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Double Fantasy

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy Audio CD

A fair review of the John Lennon & Yoko Ono "Double Fantasy" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all John Lennon & Yoko Ono reviews here, or go back to the John Lennon & Yoko Ono tabs.

Band: John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Title: Double Fantasy
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: (Just Like) Starting Over 2: Kiss, Kiss, Kiss 3: Cleanup Time 4: Give Me Something 5: I'm Losing You 6: I'm Moving On 7: Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) 8: Watching the Wheels 9: Yes, I'm Your Angel 10: Woman 11: Beautiful Boys 12: Dear Yoko 13: Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him 14: Hard Times Are Over 15: Help Me to Help Myself 16: Walking on Thin Ice 17: Central Park Stroll (Dialogue)

Joke-Oh, Oh-No!
27 years after his tragic death, I am still troubled by his indulgence of Yoko, whose banshee caterwauling ruins this recording much as it ruined anything of which she took part. John Lennon was a brilliant rock and roll musician, both as a Beatle and as a solo act. Yoko is an artist without any artistic skill beyond manipulating an insecure star who never got over the loss of his mother. Her presence here ruins John's lovely collection of reflective tunes. RIP John.

Yes and No
It includes some of John's best work from the eighties and reveals just how incredibly talented each of the beatles were. Double Fantasy is a great album. Just Like Starting Over is an eighties staple and jumps right of the speakers. Losing you is a kind of funky love/loss song and Watching the Wheels is just brilliant song writing. The problem that I have (and many others) is Yoko. Her singing is terrible, univocally speaking. However, there are moments of creativity that can be siphoned out of her work, if you dare. I also have to admit that alternating John and Yoko songs does make for an interesting listen. It works, as a whole.
Overall, it really is about John's music and his love, both musical and romantic. He wears it on his sleeve and produces a great album as a result. .

John comes full circle
His first solo album, Plastic Ono Band, was filled with rage at being an abandoned, neglected son. Lennon's last completed studio album brings his solo career full circle. Double Fantasy finds John full of happiness, a doting father and "househusband. "

"Just Like Starting Over" has a great double meaning; it's the rebirth of his recording career and, no doubt, is also about the rekindling of his love for Yoko (after the so-called "lost weekend" that went on for over a year before John's "retirement" five years earlier. ) "Clean Up Time" and "Watching the Wheels" show John relieved to have been out of the music business, with all its pitfalls, and pleased with domestic life. What more proof would you need than "Beautiful Boy" that John was no happier in anything than fatherhood?

Like "Julia," "Oh Yoko!" and a number of earlier songs, "Dear Yoko" and "Woman" are both about, well. . . Yoko. . . or John's love for her. "Dear Yoko" is catchy but is basically a remake of "Oh Yoko" from the Imagine album. Catchy or not, audiences don't need to hear song after song after song about the same person. "Woman" is fantastic and generic enough that the rest of us guys can hear it and think about our gals.

The title, Double Fantasy, is somewhat a misnomer as it suggests that you get the music of two great artists for the price of one. Whatever her merits as an avant garde visual or performance artist, Yoko's work on this or any other commercial John Lennon album was regrettable at best. John either did not understand or didn't care that his fans, by and large, were not interested in what Yoko had to say, mostly because of how she would say (screech, wail) it. Like Double Fantasy, Milk and Honey, finished after John's death, is a split album, roughly � John, � Yoko. Had Yoko's material been left out entirely and the company issued one album of Lennon's material from Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey, it would have been the best of all his solo albums.

Sadly, this album was panned by some as being too domesticated. Before his death, critics treated Double Fantasy like they had much of McCartney's solo work, arguing that it was sub-par, sentimental fluff. What those critics ignored is that an artist can only be angry for so long. By the time John had turned 40 - 39 actually - he had found a peaceful place in life, come to terms with some of his early life pain and struggles. It's called growing up. Had Lennon continued howling about his dead mother 20-some years after her death, that would have been truly sad. Double Fantasy's strength, not its weakness, is that it's the happiest album John ever made. .

John's Last Album During His Lifetime
Double Fanrasy came after a few years of hiatus from the music business where John spent his time being a father and husband, he had returned to Yoko and their son Sean was born in the meantime. Double Fantasy was John Lennon's last album recorded during his lifetime, although he was already working on "Milk and Honey" when he died. Up on it's release it was a very anticipated and the critically were positive for once. John had even said that he had never been this happy before in his life. Everything just seemed perfect for John at this point, unfortunately he was shot dead by a lunatic only three weeks after this album's release and the world lost one of the best and most influentual songwriters of all time. The sudden death of John triggered the sales of the album and eventually it was one of the most sold albums of the year and the single "Just Like Starting Over" became a number one on many charts, most notably US and UK, but it became #1 after his death. "Double Fantasy" is a excellent album by it's own but certainly it wouldn't have sold as good if John hadn't died. One of the main problems is that half of the songs are Yoko's and they are not as good as John's compositions. The last time they made a album together is ended with disaster on "Some Time in New York", why do it again when it was evident that Yoko wasn't a good musician like her husband?. I think the reason is symbolic, they had been separated and they were back together, it was "Just like Starting Over" so normally a co-laboration would be the perfect thing to do for a couple that had re-found love. How does this album measure up song by song?

