Product Description

Considered together, IMAGINE and its startling predecessor,PLASTIC ONO BAND, paint a vivid picture of the state of John Lennon immediately post-Beatles. If PLASTIC ONO BAND foundJohn working out his hitherto repressed feelings about childhood and stardom, then the abiding impression of IMAGINE isJohn's one certainty in this storm of doubts and recrimination: his love for Yoko. "Jealous Guy", with its peerless vocal and a spot-on arrangement for strings, is sublime. "Oh MyLove" is all delicacy and melodiousness. "Oh Yoko!" is a celebratory finale with none of the cloying self-obsession of John and Yoko's home movies.
On two other songs where Yoko is not the dominant theme, she is nevertheless invoked through the "oh no, oh no" refrain. That's not to say that lovesongs predominate. Half of the material covers similar terrain to PLASTIC ONO BAND, but the themes are balanced by hopeand even light-heartedness. "Crippled Inside" is leavened by its country stylings including Dobro, courtesy of George Harrison, who also spices up two of the album's pivotal tracks, "Gimme Some Truth" and "How Do You Sleep?" (the latter isa vitriolic attack on Paul McCartney). Outside of PLASTIC ONO BAND, this may be Lennon's finest solo album.

Track Listing

1. Imagine
2. Crippled Inside
3. Jealous Guy
4. It's So Hard
5. I Don't Want To Be A Soldier
6. Give Me Some Truth
7. Oh My Love
8. How Do You Sleep
9. How
10. Oh Yoko

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19629 in Music
• Released on: 2000-02-14
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
The song "Imagine" is so much a part of our culture, it is impossible not to feel something for the album that shares its title. It's also difficult to remember that there are other great tracks here: "How Do You Sleep" is fascinating in its pure, unadulterated bitchiness towards Lennon's former bandmate Paul McCartney, while "Jealous Guy" is undeniably sweet. It is at times brilliant, but Imagine is hardly the greatest and most important album ever. So why bother re-releasing it? Well, it's been "remastered and remixed", but don't expect reworkings by Orbital or Mint Royale (not a bad idea come to think of it), because this Imagine sounds pretty much the same as it ever has. The thing is, it's now so steeped in history, will anyone really judge the songs on their own merit, or just decide to like them because they've been told they should? --Emma Johnston

Customer Reviews

Masterpiece
A fantastic album. All the songs are amazing especially "how do you sleep" and "Imagine", an all time classic and "jealous guy". I reccomend this album to any John Lennon fan. GO JOHNNY GO!

The Emperor's Old Clothes
Okay so Imagine is a great song, one of my favourites actually, and Jealous Guy is really good too, but let's face it as an album this sucks. There are some really ordinary songs on here.

I remember this coming out and all my slightly older friends going on about how good it was but I never got it. I think it is time we all woke up from our collective trance and realised that we mostly just like the idea of John Lennon, and whilst he wrote some excellent songs post Beatles, like McCartney, he missed the presence of the other three Fabs. Looking back at the solo albums of the Beatles the shocking truth is that it is actually Ringo who has beeen the most consistent and true to the Beatles legacy.

All that said the highpoints still drag this album up to 4 stars

Very good songs
I love Lennon's Imagine, even though it is his most popular work. There is a maturity in the best songs from Imagine that was only hinted at previously. We should be happy that he went back to his old style of writting, pre Ono.

If you already own Imagine is it worth buying again? The depth, clarity and overall sound quality has been greatly improved. Imagine had become very familiar to most folks just from all the radio airplay most of the songs had received over the years. But since time has passed, so has the radio play.

So if you love the songs, want to hear them the way they were inteneded, buy it.