As much of a Beatles fan as I am, I don’t own much of their solo material. I came across the Imagine: John Lennon<\/i> soundtrack in the bargain bin and was impressed by the list of songs, particularly the material from Double Fantasy, <\/i>which I found too Ono-centric to add to my collection. <\/i>I’d seen the film when it came out twenty years ago, and it did make an impression on me, but not for the soundtrack. I think that we’ve been exposed to so much media regarding the Beatles that we expect any images of them in TV or film to be accompanied by their music as well. More often than not it’s true. In the case of the Imagine<\/i> film, the visual material and narration, largely unseen material from Lennon’s personal archives, was compelling enough that the music took a back seat.\u00a0 On its own, the soundtrack is an offbeat but satisfying collection of John’s music with and without The Beatles.<\/p>\n
The Beatles songs feature the usual mix, with emphasis on John’s more introspective songs obviously. \u201cIn My Life\u201d and \u201cJulia\u201d illustrate early examples of John\u2019s deeply personal songwriting. The Lennon solo songs feature a more stark contrast. The early cathartic pieces \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cMother\u201d from The Plastic Ono Band<\/i> album show much different sides of John’s style from the gentle \u201cWoman\u201d and \u201cJealous Guy,\u201d two of John\u2019s most tender and self-effacing songs. The previously unheard demo of \u201cReal Love\u201d is a nice addition that the Beatles would cover for their Anthology<\/i> documentary a few years later.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve grown very fond of this disc. It’s not a Lennon greatest hits album by nature or intent, and that’s part of what makes it enjoyable. It’s a quirky hybrid of John’s career with the Beatles and as a solo artist. It’s unique in that it contains a sizable chunk of Beatles songs mixed with Lennon solo material. Other than live recordings, any collection that includes both Beatles music and solo material from any of the Beatles is unusual. This album would be a nice addition to a good collection of quality Lennon material for the casual fan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":29672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7187],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41271","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-lennon","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41271"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}