John Lennon- Plastic Ono Band (1970)- Japanese Release- EAC CD Rip (FLAC)

Yesterday morning I had to wake up early to work on a paper, and instead of working on it, I got all caught up in listening to John Lennon bleed out on this album, his post-Beatles cleansing. We had to share it.





From John Peel:

It is nice to be, as Derek Taylor pointed out last week, a member of the Plastic Ono Band. If you remember, you are too - our first hit record and it is a good feeling. Play it somewhere friendly, and sing along and it does feel right.

Sometimes you must read the papers or hear the radio or even watch the degrading spectacle of television (remember when television had a capital "t"?) and feel sad at the cruelty, the stupidity and the selfishness of a great number of those with whom we share this planet. They will take it from us if we don't stop them. Then think, when you are saddened, about some of the good people who breathe the same air you do, who walk the same land you do and who see the same sunshine and feel the same rain as you. Most of them you'll never see or meet or know-but they're there and you'd like them, love them if you did meet then. John Lennon and Yoko are two of them.

I don't know the other Beatles - I've only met John and his lady twice and briefly. However I honestly feel as close to Yoko and John as I do to any other people on earth. To talk to the two of them is to talk to one person which sounds daft but isn't. The chances are good, that you'll never meet them and I probably won't again. It doesn't matter much anyway because it is a joy to know that they are alive somewhere. It is a joy to know that so many good and thoughtful people are alive somewhere - and some are no longer alive in the very narrowness of the idea of "living." It is good to know that YOU are alive. Perhaps it's just another record. Apple IS just another company, John and Yoko are just other people. To me it's a magic record and they are magic people.




Technical Information:

Artist: John Lennon
Album: Plastic Ono Band (Japanese Release)
Year: 1970

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC split tracks
Avg. bitrate: 747 kb/s
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 247 MB
Length: 0:46:25


Personnel:

John Lennon: guitar, piano, vocals
Yoko Ono: wind
Ringo Starr: drums
Klaus Voorman: bass




Tracklisting:

01. Mother (5:37)
02. Hold On (1:52)
03. I Found Out (3:38)
04. Working Class Hero (3:51)
05. Isolation (2:52)
06. Remember (4:36)
07. Love (3:24)
08. Well Well Well (6:00)
09. Look At Me (2:56)
10. God (4:11)
11. My Mummy's Dead (0:59)

Bonus tracks:

12. Power to the People (3:23)
13. Do the Oz (3:08)


Thanks to Gregor for the original upload!





Plastic Ono Band Megaupload Link

Yoko Ono with Plastic Ono Band- Fly (1971)- EAC CD Rip (FLAC)

I was supposed to post Fly some time during last Christmas, but Jesus Week and a night of hard drinking while attempting to make the post left a train wreck cowering in "draft mode"...until tonight.

When I posted the last Yoko Ono album a ways back, I complained that it should have been "a little more experimental." Well, I got my wish, didn't I. Fly moves from sub-Saharan affected dog yelps to vocal Metal Machine Music, followed by bare-wire ballads and phone rings and Maenad glossolalia. This leaves one to wonder if Bjork put the royalty check in the mail. Fly is some brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Like I said in my drunken post that you'll never see..."Yoko OnI iz a FUKING GodAss!" Excuse my French and enjoy the album.




From Tim Harris at Rolling Stone, 1971:

Yoko's new offering, unlike her husband's, is a two-record set. I admit to a bias against double albums, which often seem to represent only an inadequate solution to the problem of what to leave out. That prejudice declared, I have to say that I found it impossible to listen attentively to this whole album more than once. It's hard to guess why Yoko found it necessary to take up so much vinyl to state her case.

The title song, "Fly," which originally accompanied the perambulations of an intoxicated fly over a woman's nude body in Yoko's film, takes nearly 23 minutes. Most of it is unaccompanied. Yoko's voice exhibits moments of considerable virtuosity, originality and wit, but I doubt that any but a single-minded student of her music could sit through it more than a couple of times. Some of the shorter songs — "Don't Worry Kyoko," and "Mind Train" — are livened by a strong rock accompaniment, but don't seem to show a significant development from Yoko's previous album.

In the course of the four sides there are some nice things. "Mind Holes" has a pair of fine opentuned acoustic guitar tracks by John and a soaring, ghostly vocal by Yoko. In "O'Wind (Body is the Scar of Your Mind)," Yoko does a highly vigorous performance, set against involuted percussion.




"Airmale" is a ten-minute experimentation in studio effects, primarily tape delay, one of John and Yoko's favorite devices. It's eerie enough, but then, no electronic effect is easier to achieve than eerieness.

The most orthodox cut is "Mrs. Lennon," a straight melody which Yoko sings in a pretty voice, much as Adolf Gottlieb might paint a little portrait to show the untutored that he doesn't have to do abstracts. Yoko's voice is diffused and diminished by excessive reverberation, which she doesn't need.

The Joe Jones Tone Deaf Music Co. appears on three of the album's 13 cuts, for which Yoko is owed thanks. They are fascinating, and the rest of the studio work is top-rate as well: Ringo, Eric Clapton. Klaus Voorman, Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon, Bobby Keyes, Chris Osborne. John plays guitar with his customary freshness, as though he had just been handed the instrument after a year of enforced separation.




But all in all it just doesn't hold up. The problem is not necessarily that Yoko is uncreative or that her voice is less than unique and amazingly dexterous. Until she and John start producing her stuff with a more dispassionate attitude, with less of a conspicuous effort to demonstrate their respect for one another, I doubt that anyone will really know how creative she is. The problem is that nobody involved with this record seems to have asked hard questions about what is first-rate and what is not, what is original and what is merely repetitive.

