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Rating: In 1971, after carefully uprooting his roots from his native soil, John Lennon, with the now ubiquitous Japanese shadow, moved to New York where he decided to establish his solo career in the wake of the Beatles era.
After two works of notable artistic depth, greeted with clamor and a certain positivity by the public and critics, for an obscure reason linked to an unlikely amusement or the last remnants of an unspecified hallucinogenic effect, he collapsed, thanks especially to the active collaboration of the harpy from the land of the rising sun, with a euphemistically mediocre work. This takes nothing away from Lennon's talent which, though clashing with the terrifying predominantly vocal contribution of his partner, still manages to offer some breath of art. Just enough to make the album insufficient and not irreparably dreadful.
The opening track, the passionate blues with horns and voracious feeling, "Woman is the nigger of the world", would seem to be a valid beginning if it weren’t extinguished by the following three tracks, filled with the Japanese girl's chants, skilled at destroying even the textual content of undeniable significance and interesting context. It moves to an excursion in the U.S. megalopolis, of which, along with the first track, I honestly prefer the "live" versions recorded at Madison Square Garden the same year.
From the double tribute to the Irish civilians killed by the English army on the bloody Sunday, Lennon increases his political activism in music and even more so the attention of the CIA and the FBI bugs, attracted for some years among bed-ins, the world’s walls covered by “War is over - If you want it" posters and the parade through the streets of New York shouting an eloquent invitation to delegate power to the people. Obviously, this was enough for the famous American democracy, still steeped in the most idiotic and senile McCarthyism, to brand him as pro-communist and therefore a "public enemy", obscuring the stubbornly pacifist intentions of the songwriter.
"John Sinclair" is dedicated to the poet of the same name, a marijuana consumer and political activist of the "White Panthers", an anti-racist cultural movement. He was sentenced to ten years in prison for giving two marijuana joints to an undercover narcotics officer. Protests from various artists aligned with the left and the unconstitutionality of the crime in the State of Michigan led to his release. "Angela" is for Angela Davis, a member of the Communist Party of the USA and an activist for black rights. She was jailed for a charge not reflecting the facts that actually occurred and was later acquitted, attracting the interest of various entertainment personalities, politicians, and free thinkers, who helped highlight her stature and the reasons for her protest.
The rest, among the bonuses, besides a not very excellent version of "Cold turkey" and some disjointed pieces written with Zappa is absolutely unlistenable. I can't imagine how anyone could endure Yoko Ono's howls of which I never managed to understand the connection. Tracks characterized by an unbearable moan ranging between a bitch in heat and a sort of Axl Rose with menstrual cramps and a nervous breakdown.
And to think this isn't the only album containing such horrors. Therefore, it seems strange that after two giants like "Plastic Ono Band" and "Imagine", one would take a step back by including the main characteristics of albums (?) like "Two Virgins" which I don’t even dare to listen to. If you think that that shrew managed to ruin even "Double Fantasy", then...
An album with two stars but only out of respect, which also has, perhaps, the dishonor of a cover copied from "Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull, released a few months earlier.
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