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Thursday, November 17, 2016

John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band


John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is the debut studio 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 in its list "The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years" and in 2012, ranked it number 23 in "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Lennon's experience in primal therapy strongly influenced both the lyrical content of the album, pushing him toward themes of child-parent relationships and psychological suffering, and the simple yet intense style of the album's music. Throughout the album Lennon touches on many personal issues: his abandonment by his parents, in "Mother"; the means by which young people are made into soldiers, in "Working Class Hero"; a reminder that, despite his rage and pain, Lennon still embraces "Love"; and "God", a renunciation of external saviours. In the piano-driven climax of "God," after listing a handful of "idols" he does not believe in, including Jesus, Hitler, Elvis, Zimmerman (Bob Dylan), and Beatles, Lennon proclaims that he believes only in himself and Ono.
"Look at Me" dates from the period of The Beatles, and is built on a fingerpicking guitar pattern very similar to the one Lennon used in "Dear Prudence", "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", and "Julia". Lennon learned this technique from Donovan while the two were in Rishikesh. The album was released in Japan under the title ジョンの魂 (John no Tamashii?), which translates as "John's Soul".
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. Robert Christgau named it the best album of 1970 in his year-end list for The Village Voice, and in a decade-end list, he ranked it 21st best from the 1970s. In a retrospective review for Rolling Stone, he wrote that the lyrics are political, existential, and carefully thought, while Spector's production is elegantly simple so each instrument resonates, including Lennon's voice: "Left out in the open, without protective harmonies or racket, Lennon's singing takes on an expressive specificity that anyone in search of the century's great vocal performances would be foolish to overlook."
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
 Track Listing

  1. Mother
  2. Hold On
  3. I Found Out
  4. Working Class Hero
  5. Isolation
  6. Remember
  7. Love
  8. Well Well Well
  9. Look at Me
  10. God
  11. My Mummy's Dead

Download Link

John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

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