Maybe it's a great album but not a good one.

I find it a bit overwrought and too reliant on backstory.

I prefer the other album called Plastic Ono band.

Beats me. I still have never gotten around to listening to it.

I like the way you handle this question, BigSteve. You're getting directly to what's on my mind. I'm still not sure where I stand, but this is one of the positions I've occupied as I think about this.

Great One, we will get you a copy of this album yet!

The stench of self-pity and self-regard that hangs over this album has always bummed me out, particularly on "Working Class Hero." (A few months ago, mwall and I got into a bit of a tiff about this song. It's in the archives somewhere.) Also the line "They didn't want me/So they made me a star" on 'I Found Out" rubs me the wrong way. I greatly prefer Walls and Bridges, where John's personal life really falls apart, to the point where he can't explain it away with sloganeering.

I’ll try to get into the songs themselves a little more later on, but my overall take on Plastic Ono Band is that it’s an important album in a person’s musical stage. Like Lennon ended up having to go through the primal scream stuff that he did while making the album, I think most listeners of rock music go through the angry phase where an album like this really hits the spot, but it’s not a place you want to stay. Hopefully, you can use a Plastic Ono Band to get you through that part in your life where you can mature into a healthy adult who can accept that Ram is the better album.

But on “God” specifically, I think it’s a funnier song than it gets credit for being, and the album itself is a little funnier than its reputation suggests, though it is pretty bleak. There’s a sense of “I hope you can see me giving you the finger, because I’m doing it as hard as I can” about God that sells it for me. Stacking Hitler next to Jesus, shoving Kennedy in the middle, calling out Dylan as Zimmerman (and slotting him on top of Elvis), saving the Beatles for last…while he may have been serious about it, there’s no way he wasn’t laughing when he put the list together. And then breaking out the Walrus reference and the way he sings the last line, I don’t know, there’s just the sense of someone telling everyone to go screw, then laughing about it the second everybody walks away. Plus, I always laugh at how he says “Buddha” and it sounds like “I don’t beee-lieve…in BUTTER!” Only margarine for John Lennon!

Imagine is a softer album, and probably sounds more like a record by a Beatle. I like Walls and Bridges, too. I think it's an underrated gem. "What You Got" is one of my favorites.

I like POB for what it is. It is the anti-Beatle and the anti-anti album. I like all its raw rock power and "shocking" messages. There may be a bit of posturing, but I do enjoy it. I can't attest to its "greatness". It's great because it's John and it is what it is. I think he made better music, however, I don't know if he made a better statement.

TB

I always liked the album, and performed my obligatory cringe at Working Class Hero, and always found God funny, as noted here. The reason its self-indulgent hypobole doesn't ruin it for me, is that it serves as one of the only reasonable tacks for an exit interview from the position of Beatle. (Which perspective also renders Ram an inferior record to this listener.)
Steve's onto it, here. And I'd add that the ways in which it is not a "good" album were not things that would have bugged me at all when I discovered this (right after high school.) So it was great to me all around then. I sawe it as Lennon being obliged to give the finger to the Beatles, &c. on his own behalf, and on Paul's too, since he wasn't looking like he would do it on his own. So that's 2 fingers up for this reviewer!

I've never gotten around to listening to Ram.
Given Paulie's "choices" from that album on Wingspan, I don't feel concerned about it.

Plastic Ono Band is a great album, but the bass/drum production often bugs me, and I do need to be in the right mood since I'm a trifle less angry than I was on the first couple dozen listens.

Actually his solo stuff suffers a lot from reverbosity. I hate the way most of Walls and Bridges is produced. Steel and Glass and #9 Dream are the only things that work for me on there.

We may be getting into a completely different territory here, but this is my breakdown of the solo Beatles altogether:

John Lennon is generally regarded as the most brilliant one. Here is my take on solo Lennon: He released his share of crap. When it was crap, it was always crap (Some Time On NYC, anyone?). Lennon laid some major turds during his solo career, unfortunately, his life was cut short, but rest assured, there would have been plenty more turds by Lennon during the 80s. The thing is this: at his crappiest, John Lennon was always engaging. His crap is interesting crap. At his worst, I still find something worth listening to. Which leads me to...

...Macca. I have a love/hate thing for Paulie. He has gifts. So many wonderful gifts. Gifts he squanders so effortlessly. His turds are so turdy they are unlistenable. When Paul is bad, he's just bad. When he's brilliant, he's absolutely brilliant. His best solo work probably towers over John's on the whole. He's just made so much crap and so more crap than John, it's hard to compare. I think Ram is brilliant. Hell, I even like McCartmey II, so what does that say about me? I do think if Paul was gunned down early, we may regard him a bit higher, but who knows?

