Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
 john lennon July 28, 2010
saranne
i found your descrption and delivery were as described and i will enjoy listening for the next few years-but i think the
postman is getting longer arms with my amazon purchases!
 Rubs me up the wrong way May 2, 2010
Mr. C. Morris (London)
Nothing against another Lennon compilation, and these tracks are remastered. It's just, I don't like the way they're remastered. No 9 Dream in particular just doesn't run smoothly or how I remembered it, the 'hawaian' guitar opener for instance sounds too wibbly wobbly. (Although Watching the Wheels sounds terrific.) My other problem is it's not chronological but frontloaded with the soppy, domesticated Lennon tracks so you lose that sense of narrative, the musical journey from post-Beatle despair, the Lost Weekend, commercial rebirth and so on. (Just Like) Starting Over is v poignant in the context of being recorded just before his death, but kicking off this compilation it just sounds like a naff, derivative bit of cod-1950s pastiche, which in a way, is exactly what it was. Finally, unknown (to me) tracks like Stepping Out are truly awful, they give domesticity a bad name as Lennon's househusband asks permission from his career wife for a night on the town, 'cheekily' suggesting he might be back by midnight, 'maybe one, maybe two' on the playout. This compilation cuts Lennon's cojones off, and the way the tracks are put together, the man sounds particularly self-pitying and sentimental in a way that Macca would find hard to match, especially these days with recent output like Memory Almost Full and Electric Arguments showing more musical adventure than Lennon musters in 10 years. Personally I'd go for Lennon Legend. BTW Working Class hero? Lennon wasn't working class, and these songs put one in mind of an Islington middle class lecturer pouring himself a glass of red wine of an evening, waiting for Sasha to come home from ballet with her mother.
 Best Lennon compilation, but it's just not The Beatles.... January 29, 2010
Walter (Hampshire, UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is unquestionably the best of the many Lennon compilations available, so for those in the market for a broad career overview of Lennon's solo material, look no further: this is the one to get. Minor quibbles about choice of material aside ('How Do You Sleep?' is missing, for example), this is the only double CD of songs covering all of Lennon's albums. If you are a fan, the chances are you will own all the separate albums already, so the prospect of another compilation becomes somewhat redundant for anyone other than the dedicated completist or the casual listener.
Good as this set undoubtedly is, by being broad and eclectic in its choice of material it dilutes the impact of the individual albums, and serves to underline the inescapable fact that Lennon, like all the solo Beatles, was lesser than the sum of their parts. Veering occasionally towards excessive sentimentality in the later material, there is also a harsh and repetetive edge to many of Lennon's songs that cries out for the softening influence of McCartney and studio wizardry of George Martin. But Lennon's intention always appeared to be to distance himself from his Beatles legacy, at least in song, as in 'I don't believe in Beatles.....' (from the song God), and both he and the solo McCartney indulged in musical excesses which together the other would have held in check. Talented though he undoubtedly was, there is little in Lennon's solo legacy that reaches the heights of The Beatles in their prime. Once again, we are left with the bitter aftertaste of his wasteful and untimely death, and an overriding sense of 'what if?'.
Great compilation July 14, 2009
S. K. FLORA (Sutton Coldfield,U.K.)
If you are looking to explore the music of John Lennon and want a great compilation then this is the best on the market, of all the compilations available this one goes a little more in depth than the usual'hits' packages and my personal faves have always been songs that aren't the ones everyone knows.
Get this compilation today , it's well worth investing in and the music here is a cut above most stuff you'll ever here- then again it's Lennon so what did you expect?
the definitive 'solo' lennon March 13, 2009
yerblues (london)
This is easily the best 'solo' lennon compilation available to date. The track selection is excellent and draws from most of the solo albums. The running order is not chronological, which makes the listening more interesting. Personally, I would have left off certain posthumously released tracks to include more from Imagine, Plastic ono Band, and 'Rock and Roll', Strangely there's nothing included from 'Live Peace in Toronto 1969'.
Apart from the well known classic songs, highlights for me include the George Martin produced ' Grow Old with Me'- which is painfully beautiful and extremely moving...and tracks from Walls and Bridges (an album i didnt like upon first release)...hearing the remastered 'scared' bless you' '#9 Dream' and 'Nobody loves you when you're down and out' again after so long has been a slice of heaven! and has completely revised my opinion on that 'lost weekend' album.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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