Label: EMI Records (Japan), TOCP-70391
Style: Rock, Pop Rock, Avantgarde
Country: Liverpool, England (9 October 1940 - 8 December 1980)
Time: 46:25
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 257 Mb
Anyone
performing avant-garde music is laying themselves open to a certain
amount of hostility and derision at the outset. And if that person also
happens to be Yoko Ono, who has not only displayed a gift for hyping
herself with cloying “happenings” but also led poor John astray and been
credited by more than one Insider with “breaking up the Beatles,” why,
the barbs and jeers can only be expected to increase proportionately.
Not only do most people have no taste for the kind of far-out warbling
Yoko specializes in; they probably wouldn’t give her the time of day if
she looked like Paula Prentiss and sang like Aretha.
On the other
hand, not much of her recorded product inspires any sympathy. What it
mostly inspires is irritation, even in hardened fans of free music and
electronic noise. Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. One, and the
distinctly uncatchy Peace jingles on Wedding Album were the ego-trips of
two rich waifs adrift in the musical revolutions of the Sixties, as if
Saul Bellow had suddenly discovered the cut-ups of William Burroughs and
recruited Lenore Kandel to help him forge them in the void.
Dilettante
garbage, simply. The electronic/collage stuff, like the radio bit and
the silent grooves, was a John Cage takeoff equaled by precocious
teenagers with tape recorders everywhere, and the screaming had been
explored much more effectively by Abbey Lincoln in Max Roach’s 1960 We
Insist: Freedom Now Suite (ditto Yoko’s pre-/ post-coital sighs) and
Patty Waters in a weird 1965 ESP-Disk recording (a classic rendition of
“Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” which found her shrieking
the word “black” through every possible disten-tion for 15 minutes).
It
wasn’t until the long freak-out on the back of the live Toronto LP that
Yoko began to show’ some signs that she was learning to control and
direct her vocal spasms, and John finally evidenced a nascent
understanding of the Velvet Underground-type feedback discipline that
would best underscore her histrionics. That record began to be
listen-able, even exciting, and the version of “Don’t Worry Kyoko” on
the back of the “Cold Turkey” single was even better.
Now Yoko
finally has an album all her own out, and it bodes well for future
experiments by the Murk Twins along these lines. For one thing, Yoko has
excellent backup this time: one track features an Ornette Coleman
quartet, and the rest find John, Ringo and bassist Klaus Voormann
working out accompaniments that are by turns as frenzied as Yoko herself
and quite restrained. It always sounds thought-out, carefully arranged,
appropriate; and with Yoko’s music that’s saying something.
Another
strong plus is that all the songs are kept relatively short, make
distinct statements, and seldom degenerate into the kind of pointless,
prolix yammering Continued from preceding page that characterized her
earlier work. In a way, the track with Coleman is the weakest: Yoko is
into her “Ohh, John!” riff, and Ornette’s band is laying down the kind
of a rhythmic noodling that seldom finds them at their peaks. It was a
rehearsal tape anyway; what would be really nice would be to hear Yoko
with new madmen the likes of Gato Barbieri and Mike Mantler.
The
other tracks, however, are something else again. John’s guitar is strong
and sizzling, a crazed file cutting through with some of the most
eloquent distortions heard in a long time. He’s really learning this
language now, and his singing high notes and gut-teral rhythms speak
with the same authoritative voice he showed with the Beatles. And when
he suddenly shifts down from those flurries into an expertly abstracted
guitar line straight out of Chuck Berry (as in “Why”), it just takes
your breath away.
There are also two experiments in electronics here:
Side One closes with a haunting juxtaposition of “Tomorrow Never Knows”
guitar and vocal sounding like one of the modal choirs off the Music of
Bulgaria album electronically distorted; and “Paper Shoes” opens with
tides of noise and railroad clacks, then moves into a sequence where
Yoko’s voice, cut up by machine and melted into itself, flashes in wierd
echoes around the trestles.
This one will grow on you. They haven’t
ironed out all the awkwardness yet, but this is the first J&Y album
that doesn’t insult the intelligence in fact, in its dark confounding
way, it’s nearly as beautiful as John’s album. Give it a try, and at
least a handful of listenings before your verdict. There’s something
happening here.
(rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/john-lennon-plastic-ono-band-108294/) Review by Lester Bangs. March 4, 1971
Lester Bangs reporter:
Leslie
Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an
American music journalist. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone
magazines, and was a leading influence in rock music criticism. The
music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".
02. Hold On (01:51)
03. I Found Out (03:37)
04. Working Class Hero (03:50)
05. Isolation (02:51)
06. Remember (04:36)
07. Love (03:24)
08. Well Well Well (05:59)
09. Look At Me (02:55)
10. God (04:10)
11. My Mummy's Dead (00:59)
12. Power To The People (Bonus Track) (03:22)
13. Do The Oz (Bonus Track) (03:07)
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