Plastic Ono Band (Remastered)

iTunes Review

Only an artist of John Lennon’s stature and caliber could pull off such an intensely personal and probing collection of songs and still be universal. It was 1970. The Beatles were finished. Lennon’s marriage to Yoko Ono resulted in several avant-garde recordings and an intense amount of self-analysis (culminating with participation in Dr. Arthur Janov’s controversial primal scream therapy). Lennon’s first proper solo album starts at this vantage point. The arrangements are stripped to their essentials. Band tracks center on either Lennon’s electric guitar or piano, with only Klaus Voorman’s bass and Ringo Starr’s drums for backing. Lennon’s only concession to performance is his insistence on double-tracking many of his vocals; all else is raw. From the funeral bell that opens “Mother” (which climaxes with Lennon’s scream), the scathing acoustic ballad “Working Class Hero,” the womblike romantic paean of “Love,” and the bitter indictments of “I Found Out” and “Well, Well, Well” to the finality of Lennon’s purpose statement “God” (where he puts the last nail in The Beatles’ coffin), Plastic Ono Band is one of the most chilling, riveting, and personal albums ever made.