Aside from the stunning debut of backlog tunes, George's solo output probably skidded downhill, but I like his solo stuff on an even keel. He wasn't as turdy as Macca or Lennon, but he wasn't nearly as brilliant either. He made some nice solo records with some cool tunes.

Ringo is just consistently mediocre. His stuff is neither great nor bad. I like Ringo for what he is. His solo records have some okay tunes on them, but nothing he's written himself.

TB

Good stuff so far. I agree with all of you, which gets to the points I've raised.

Does anyone want to take a crack at my "What would you do if your bandmate brought these new original songs to your next rehearsal" point of view? Humor aside, I still think "God" is one awkward song. I wish The Great 48 knew this one. He's got a good ear for the balance of humor and music in song.

TB, your solo career analysis reminds me of a presentation E. Pluribus Gergely and I once did on the surprising strength of Ringo's classic Greatest Hits album vs the classic Greatest Hits albums of his old bandmates (all from the vinyl era - not double-CD anthologies and the like). We almost made a convincing argument for Ringo's GH album to be as good as John's Shaved Fish and Paul's Wings Greatest, or whatever that vinyl lp hits collection was called. I'm pretty sure most agreed that Ringo topped George in the GH department.

His solo records have some okay tunes on them, but nothing he's written himself.

Not true: he wrote both "It Don't Come Easy" and "Early 1970," both of which are among his best songs -- and if you wanna talk Beatle exit interviews, the latter is probably the best of the lot.

Question: what's George's BEI? "Wah-Wah" maybe? ALL THINGS MUST PASS in toto?

The great one asks:

Question: what's George's BEI [Beatle exit interview]?

I Me Mine?

Slocum’s “exit interview” on leaving the Beatles is a terrific way to put it. Getting past the context of the album to the music itself, one of the strengths of Plastic Ono Band’s claims to “great album” status is that it really does work as an album, not just a collection of songs.

This is partly because some of them are slight – “Working Class Hero” is the only one you’re likely to hear on its own these days – but their slightness plays as a strength as those songs sit on the album. They work together and are sequenced for best effect. You have the “Mother”/”My Mummy’s Dead” bookends, the funeral bell kick-off, “God” saved as the big gut-punch/punchline and My Mummy’s Dead sits at the end in a position that seems to want to draw a morbid parallel to Her Majesty’s (pre)tension deflating spot at the end of Abbey Road.

Some of the songs seem to directly parallel each other: “Hold On” and “Isolation”, “I Found Out” and “Well Well Well” are pairs, and the latter two fall into the same spot on each side of the album. Their similarity could be a deal-breaker, though. I Found Out is better, partly just by coming first, but I do love how into it he gets right before Well Well Well does its false ending, and maybe it should have stopped there. Also points to Well Well Well for how menacing the bass ends up sounding and the way the guitar follows his vocals on the last line in the final verse.

The album generally maintains a pattern of raw, primal scream workout followed by a mellower song that lets you get your balance again. The exception is Working Class Hero following I Found Out. Hero is quieter, but it’s still incredibly bitter, so the tension is ratcheted up pretty far for Isolation.

Luckily, Isolation is the best song on the album. I mentioned before on RTH about how Lennon seems to have been carrying around the “I don’t expect you to understand…” lines for a bit, looking for the right song to use them, so their bombastic use here works for me. And the way the keyboard spills over into the last verse is great. My favorite part of the song, the whole album, is the way he wavers on “afraid of the sun” right after that.

“Love” and God use the same repetition set-up for different effect. On Love, it pays off for me when they get to the “Love is you/you and me” part and his voice is suddenly double-tracked. The fadeout is a too long, though. On God, the list form is part of what makes it funny on later listens. Even the piano seems to get impatient as he goes through his checklist, like he’s taking the piss out of his own righteous anger.

It’s the touches in God, Hold On, I Found Out and “Remember” that show some self-aware humor that reminds me of funny Lennon, and hearing those is what makes it easier to listen to the album once you get out of your angry, disillusioned young rock fan. Remember is every bit as bitter as Working Class Hero, but the jaunty piano and the nonsensical Guy Fawkes explosion, which seems like something out of a Monty Python sketch they didn’t have an ending for, break the mood in a good way. Listening to those songs, I get the feeling that at some point, even he realized he needed to lighten up. It’s fun to give people the finger sometimes.

So Too Many People is Paulie's BEI?

There's always John's personal response to Paul with How Do You Sleep?

