John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No.1, 2 & 3 (2016)

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No. 1 Two Virgins

Secretly Canadian and Sean Lennon’s Chimera music are endeavoring on a reissue campaign (called the Yoko Ono Reissue Project) of Yoko Ono albums, which include her more experimental albums with John Lennon. Sean Lennon has overseen the releases along with Ono. Two Virgins is part of the first batch being reissued (the others include Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band). Incredibly, this is the first official vinyl reissue of the album since it’s original Apple release in November, 1968 (the album had been reissued in 1997 on CD, which featured a bonus track.) Lennon and Secretly Canadian have replicated the original issue beautifully, complete with the brown outer sleeve.

This album is famous for a few reasons. One, following the recording of the album, John and Yoko became a couple. Second, it was the first solo album by a Beatle. Third, the cover was very controversial and banned in several states and countries. The cover, of course, featuring a naked John and Yoko. The album became one of the most talked about and least listened to records in rock history. So, what can a listener expect to hear on this album. Well, experimentation is the word. This album was recorded over one night with John providing sound effects, synthesizer doodlings and talking while Yoko used her voice. Is it pleasurable listening, well, no. Is it interesting? That is subjective. I like it for its experimentation and noise. Not the first of its kind, but the first by a major pop artist (Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music would not exist were it not for this album). But this album is not for everyone. If you skip over “Revolution 9” when listening to ‘The White Album”, this may not be for you. But it is an interesting footnote in rock history, and I for one am glad it is available again (also, first time digitally, which includes the bonus track on the CD issue)

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No. 2 Life With The Lions

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's second collaborative album consists of five tracks: all of side one is taken up by "Cambridge 1969," a live recording at Lady Mitchell Hall in Cambridge of Lennon playing an electric guitar backup to Ono's singing and screaming. Side two includes an a cappella rendering by Ono of "No Bed for Beatle John," which discusses the refusal of a hospital to give Lennon a bed so he could stay during his wife's troubled pregnancy; "Baby's Heartbeat," which is what it says it is; "Two Minutes Silence" in commemoration of Ono's miscarriage, which is also what it says it is; and "Radio Play," 12 minutes of a radio dial being turned back and forth to pick up random stations. If, as they suggested, their lives were their art, then this is, too. Maybe.

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No. 3 Wedding Album

Wedding Album by John Lennon & Yoko Ono was released in 1969 and was universally panned upon its release. You do have to remember that The Beatles were still a going concern at the time and were famed for writing some of the greatest pop music known to man. This, as well as being the couple’s third album of experimental music was also the third shock that critics suffered from the Lennon canon and was probably too much for them to take. It’s probably a good time to re-evaluate such experimentation 50 years down the line, we’re more used to this kind of thing now.