{"id":1669,"date":"2008-09-04T08:13:10","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T12:13:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-10T15:54:35","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T15:54:35","slug":"is-john-lennon-s-lemgplastic-ono-bandl-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-john-lennon-s-lemgplastic-ono-bandl-e\/","title":{"rendered":"Is John Lennon&#8217;s <em>Plastic Ono Band<\/em> a Great Album?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FeIjQO7_CpM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAs a huge Beatles fan who has identified with John in particular, I&#8217;ve long struggled with this question: <strong>Is John Lennon&#8217;s <em>Plastic Ono Band<\/em> a great album?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thinking about the album in its context, the answer is certainly Yes!<\/p>\n<p>Listening to the album in its context, including its anti-Beatles simplicity and in-your-face production, the answer is <em>Yes!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But just listening to the songs on the album, in sequence, I&#8217;m not so sure.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThere are a number of songs that I love, top to bottom, for musical reasons, for context and message, for production, etc. The heavy songs, like <strong>&#8220;I Found Out&#8221;<\/strong> are no-brainers. <strong>&#8220;Hold On&#8221;<\/strong>, for instance, hits all the right notes. <strong>&#8220;Isolation&#8221;<\/strong> also makes me cry just about every time, even with the overblown, clunky middle eighth. However, there are just as many songs that, when I simply listen to them and ignore my own stake in John&#8217;s post-Beatles drama and his Christ-like suffering and understanding on our behalf, bore me or otherwise make me feel like I&#8217;m working to dig them. <\/p>\n<p>The song <strong>&#8220;God&#8221;<\/strong> is a prime example. As for the subject matter, I don&#8217;t really give a damn. I&#8217;ve got my own feelings on God, Hitler, Zimmerman, The Beatles, etc. The melody is all chopped up to support a set of lyrics that was obviously written with no little thought of the words&#8217; musical qualities. Lennon&#8217;s vocal performance has its moments, but it pales in comparison to the album&#8217;s seamless songs. In terms of its musical worth, &#8220;God&#8221; might as well be an overwrought track from a lame <strong>Elvis Costello<\/strong> album, like <em>Spike<\/em> or <em>Mighty Like a Turd<\/em>. Hell, I feel like I&#8217;m being asked to reject all that Lennon has rejected over the years and now accept his declaration of rejection as my new God.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Love&#8221;<\/strong> is another stone-cold needle-lifter for me. I feel like a bad person turning my nose up to &#8220;God&#8221; and &#8220;Love&#8221;, but I&#8217;m letting the music be my master.<\/p>\n<p>There are other songs that are not so difficult for me to enjoy on a purely musical level that nevertheless have distracting moments of &#8220;message over music.&#8221; One of the best songs that suffer from this is <strong>&#8220;Working Class Hero&#8221;<\/strong>. Its self-indulgence grates on me after a while. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, Lennon&#8217;s self-indulgence is a big part of what made him such a titan among rock artists, but how many times can I listen to Lennon drive a song into the ground that a more agile artist like <strong>Dylan<\/strong> would have made go up in a timely whisp of smoke? Dylan would have taken that song and turned it into a riddle at just the right moment.<\/p>\n<p>Considering everything I&#8217;m certain that <em>Plastic Ono Band<\/em> is a great album, but I want to see how we really feel about its musical worth. Here&#8217;s a question I ask myself that might or might not run through your mind: <em>If a bandmate brought these songs to me for our band to learn, would I want to politely squirm out of playing a number of them?<\/em> I think I might.<\/p>\n<p><em>I look forward to your comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a huge Beatles fan who has identified with John in particular, I&#8217;ve long struggled with this question: Is John Lennon&#8217;s Plastic Ono Band a great album? Thinking about the album in its context, the answer is certainly Yes! Listening to the album in its context, including its anti-Beatles simplicity and in-your-face production, the answer <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/is-john-lennon-s-lemgplastic-ono-bandl-e\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}