Paul literally had one with that Q&A he did with himself for McCartney. Having a triple album ready to go was probably George’s definitive exit interview statement, but “Isn’t It a Pity” is maybe the capper. Steve’s got a good point about “I Me Mine,” George was already writing his exit interviews while in the Beatles. The musical equivalent of going to Monster.com on your work computer.

Early 1970 was the healthiest of them, and it’s probably telling that Harrison didn’t reach that kind of acceptance until When We Was Fab.

Andyr, don't tell me you're above taking the "What would you do if your bandmate brought one of these songs to rehearsal" litmus test.

Dude, what have I heard probably, hundreds of songs over the years from you - through all stages of your life - I know a few must have tried to reach the emotional honesty of Plastic Ono band. And I'm sure I gave some sort of verbal or non verbal response that gave you a clue. Either that or I developed a really crappy arrangement for the song that totally made it suck :)

Don't get the wrong idea about my opinion of Ringo: I love alot of Ringo's solo work. I adore "Photograph" as a song. I even enjoy his latest run of records he's put out since Vertical Man. They are more consistent than most solo Beatles. Following Paul can be like riding a roller coaster. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I find some of his stuff just horribly bad.

"Early 1970" is a nice, upbeat way of looking back.

"How Do You Sleep?" is venom, something Lennon was good at.

"Too Many People" is too disguised for me to look at it as a direct hit. Besides, Paul performed it on his last tour, so it can't be too directed at his former bandmates. "3 Legs" is the other "attack", but it's more directed at John personally than The Beatles?

I remember a friend and I were listening to George's ATMP. The friend told me that John and George should be ashamed of putting him on the back burner for so long. George also did "All Those Years Ago", which was more for John. I like "Fab" for what it is.

TB

I'm no Beatles expert, and less of a fan of their solo careers, but it seems to me that I like John's Beatles songs better than the other guy's, and Paul's solo stuff better than the other guy's. I was reading about Ram yesterday, and since when did it get a critical upgrade to a five star album on AMG and other places? All I remember is everyone thought it was terrible when it came out. I sure didn't like it, but I haven't heard it in years (I try to avoid crappy albums after I make that decision).

I think this John album is really mediocre, which is pretty much what I think about all of their solo albums.

Count me in on the anti-Ram platform. There may be some decent snatches of music on that thing, but I think of the album as McCartney at his most self-satisfied and self-indulgent - in a bad way.

I think Ram is a great record, for what it is. It's not his major artistic statement (for me, that would be Band on the Run), but more like a folk album beamed in from Venus. I never get tired of hearing "Dear Boy," "Smile Away," and "Back Seat of My Car."

I'll have to listen to Ram again some day. I never owned that one. I think Andyr or Chickenfrank used to play that one now and then when we roomed together.

I've been too busy at work (and still am) to chime in at any length on the Plastic Ono thread. My take on that album is that it's one of those "in a class of its own" records. Some of what makes it unique might be considered flaws by others, but you smooth out those edges and you end up taking away what makes the album so original. One of those records that would be much less than it is if guys around here had had a crack at shaping it. No offense, fellas. A great album, not easy to take or feel comfortable with, or even to listen to all that often, but one that needed to be what it is and could only be done once. Trying something like it again would have turned its almost-ridiculous edges into flaws, and it's a good thing no one did try it.

"Some of what makes it unique might be considered flaws by others, but you smooth out those edges and you end up taking away what makes the album so original."

I'm signing on to MWall's platform. Sure it's a personal album that is often about Lennon's specific situation but his being LENNON makes it work. Should he have pretended that no one knew or cared about who he was? I love the whole thing (and Yoko's POM record as well), especially those reverbed drums on "I Found Out".

It's easy to be with Mwall's position, which is spot on, but don't discount the musical merit of BigSteve's "great but not good" point of view. When we love this album, in large part, because of what Lennon means to us, is it any different than, I don't know, loving some stilted, overblown U2 album because they're one's idea of a rock prophet? As Allen Iverson might say, We're talkin' about music! (I acknowledge that it may be impossible to talk about music apart from all the other stuff that comes up with an artist like Lennon, but I'm hoping each of you at least try it.)

db asks:

Should he [Lennon] have pretended that no one knew or cared about who he was?

I don't know that I'd say he should have, but he certainly could have. None of the other Beatles made solo records about the burden of the Beatles Myth etc. Lennon obviously felt at the time that he had to deal with the issue, but then he's stuck with the fact that fewer and fewer people will care about his personal situation at the time in the years ahead.

