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The Lennon Anthology
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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
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Introduction
The John Lennon Anthology has been out for a couple of months now. Time enough for some first reactions. I'll be posting some of mine here from time to time.
Just to make it look more like a yuppy magazine, I've given each song one to five stars. I'll call the magazine "Bongo".
One or two general observations first:
Yoko Ono believes that there's a side of John Lennon she's seen that doesn't come across in the published material so far. She begins her album notes with a concrete example:
| In person, John was a much more attractive man than the one you saw in photos... He had... soft, sandy hair with a touch of red in it... |
One of her primary goals
with this package is to present her John:
| I hope you enjoy this box. This is the John that I knew, not the John that you knew through the press... |
John Lennon maintained
slightly different public and private musical tastes. In
the final recording of a song he often removed bits that
he found embarassing or inappropriate, such as, his voice
(double tracking), blues (by avoiding certain notes),
lead guitar (by playing safer parts).
These outtakes give us a chance to look at the songs
before that layer of editing took place.
On some tracks it sounds as if there are two
guitars. But there ain't. Lennon has a strangely prepared
instrument. The top four strings sound acoustic. The
bottom two strings are electric and fuzzed.
Is this another variation on his predeliction for a
four-string guitar that grew out of his banjo years? I
have not been able to locate this guitar's distinctive
sound on any of the final versions.
I think one reason some of the tracks sound so good is
that they have been produced using state-of-the-art
studio technology. Even the cuts from Milk and Honey
on CD-4 sound better than the eighties versions.
I'm sure that some of these tracks will be more popular
than the originals in time to come. I already like some
of these mixes better now.
Of course, some of us want to treat the original releases
as sacrosanct. I don't think that's going to work. Some
of the takes on Anthology are just plain better. For
example, I have never liked the version of Soldier...
on Imagine, but the take on CD1 is awesome.
Of course, at some point I went back and listened to the
final takes of POB. It was the best listening in years
and reminded me how it sounded the first time.
I understood why the abum still sells so well and why it
may become the most popular album he made, in years to
come. There is a definite thread that runs through the
album sung by a single strong voice. I used to have
reservations about Remember and Oh
My Love. But they're gone now.
After working on this project for some time I decided to
finish it off by only working on one song a night,
listening to both the outtakes and the final. It never
worked. I always found myself listening to the tracks
around the target for the evening.
Like the Ono Box, the packaging is very sturdy
and interesting. It's always quality stuff.
The cover notes say very little of interest about the
tracks. Yoko Ono takes the opportunity to set the record
straight on a couple of issues. The CD review goes over
familiar territory.
The credits section is very detailed, in the spirit of
Lennon's own album notes. Full marks for that. Some
information is missing. The last sentence in the booklet
reads:
| Capitol Records has endeavoured to compile complete discographic information, but because of the passage of time this was not always possible. |
Only twenty years later,
and we have already forgotten who played on a number of
these tracks.