Two short interludes on the record illustrate this in a particularly depressing way: One consists of the sound of a toilet flushing. The other, at the end of side four, is a telephone. It rings six times. Then Yoko's voice: "Hello. This is Yoko." That's all. It would be interesting to know whether anyone anywhere regards these touches as inspiring, or funny, or cute, or revealing, or anything but tiresome.

I don't believe that Yoko's music is the music of the future, as some of her fans say, but it isn't noise, either, as some of her critics say. It is serious work, often rewarding of close attention, better listened to alone than in groups, and capable at its best of expanding one's idea of certain kinds of musical horizons. It has considerable potential, which is why I wish Yoko would start discriminating between what she can and cannot do well. The results might well be more surprising than what she has done so far.




Technical Information:

Artist: Yoko Ono with Plastic Ono Band
Album: Fly
Year: 1971

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC split tracks

Avg. bitrate:
Disc 1- 871 kb/s
Disc 2- 784 kb/s

Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2

File size:
Disc 1- 262 MB
Disc 2- 299 MB

Length:
Disc 1- 0:42:04
Disc 2- 0:53:20




Tracklisting:

Disc 1:

01. Midsummer New York (3:52)
02. Mindtrain (16:53)
03. Mind Holes (2:47)
04. Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for her Hand in the Snow) (4:55)
05. Mrs. Lennon (4:12)
06. Hirake (3:32)
07. Toilet Piece- Unknown (0:31)
08. O'Wind (Body Is the Scar of Your Mind) (5:23)

Disc 2:

01. Airmale (10:43)
02. Don't Count the Waves (5:25)
03. You (8:59)
04. Fly (22:52)
05. Telephone Piece (0:38)
06. Between the Takes (1:58)
07. Will You Touch Me (2:45)





Fly Megaupload Links:

Disc 1
Disc 2

Yoko Ono- Approximately Infinite Universe (1972)- EAC CD Rip (FLAC)

I'll say one thing about Yoko Ono. She can write some of the most personal lyrics this side of Elliott Smith. Everything she writes is so honest and straight-forward- painfully honest at times. Gimmee a sec. Check out these lyrics:

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Blue dots and red dots skating away in the park.
I used to be there twenty years ago,
Huffing over a mug hot chocolate drink.

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Wondering if one should jump off or go to sleep.
People tell you up is better than down,
But they never tell you which is up and which is down.

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
95 pound bundle but it's trouble when there's nowhere to leave.
People say stardust and golddust are it,
But they never tell you it chokes you just as sawdust does.

Age 39, feeling pretty suicidal,
The weight gets heavier when you've bled thirty years.
Show me your blood, john, and i'll show you mine,
They say it's running even when you're asleep.

No trace of resentment, no trace of regrets,
One blood's thinner but both look red and fresh.
If i ever die, please go to my daughter
And tell her that she used to haunt me in my dreams.
(that's saying a lot for a neurotic like me.)

Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Trying to tackle away with heart of clay.
The weight gets lighter when there's nowhere to turn,
God's little dandruff floating in the air.

Age 39, looking over the world,
Age 39, floating over the world,
Age 39,...mm-mm...floating along.

Damnnnnnnnnnn. Crazy good. My only complaint with this album is that Yoko was attempting to go mainstream musically, but still had the crazy lyrics, which makes for a strange mix. Crazy music would have been a better choice. Other than that- it's all good.




Technical Information:

Artist: Yoko Ono
Album: Approximateley Infinite Universe
Year: 1972

Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC Split-Tracks-log+.cue
Avg. bitrate: 811 kbps
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 538 MB
Length: 1:32:44


Yoko Ono- Yang Yang Yoko Ono- Move on Fast

Personnel:

Yoko Ono: vocals, piano ("Looking Over From My Hotel Window", "She Gets Down on Her Knees")
Stan Bronstein: saxophone, flute, clarinet
Richard Frank, Jr.: drums, percussion
Daria Prince: castanet
Gary Van Scyoc: bass, trumpet
Adam Ippolito: piano, organ, harmonuim, trumpet
Wayne Gabriel: guitar
Joel Nohnn (John Lennon): guitar, background vocals

All songs composed by Yoko Ono
Produced by Yoko Ono and John Lennon
Arrangement: Yoko Ono
String orchestration: Ron Frangipane




Tracklisting:

Disc One:

01. Yang Yang (3:50)
02. Death of Samantha (6:22)
03. I Want My Love To Rest Tonight (5:11)
04. What Did I Do! (4:12)
05. Have You Seen A Horizon Lately (1:57)
06. Approximately Infinite Universe (3:21)
07. Peter The Dealer (4:46)
08. Song for John (2:06)
09. Catman (The Rosies Are Coming) (5:34)
10. What a Bastard The World Is (4:35)
11. Waiting for the Sunrise (2:33)

Disc Two:

01. I Felt Like Smashing My Face In A Clear Glass Window (4:09)
02. Winter Song (3:39)
03. Kite Song (3:18)
04. What a Mess (2:41)
05. Shiranakatta (I Didn't Know) (3:11)
06. Air Talk (3:22)
07. I Have a Woman Inside My Soul (5:33)
08. Move on Fast (3:43)
09. Now or Never (5:49)
10. Is Winter Here To Stay? (4:22)
11. Looking Over From My Hotel Window (3:36)
12. Dogtown (acoustic demo) (bonus track) (2:51)
13. She Gets Down on Her Knees (bonus track) (2:45)





AIU Megaupload Link