Actually, Mod, I think my position isn't that far off of Steve's although we feel differently about how much we like what we're hearing. It's definitely not the kind of record that, after listening to it, you sit back in a self-satisfied way, nodding "good album" to your snob pals like you'd say to them "good beer" (my recommendation right now: New Zealand's Steinlager: the definition of crisp) or muse on the layered complexity of your extra smooth single malt. It's not an album that goes down in that good way. It wants to rankle and mar you a bit; it wants you to feel the burn. Which is why you can only listen to it when you're ready for the burn; if you're not, it'll only give you indigestion.

Which reminds me exactly of how it contrasts with the music of the Beatles, who even at their sharpest can almost always go down more smoothly than any other band there is. I think it's no wonder the album was so controversial; it really takes something basic to what's good about the Beatles and gives it the finger.

Mwall, I get all that you're saying and agree with most of it too. What concerns me about your response though is your knee-jerk need to diminish the questions I've raised regarding the finer points of some of the songs based on your characterization of my concerns being solely over issues of craft and whatever other bells and whistles you think I'm incapable of overlooking.

As a certain point, Honesty schmonesty! If Jackie Collins tells you everything in one of her novels is TRUE, does it matter to you, the reader, if it doesn't ring true, or if it doesn't serve the needs of the medium? I do not propose that "God" or "Love" would be better songs if they were jazzed up, if Jeff Lynne produced them and the Jellyfish guys played on the record, etc. What I'm trying to get at is that the artifice of Lennon's supreme dedication to his concept bogs down a bunch of those songs. The best songs DO work fantastically, in my opinion, because they're to the point and the production is so bare. However, the bare production on "God" does not matter much when Lennon spends an entire song not caring about anything other than making his STATEMENT. "God", despite its shortcomings and a melody that no one would ever feel comfortable singing along with, is not anywhere near as bad as the preachy STATEMENTS on an album like Somewhere in New York City, but it's loaded with artifice that only Lennon could load the song with. He might as well have had Phil Spector stick cheesy orchestration all over the thing. You'd then think the song was sappy and over the top - and something that would likely please the likes of myself and HVB (where is that masked man this week when I need him?) - but it would be no less smothered in a type of artifice.

The album has a personality. In "God", Lennon has gone from saying the Beatles are bigger than that three-letter deity, to saying "I don't even believe in the terms we were using in the argument". He's spitting out what's going on with him perpaps hamfistedly at times, but that is certainly not artificial. It may be that there is backstory required to make a song like God appreciated, but that is the sort of effort that is often NOT rewarded with other examinations of lyrics and production choices on supposedly "great" albums.

Mod, I ain't saying there's no artifice on the record. I don't believe such a thing is possible. Every song is constructed; every song is thought; it's never just felt. "Artifice" and "artificial" are different, so I agree with mockcarr here too.

I think Lennon is screechy on that record, overbearing, self-righteous, and self-pitying by turns. I don't agree with his philosophy on most of those songs, whatever philosophy there is. Some of the grooves are monotonous and get beaten into the ground. The album often thoroughly lacks Beatles-like restraint and taste. I think it's a highly conscious response to the aesthetics of the Beatles as well, and I can see how you'd feel smothered by it. It's like proto emo-core: "feeling" saying to "craft" "don't restrain my need to express myself"--although Lennon doesn't take that nearly as far as he might. Still, the record is a true insult to the music of the Beatles. It's also a genuinely intense experience despite all that--or, I'm saying, because of it. Why? That's the mystery; why does it have so much power, even when in some more objective way it ought to suck?

Mockcarr, I don't deny that the album has personality. I should note that I gave the album a 4 out of 5 star-rating on the poll. I basically love the album for what it is, but I think half of the songs kind of suck if I remove all that they are. Also, I'm talking about artifice, not whether something is artificial or not. Recording music is inherently artificial. I'm cool with that. I'm also cool with artifice, but not so much if it's role in propping up a clunky song is distracting.

Mwall, drop the "Beatles-like restraint and tastes," OK? It's coded language that you use to deflate.

More soon. Fire alarm! No joke!

OK, the alarm was just a test...

Listen, Townspeople, all I'm asking is for you to try responding to the songs as music. I'm down with so much of what you feel are the album's strengths. I'm sorry to pick on "God" and "Love" and even "Working Class Hero". There are some other songs I've been known to lift the needle over. I'm not "smothered" by the album. Rather, I'm bored by large chunks of it. Sometimes, as I pointed out on "Isolation", which I love, I'm bored by a lame middle eighth. Aesthetically the middle eighth is shoved in there. The rest of the song should have cried Rape!

But yeah, man, that's Lennon. He suffered for our sins and all that... I'm aware of all that. He suffered for my sins too, but I think he would have eventually come around to my point of view and asked us to reconsider the album on musical merits. It's way more than a record, but it's still a record.

