john lennon/plastic ono band (john lennon)
This is a dark, extremely personal album. It all fits nicely into a certain theme- John unleashing his anxieties, frustrations, disillusions, all the pent-up pain. Just pushing it all out there. Wrestling with the agony of his orphanage (the primally searing "Mother," bookended with the hauntingly, heart-achingly subtle "My Mummy's Dead"), the loneliness and frustration of celebrity (or romance) (the White Album-esque "Look at Me"), the falseness of religion, the Beatles, and every other prophet or savior ("God," one hell of a personal anthem), class-based social injustice and discontent (the pitch-black but beautiful "Working Class Hero"), feeling trapped and alone in a world of madness, with only Yoko ("Isolation")… a deeply confessional, passionate, political album.
This is an example of a record that, lyrically speaking, reminds me of hip hop. Thematically at least- the literacy and defiant spirit in the lyrics would really work well on a smart rap album. Musically, Lennon runs the gamut from dark, crunchy funk ("I Found Out," one of my favorites) to sweet, delicate piano ballads ("Love," one of the more optimistic tracks.) It's simplistic, honestly, to call this a dark album- more precisely, it's an emotional album. A lot of those emotions are dark, but others are very positive, and all are genuine. My overall favorite track, for instance, is relatively optimistic- "Hold On," a nice, groovy, rainy day track.
Even though it's an emotionally intense album, it's never really uncomfortable to listen to… it stays out of the unnervingly unhappy 'Portishead' zone. I don't love this record as much as the others I've heard so far this year, but I do like it- a contemplative, rainy day, dark and passionate record. Pretty good.
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