John Lennon

Plastic Ono Band may be John Lennon's best solo LP, but Imagine is his most characteristic in sound and style. Free of filler, it features such pop wonders as "Jealous Guy" (which only went to No. 20 on the singles charts!), the secular humanist anthem "Imagine," and "Oh Yoko!," a song so effervescent that you forget whom it's written about.

Not content to be merely an ex-Beatle. John Lennon has carved out a new career for
himself as political gadfly, floating member of the international avant-garde and as rock's
most psychologically daring tightrope artist. John has always displayed an amazing capacity
for growth, and it one is impatient with the speed with which he takes up and then
discards various causes, philosophies, and people, the other side of the coin is t... More >

Primal goes pop--personal and useful. The title cut is both a hymn for the Movement and a love song for his wife, celebrating a Yokoism and a Marcusianism simultaneously, and "Gimme Some Truth" unites Lennon unmasked with the Lennon of Blunderland wordplay as it provides a rationale for "Jealous Guy," which doesn't need one, and "How Do You Sleep?," which may. "Oh Yoko!" is an instant folk song worthy of Rosie & the Originals and "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" an instant folk extravaganza worthy of Phil Spector. "It's So Hard" is a blues. "Crippled Inside," with its "ironic" good-time ricky-tick, is folk-rock in disguise. And the psychotherapeutically lugubrious "How?" is a question mark. (Grade - A)