Retro Spins: John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy

 

I'm by no means a giant Beatles fan. Never really got into the individual member's solo albums, but with that said, own quite a bit of it all. While I never really gave John Lennon any much space in my mind to roam, I knew about his highly praised Double Fantasy album for quite some time.

The album is definitely a love letter between Lennon and Ono, with each one rotating the lead vocals on every other track. A personal album, for sure, but not one that (at the time) critics were fond of. 

Upon its initial release, the album didn't have the impact many expected it to have. In fact, many reviews were quite harsh. It was following Lennon's murder a few weeks after the album was released that the album started to gain traction. This was most likely aided by many negative reviews being held back due to the singer's death.

Double Fantasy would eventually reach the number one spot, and stay there for eight weeks. It would go on to win a Grammy Award the following year, and even be ranked number twenty-nine on Rolling Stone's 1989 list of one hundred greatest 80's albums. Interest, considering that at the time of its release, writer Tom Carson of Rolling Stone wrote a not so favorable review of the album. Granted, it was among the ones withheld from publication, as noted above.

It wouldn't be until recently that I would focus my attention on getting Double Fantasy. This was during a period when I was putting together a compilation of every number one hit from 1980 to 1989, which caused me to have to do a little "clean up" work of missing albums. While this one was among those missing, on a side note, I was a little surprised to see that I only needed about nine albums in total to achieve my goal.

Though I'm still incredibly far behind on listening to everything, I'm trying more and more to spin discs relatively close to the time I purchase them. Mainly because I have such a massive backlog, and I need to catch up so that I can keep up. Which admittedly won't be anytime soon.

But, today, I'm firing up Double Fantasy, and having my own little listening party.

It starts out with the number one hit, (Just Like) Starting Over, which is of course the song I got the album for. From there, I got my first introduction to Yoko Ono's singing, and while I was initially enjoying Kiss Kiss Kiss, it quickly turned annoying when she started making some yodeling dolphin sounds. I thought to myself, "Oh boy, if this is how this is going to go, I'm not going to enjoy this at all." Fortunately, I caught on rather quickly about the above noted rotating lead vocals, so this helped to ease the matter.

While she would continue to make weird sounds here and there, it was thankfully not consistent. However, as a whole, the album felt a bit odd to be listening to. As I said initially, this album is a love letter between a husband and wife, and not one that I think most people would care to hear. In hindsight, I can understand why critics felt the way they did about Double Fantasy. It isn't relatable to the common listener. Further, because it doesn't hide the fact of how personal it is, it doesn't leave much room for songs which are just "good".

Don't get me wrong, Double Fantasy isn't bad. It's just not commercial enough. I just don't see anyone saying, "Gee, let me throw that album on and listen to John and Yoko profess their love to each other for forty-five minutes. I think it's great that they loved each other so much. I just don't think the entire world needed to hear about it.

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