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John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Apple Records
Released: 1970.12.11
Time:
 39:45
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Phil Spector
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.johnlennon.com
Appears with: The Beatles
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Mother (Lennon) - 5:34
[2] Hold On (Lennon) - 1:52
[3] I Found Out (Lennon) - 3:37
[4] Working Class Hero (Lennon) - 3:48
[5] Isolation (Lennon) - 2:51
[6] Remember (Lennon) - 4:33
[7] Love (Lennon) - 3:21
[8] Well Well Well (Lennon) - 5:59
[9] Look at Me (Lennon) - 2:53
[10] God (Lennon) - 4:09
[11] My Mummy's Dead (Lennon) - 0:49

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


John Lennon - Lead & Backing Vocals, Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Piano & Organ, Producer
Ringo Starr - Drums
Klaus Voormann - Bass
Phil Spector - Piano on [7], Producer
Billy Preston - Piano on [10]
Yoko Ono - "Wind", Art Direction, Back Cover Photo, Design, Remastering Producer, Producer
Mal Evans - "Tea & Sympathy"

Phil McDonald - Engineer
Eddie Veal - Engineer
John Leckie - Engineer
Richard Lush - Engineer
Andy Stevens - Engineer
Paul Hicks - Remastering Engineer
Sean Magee - Remastering Engineer
Simon Gibson - Audio Restoration
Mal Evans - Artwork
Karla Merrifield - Art Coordinator
Dan Richter - Cover Photo
David Nutter - Photography
Ray Connelly - Photography
Paul Du Noyer - Sleeve Notes
Guy Hayden - Project Manager
Xilonen Oreshnick - Photo Research
Allan Rouse - Project Coordinator
Kris Perera - Project Manager
Timothy Ryan - Project Manager
Jane Ventom - Project Manager

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


The first John Lennon solo album has had its fair share of acclaim. It was well-reviewed upon its release, and reached the top ten in both the US and UK, despite the absence of a major hit single. In the 40 years since it has routinely turned up in all those critics’ lists of best-ever albums, albeit way, way below the most admired Beatles sets. It’s firmly established as one of those grown-up rock classics that grown-up rock fans should own. But here’s the rub: Plastic Ono Band is still grossly underrated.

One suspects that Plastic Ono Band’s standing might be somewhat more elevated if its maker was still alive. But this 40-minute, 11-song exercise in stark sonic claustrophobia and bitter autobiographical purging doesn’t fit with the sentimentalised posthumous image of Lennon as Utopian dreamer and modern-day Jesus. The biographical context doesn’t help – anyone could be forgiven for imagining that a record inspired by Arthur Janov’s primal scream therapy and Lennon’s twin obsessions with Yoko Ono and his dead mother Julia would be hard work at best, and a bunch of self-indulgent avant-garde ravings at worst.

But the reality of Plastic Ono Band is that it contains eleven of Lennon’s most accessible and gorgeous melodies and riffs; it’s pure Beatles, but with the layers of studio sophistry stripped away to reveal the nub of the confessional crux. The heartbreaking scream of loss that is Mother. The mirror image of My Mummy’s Dead and its invention of all things lo-fi. And, in-between, the savaging of aspiration in Working Class Hero, the pinched proto-punk fury of I Found Out and Well Well Well, the fear and self-loathing of Remember and Isolation, the poignant grasps for comfort within Love and Hold On, and the slaughter of gods, monsters, The Beatles and the false idols of the 1960s in the peerless God, which is still, very possibly, the most thematically ambitious and courageous rock song ever recorded.

All this, and a sound sculpted by Lennon, Ono and Phil Spector which drops you smack dab in the middle of a room at Abbey Road studios feeling the most famous man of his generation bare his soul and flaunt his demons to a world which didn’t want that much information. Plastic Ono Band’s greatest achievement is that, the more Lennon reveals about himself, the more universal his themes become. It’s this mysterious magic that makes Lennon’s solo debut a definitive work of art about how, and why, the personal and the political are one and the same.

Garry Mulholland, 2010 - BBC Review



Also known as the "primal scream" album, referring to the painful therapy that gave rise to its songs, Plastic Ono Band was John Lennon's first proper solo album and rock & roll's most self-revelatory recording. Lennon attacks and ­denies idols and icons, including his own former band ("I don't believe in Beatles," he sings in "God"), to hit a pure, raw core of confession that, in its echo-drenched, garage-rock crudity, is years ahead of punk. He deals with childhood loss in "Mother" and skirts blasphemy in "Working Class Hero": "You're still fucking peasants as far as I can see." But consigning Sixties dreams to the rubbish bin, there's also room for a fragile sense of possibility (see "Hold On"). Plastic Ono Band is the sound of Year Zero.

23 of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
RollingStone.com



The cliché about singer/songwriters is that they sing confessionals direct from their heart, but John Lennon exploded the myth behind that cliché, as well as many others, on his first official solo record, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Inspired by his primal scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, Lennon created a harrowing set of unflinchingly personal songs, laying out all of his fears and angers for everyone to hear. It was a revolutionary record - never before had a record been so explicitly introspective, and very few records made absolutely no concession to the audience's expectations, daring the listeners to meet all the artist's demands. Which isn't to say that the record is unlistenable. Lennon's songs range from tough rock & rollers to piano-based ballads and spare folk songs, and his melodies remain strong and memorable, which actually intensifies the pain and rage of the songs. Not much about Plastic Ono Band is hidden. Lennon presents everything on the surface, and the song titles - "Mother," "I Found Out," "Working Class Hero," "Isolation," "God," "My Mummy's Dead" - illustrate what each song is about, and charts his loss of faith in his parents, country, friends, fans, and idols. It's an unflinching document of bare-bones despair and pain, but for all its nihilism, it is ultimately life-affirming; it is unique not only in Lennon's catalog, but in all of popular music. Few albums are ever as harrowing, difficult, and rewarding as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is the debut solo album by English rock musician John Lennon. It was released in 1970, after Lennon had issued three experimental albums with Yoko Ono and Live Peace in Toronto 1969, a live performance in Toronto credited to the Plastic Ono Band. The album was recorded simultaneously with Ono's debut avant garde solo album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, at Ascot Sound Studios and Abbey Road Studios using the same musicians and production team, and featured nearly identical cover artwork. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is generally considered one of Lennon's finest solo albums, documenting with honesty and artistic integrity his emotional and mental state at that point in his career. In 1987, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it fourth on "The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years." In 2012, the magazine ranked it number 23 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was received with high critical praise upon release. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock." In early 1971, the album reached number eight on the UK and went to number six in the US, spending eighteen weeks in the Top 100. The album was particularly successful in the Netherlands, knocking George Harrison's blockbuster All Things Must Pass from the top of the chart and remaining at number one for seven consecutive weeks.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is generally considered one of Lennon's finest solo albums. In 2000, Q placed John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band at number 62 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 1987, the album was ranked fourth on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 best albums of the period 1967–87, and in 2003, it was placed at number 22 in the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2006, the album was placed by Pitchfork Media at number 60 of its Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. In 2006, the album was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best albums of all time.

Wikipedia.org
 

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