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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Imagine (2010 - Remaster) |
| 2. Crippled Inside (2010 - Remaster) |
| 3. Jealous Guy (2010 - Remaster) |
| 4. It's So Hard (2010 - Remaster) |
| 5. I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die (2010 - Remaster) |
| 6. Gimme Some Truth (2010 - Remaster) |
| 7. Oh My Love (2010 - Remaster) |
| 8. How Do You Sleep? (2010 - Remaster) |
| 9. How? (2010 - Remaster) |
| 10. Oh Yoko! (2010 - Remaster) |
Product Description
Review
So, among the jams and co-producer Spector’s clever mix of orchestral pomp and punkish lo-fi, the listener’s interest in these 10 songs is inevitably drawn toward five of the most notable songs of Lennon’s career. Gimme Some Truth is one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded, a glistening product of the tension between Lennon’s rapier-wit fury at the hypocrisy of political leaders, and the sheer Beatle-esque beauty of melody and arrangement. How? is both beautiful and profound; a calm-after-the-storm orchestral ballad that captures the eternal confusion of Being Human with humble grace.
If you only know Jealous Guy as Roxy Music’s worst-ever record, then the original, with its courageous and accurate portrayal of male neediness and insecurity, will be a tear-jerking shock. And How Do You Sleep?’s attack on Paul McCartney is still a bizarre listen, the track’s lazy, laconic white soul stroll hitting Lennon’s vicious indiscretions home with a swaggering arrogance.
And, of course, there’s Imagine. Imagine you hadn’t heard it 5,000 times already, and been told to hear it as either the 20th century’s greatest hymn to human transcendence, or a sickening ode to millionaire hypocrisy and complacency. Then what you might hear, beneath the clamour, is the rough prettiness of the piano, the humility of the vocal, the skill of the arrangement and song craft. Good luck with that.
Elsewhere, Crippled Inside and I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier Mama are enjoyable roots-rock jams masquerading as protest song, Oh My Love and Oh Yoko! are the first of many simpering tributes to Lennon’s bird, and It’s So Hard is a sexual double-entendre in search of a decent tune. Sprinkled among the benchmark Lennon songs listed above, they make for an album of abruptly shifting moods and a sense of fun and mischief that were fated to never appear again within Lennon’s work. It’s this spontaneity and joy that makes Imagine Lennon’s most popular solo album, if not his best.
--Gary MulhollandFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
CD Description
On two other songs where Yoko is not the dominant theme, she is nevertheless invoked through the "oh no, oh no" refrain. That's not to say that lovesongs predominate. Half of the material covers similar terrain to Plastic Ono Band, but the themes are balanced by hope and even light-heartedness. "Crippled Inside" is leavened by its country stylings including Dobro, courtesy of George Harrison, who also spices up two of the album's pivotal tracks, "Gimme Some Truth" and "How Do You Sleep?" (the latter isa vitriolic attack on Paul McCartney). Outside of Plastic Ono Band, this may be Lennon's finest solo album.
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Customer Reviews
The remastered sound is excellent and the album sounds better than ever. The packaging is the currently fashionable Eco type with the semi mock vinyl presentation. There is no tray for the CD disc but it has to slip inside the cardboard cover. This was something I found a pain since its much to tight a fit. But other than that it is an excellent presentation.
It's the contradictions that make this such a strange and ultimately interesting album.
The title track 'Imagine' is now a peace anthem - high ideals, a hymn of gentility that is used to portray Lennon as an idealist. But how badly that sits with the vitriolic attack on Paul McCartney that is 'How do you sleep?'!
'Gimme some Truth' has some of the most powerful anti-establishment lyrics ever committed to record. Brilliant. But 'I don't Wanna be a soldier Mama' is repetitive and weak by comparison - little more than a make-it-up-as-you-go session.
`Jealous Guy' - painfully brilliant. `Crippled Inside' - nowhere near as good.
'Oh my Love'- Lennon balladeering at his best. "Oh Yoko!" - a song that seems to be trying to prove something, but which ultimately fails.
Don't get me wrong - this is an album worth buying and worth playing often. But it shows an artist in pain - trying to resolve the momentous decision he made to leave everything and set up with Yoko, hitting out at his former best friend, trying to find a new role for himself.
Listen to it in that light, and `Imagine' makes sense, the ambiguities can be explained. Not a great album overall, but a piece of pop history - in turn beautiful, strange, contradictory, interesting.
Realeased 1971
Producer John Lennon/Yoko OIno/Phil Spector
The band : John Lennon, George Harrison, Klaus Voorman, Alan White, Nicky Hopkins and... Read more
so it seemed right to replace it for christmas
+its john lennon! Read more
Yesterday I purchased Imagine, Mind Games and Double Fantasy to get the ball... Read more
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