthology (1998, UK #62, ***) and Wonsaponatime (1998, UK #78, **)
Musically, there is some really interesting stuff on this 4-disc box set of outtakes and unreleased material, and on the single Wonsaponatime which compiles the "best" of the box. Most any Lennon fan would certainly enjoy at least hearing the Anthology once, but frankly there's more than enough here that annoys me, and its omissions, particularly when you consider the material that was included, are criminal. Wouldn't a Lennon collection be better served by including all of the important material? That would mean singles. If no alternate version was available, then the released version would have been fine. Also grating, extremely so, is Yoko's frankly disgusting introduction, wherein she talks about how reluctant she was and how painful this was. This from the woman who's been no stranger to posthumous releases on record and radio, who's turned Lennon's estate into something worth \$1 billion, and who's turned her dead husband's self-portait into a Mickey Mouse symbol (Guliano's assertion, with which I wholly agree). The four discs in the box set are as follows...
Ascot covers the 1970-71 period, with outtakes from Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. It includes harrowing versions of "Mother," a beautiful solo take of "Imagine," an intense "How Do You Sleep" and historically interesting, if not very good, versions of the two Elastic Oz Band songs. Ascot, worse than the others, habitually begins a CD track by fading into the end of a failed take, presenting a few seconds of studio chatter before presenting the song as advertised. Also, the disc is only 65 minutes long, yet does not contain either "Instant Karma!," "Power to the People" or "Cold Turkey."
New York City covers 1972-73 and the albums Sometime in New York City and Mind Games and good heavens, it's not very good at all. There are some terrible live selections, and "John Sinclair," with its annoying "got-ta-got-ta-got-ta-got-ta" refrain, is certainly the worst conventional song John ever released. This includes a pair of very short rehearsals of the "Mind Games" single, but nothing nearly like a finished product, despite a 65 minute running time. Worst of all is a two-minute track called "Jerry Lewis Telethon," which is one minute of applause and one minute of Jerry telling us how brilliant John is. Whee. At least the demo of "One Day at a Time" is quite nice.
The Lost Weekend is the best of the box. It covers 1974-75, when John was separated from Yoko, homesick, heartbroken, drinking heavily and recording some bleak material in Los Angeles. It doesn't have "#9 Dream" or "Stand By Me," and it does have four tracks (almost six minutes) of John and Phil Spector screaming at each other, but the music is astonishing.
Dakota features material recorded during his retirement and return to the public eye in 1980. The first track is a thrilling, discordant "I'm Losing You." The rest of it is the sappy, mushy, barely worthwhile love mush of Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey. About the last ten minutes are Goon Show-styled parodies in which he amusingly rubs Bob Dylan.