Acoustic

I had to think twice before buying this CD released in 2004. It's been nearly 25 years since John Lennon's death and I was worried that this was a collection of recordings dredged from the bottom of the barrel. I am not disappointed for the simple fact that it contains a few excellent tracks that most Lennon fans will be happy to add to their collection."Imagine" is beautifully performed by Lennon live on an acoustic guitar. It is a gem. In my opinion, this would be a wonderful new single because it is that good. Other songs that are performed by Lennon superbly are "Look At Me," "Watching The Wheels," "Real Love" and "John Sinclair."There are some songs that I would categorize as pedestrian, meaning Lennon was simply making a test recording and they lack the development of the songs listed above - in other words, they are boring. They are "Love," "Working Class Hero" and "Dear Yoko." A couple are just fragments of songs and I question the wisdom of including them on this CD, like "Woman is the Nigger of the World," "God" and "It's Real." The song "My Mummy's Dead" is not very different from the version on Lennon's "Plastic Ono Band" album.A couple of Lennon's songs are obviously poor quality recordings and only the most die-hard fan will argue they are listenable. A distorted version of "Cold Turkey" along with weak versions of "Well Well Well" and "What You Got." I hate to do some Yoko-bashing, but there is one song on this CD that I wish I had not listened to at all. I began listening happily to "The Luck of the Irish" because it is a rare Lennon composition. This version is a duet with Yoko Ono that started to make my skin crawl before the song was half over. Yoko's voice and off-key singing was incredibly annoying.The CD includes a nice booklet with never before published photos of John with acoustic guitars. There was also something I did not expect with the CD. The booklet contains not just the words to the songs, but also the chords and chord diagrams so that you can play along on your own guitar.For the majority of Lennon fans, this will be an enjoyable CD because of the highlights, like "Imagine." The casual fan or someone new to Lennon's music will probably be disappointed by this CD because it lacks the polish of other Lennon releases.

It's intimate, and clean and clear. One of my favorite John albums (and I havvem all!).

New Lennon material is -or should be- a cause for celebration, this 44m CD, however, is something of a mixed blessing. My biggest beef is that someone in production or engineering decided that it would be good to add an electronic, chorusey, underwater effect to the mono recordings-about half the album. When you compare these to the same ones on the Lennon Anthology you will find that the older versions sound clear and natural, the new ones here sound washy and electronic. This is just stupid and disrespectful. The tracks with this processing are 1,2,3,10,12, 14,and 16. Also, THERE IS NO TABLATURE INCLUDED!! What there is are microscopic chord letters printed above the lyrics, and a page and a half of chord diagrams (Does anyone really not know a C chord?) The seven new songs are: a rough 1:17m demo of Well Well Well with underwater effect; an early, not finished guitar/voc version of God with stereo reverb added; a true alternate take of My Mummy's Dead with a longer guitar outro (happily not electronically mangled), a distorted demo of Cold Turkey played on a buzzy guitar wherein John warbles ala Yoko; an early demo version of What You Got that features some amazing guitar tricks, again, luckily no electronic glop; a distorted Dear Yoko on a really buzzy guitar; and an early Real Love, actually Real Life at that point. John did many versions of this song. This is certainly not the best, but charming nonetheless, with some of John's best whistling, and an abondoned bridge section based on part of "Isolation", and lots of underwater effect. The live stereo recordings of Luck of the Irish and John Sinclair are excellent, particularly the latter, with sparse accompaniment by ?? These, along with Love, Working Class Hero, and Look At Me are the best of the previously released stuff. Imagine is kind of rote, and not as good as the TV (Mike Douglas?) version that has been bootlegged. The songs duplicated on the Anthology are tracks 1,2,4,8,9,10,12,15 and 16. Before you buy this CD, make sure you have John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Live Peace in Toronto 1969, Walls and Bridges, and Double Fantasy.

I bought this to practise/learn some of Lennon's beautiful songs. It will be much easier, I thought, to learn on hearing his acoustic one-man, one-guitar work. However, when I opened the case, I was treated with something even better. The booklet includes a dedication by Yoko to all aspiring guitarists. Even better, the booklet includes the official chord sheet for every song on the album. After some practice, I found that this was so much easier to learn to than the studio versions, and I feel pretty happy with my results. So for the purposes of trying to learn guitar by--which is why I bought the album in the first place--this album is a must-have for both aspiring guitarists and hardcore Lennon fans.As a record, it is a very novelty item. Most of the songs were recorded as demos at home, and the sound quality tells that story. Now, it's not bad by any means, but it's not as "soft" as a track from Abbey Road Studios might sound. On the other hand, the songs being stripped-down as they are seem very honest and candid, in a way that sounds like being in the room with John as he practises. For the hardcore Lenon fan, it's a very intimate connection with the music and the man behind it.

Thankyou for your prompt service. Excellent I am delighted with the product

As a big Lennon fan this is must own stuff. Kind of in the vain of hearing Cobain's early hits stripped down. Stand outs for me personally are Love which is truly beautiful and Luck Of The Irish (pity about Yoko though).

Some unusual songs on here as well as what you would expect Well worth listening too It's John performing at his most raw

Love Lennon, love the Beatles but this is a waste of time even for a Lennon freak.

awful quality of sound. They could have published better acoustic recordings from John