Mod, though I'm capable of it, I wasn't using "taste" as a pure put down here. It's not a pure good either; it's a problem, and a worthwhile one. You often pride yourself on your good taste, and I often agree with you on that pride. I even just wrote a long list of things that are not so great about that album--or wouldn't be, if it didn't somehow work anyway. And you ARE the one you used the word "smothered," and then I agree with you on why you might feel that way and you get all fire-alarm like and shit. And I am considering the power of the music, because unlike many others here I'm not all that hung up on the Beatles or their mythology. There's a lot of musical power in those uniquely fucked up grooves.

And I'll add: it's pretty funny, Mod taking someone down for "coded language used to deflate." This is Rock Town. Where do you think I picked up that kind of stuff and who do you think I picked it up from?

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to
know."

Mod, isn't that what you're really saying here?

Saturn, where are you!!!???!!!

Mod Says:
"we love this album, in large part, because of what Lennon means to us, is it any different than, I don't know, loving some stilted, overblown U2 album because they're one's idea of a rock prophet?"

I can see where this is "objectively" true but it misses the point that Bono is NOT Lennon (a fact I'm sure ticks him off every morning that he lifts his head from the pillow). In part it is because Bono's thoughts and pronouncements are so vague and over-boiled. Lennon's honesty and pain is laid out with a near embarrassing nakedness that pushes the songs past their occasional slap-dashedness. I can see how the song's loose nuts and bolts can annoy a musical technician like yourself (and that's not meant to be an insult) but somehow its - flaws mixed with Lennon's torrid performance - just increase the songs immediacy for me. It's a trick that has made mince-meat out of most every musician who has attempted anything similar (Lauren Hill's MTV UNPLUGGED No. 2.0 might be a recent example).

Big Steve countered:
"he's stuck with the fact that fewer and fewer people will care about his personal situation at the time in the years ahead."

We've continued to care for almost forty years, I think Lennon would have been pleased to think we'd be interested for even that long. I'm sure that just as mountains crumble someday people won't care but I would still be interested in Stephen Foster or Edgar Allen Poe's thoughts about their fame.

Then again, some art's power is in its timeliness: there is a power to specificity as well as universality.

As much as I love to dig on the Mod's perspective on these baubles for which we share a mutual love, his take has its own rationality. It's just different from mine. That's part of what makes one use that over-used phrase "personal". PLASTIC ONO BAND is sure to drag a individual response out of each listener in a way that say, "Rock and Roll Pt. 2" does not. As MWall alludes to, the album is the sound of one of the most popular of artists saying "to hell with popularity".

You guys rock hard! Feel free to rock harder yet. Yes, Dr. John, the lines you quote are a good summary of what's at play. I consider this a thread in which all opinions were interesting and to the point. Even my own:)

I don't know if I mentioned this yet (I still need to look back and see if I used the term "smothered" and then forgot about it before jumping down Mwall's throat - excellent use of coded language, by the way), but this all came to me while I was watching the VH1 making of doc, which I'd rented a few days ago. I watched part of it with my oldest son, who was fascinated. "Why haven't you played me this kind of Beatles album before?" he wanted to know. It was his bedtime. As I watched the rest of it, with the super-cool Ringo and Klaus Voorman doing most of the talking (with old interviews with John spliced in), I was amazed at
how great, how noble, AND how awkward and bad the songs could be, often all at once. On Plastic Ono Band John did everything my man Lou Reed wishes to do when making his music the way it was meant to sound. It's a really cool album, and despite its occasionally stilted songs, it's a brave, honest effort. Even when the guy's fooling himself a bit, it's honest. And yes, it means a lot to hear a naked Beatle, more than it ever meant to SEE a naked Beatle.

On the Beatles it sounds like Lennon defers to George on most guitar matters. This is the only album where you get all Lennon on guitar. It's very cool to listen to how he handles that. That should get an extra star.

Definitely worth a bonus point, Chickenfrank. But tell me - you know the deal, I'm sure: this friend of ours - a bandmate - brings that batch of songs to a rehearsal to introduce to us. Will any of those songs cause you to mutter a vague, insincere approval (eg, "I like that riff in the middle") and/or send an e-mail to me and Andyr the next day, seeing if one of us has an idea for an "exit strategy" from having to play that song?

Mr. Mod, that perspective is from being Lennon or McCartney, and George brings in a C+ song (that's C plus, not C augmented) It's awkward when you are in a machine like the Beatles that only creates masterpieces.
Part of the appeal of this album is that the songs are free from having to be acceptable to the 2nd greatest songwriter of all time. He made them as demo tapes with a few really great people to accompany him.
That does allow for a freedom you rarely get to hear.