The first song "Just Like Staring Over" is a comeback song that both deals with starting over with his music career and his family life with Yoko and his 2 sons Julian and Sean. The song itself sound like a country/western number, possibly influenced by early Elvis music. "Kiss Kiss Kiss" is a Ono song and it sounds like New Wave. It's not that bad, but it sounds so odd having this one at the same album as John's songs. "Cleanup Time" is a very jazz number that feature horns, but lyrically it isn't one of the best. "Give Me Something" sound more like the New Wave Blondie then pop/rock that John did. "I'm Losing You" is another deep ballad. "I'm Moving On" yet again a Yoko song, and it's getting quite evident that she isn't the artist that John was

"Beautiful Boy" is one of the best songs here and it was also a single release. The song is one of a few that deals with family life, in this case his son Sean. The song is a slow paced love song between father and son. "Watching the Wheels" is a meliodic midtempo from John, here he explains why he was absent from the music industry and public appearances for the last 5 years. The song was his third single from the album. "Yes I'm Your Angel" is a ballad from Yoko, but neither this one is anything to write home about. Listening to it, I'm not sure if it's serious or not. "Woman" was Lennon's second single from the album and I rank it as one of his all time bests. It's a sweet and personal ballad about a man's love and thankfullness for his woman. It starts like "Woman I can hardly express, My mixed emotion at my thoughtlessness, After all I'm forever in your debt, And woman I will try express, My inner feelings and thankfullness, For showing me the meaning of succsess". "Beautiful Boys" is a Yoko song about their son Sean and husband John. It sound more serious then her other songs and suits into this album better aswell. "Dear Yoko" is a meliodic country inspired song from John to Yoko. It's a quite well known song, and you can understand why. "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him" is a Yoko song, nothing special but also fits into the idea of the album, ditto with "Hard Times Over". "Help Me To Help Myself" is a piano ballad from John, but one of the weaker songs here. "Walking on Thin Ice" is more Yoko New wave and closes the album.

Overall, One of the best John Lennon albums, based on his songs, unfortunately Yoko's songs are not as good and lower the vote, howver this is a legendary album cause it was John's last during his lifetime and also one of those that sold the most. Songs like "Woman" "Beautiful Boy" and "Just Like Starting Over" are top notch and owning them on a album is a good deal, I recommend this album deeply, just skip some of the Yoko songs and you'll have a great collection.
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...a musical genius comes to an abrupt and tragic end
m. On December 8, 1980 at approximately 11 p. Eastern Standard Time, a musical genius came to an abrupt and tragic end; John Lennon, founder of the best rock band that ever walked the earth The Beatles, was shot and killed outside his home in New York City just minutes after returning from a recording session. The world fell into a state of shock. People cried, mourned, and could not believe that the man they grew up listening to and were influenced by was gone forever.

Double Fantasy, his final effort released just the previous month, featured John and Yoko in John's first collection of original songs in over 5 years. The album is not entirely classic material (Plastic Ono Band and Imagine still top Lennon's best achievements) due to the fact that only half the songs are written and sung by John; the other half is written and sung by Yoko, hence the title Double Fantasy. However, the fact that it was John's last album made it a popular favorite and the 1981 Grammy award winner for Album of the Year. What may make some listeners weep while listening to Fantasy is John's calm and pleasant attitude, and optimistic vision of what the 80's should be and sound like. Unfortunately, 1980 was the only part of the 80's that John survived.

The album features some of John's best songs: the renewed love vow to Yoko, Just Like Starting Over, the greatest love ballad ever written Woman, the song about laziness Watching The Wheels, the dark and hard rocking I'm Losing You, the sweet lullaby Beautiful Boy (written for his son Sean), the brilliant Cleanup Time, and the usual dedication to his wife of 11 years, Dear Yoko.

The other part of Double Fantasy features songs written by Yoko for John, in which John responded to with his batch of songs. The highlight of Yoko's songs is the US Top 20 dance hit Kiss Kiss Kiss, which was also featured as the b-side to first single and Number 1 hit Just Like Starting Over.

Despite his death, Lennon's discography does not end at Double Fantasy, 1983's posthumous Milk And Honey features songs that John was recording right before he passed away.

Recommended

B.

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