Rock 'n' Roll: Remixed & Remastered
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Reviews
Good album
Review date: 2007-01-17 Rating: 8 out of 10
For an album that is made up of mostly demo's and John having fun in the record studio while recording earlier albums, this is actually very good and sounds like it came out of a proper session!
As said, this album was made up of songs John recorded between Sessions during the "Mind games" and "Walls and Bridges" sessions, two different style albums, but what he saw as having fun from those sessions, results in this album that really grows on you, and takes you back to the VERY early Beatles sessions!
Mostly a Great Album
Review date: 2006-12-14 Rating: 8 out of 10
Apparently this album was John's attempt to be 'just a musician' and let the producer treat him as the singer. However, when the producer was Phil Spector being difficult, this didn't turn out to be a good idea. Only four Spector produced songs made it to the finished record and John had to arrange and produce the rest.
I have to admit to hating Do You Wanna Dance and the Rip it Up medley, but the rest is great. You Can't Catch Me and Stand By Me are marvellous.
I like the extra tracks on the new CD release, but the packaging is pathetic: no musician credits or liner notes and only a thin bit of folded paper. OK, the LP had even less information on it, but a nice package does add value and many people may like to know the story behind the music. However, the cover features one of the best ever photos of John, so one can't complain.
Apparently the musicians were the same ones who played on Walls and Bridges, including Jesse Ed Davis and Jim Keltner.
John's singing on Just Because, when he was in effect saying goodbye to the music business, is a real highlight. But, it closed the original album and should also have closed this one. (A similar thing was done with John Lennon/POB, which should have closed with My Mummy's Dead, but in its new form, closes with Do the Oz, which doesn't make sense).
The album came out at the same time as other 'oldies' collections such as The Band's Moondog Matinee, Bowie's Pin Ups and Bryan Ferry's These Foolish Things (I think) but this beats them for sheer authenticity and honesty. And enjoyment.
Highly recommended.
John Lennon's Youth
Review date: 2006-02-06 Rating: 10 out of 10
A must have in any Serious collector of John's material. These covers of tracks he grew up with are covered perfectly. Had on LP which sounds great... what with the remastering on the CD his voice and style live on.
If you don't already have this album, then buy it!
Review date: 2005-03-29 Rating: 8 out of 10
This is a wonderfully spirited album of rock 'n roll covers from Lennon which shows him in confident and exuberant mood as he tackles the favourite songs from his Liverpool youth. It contains no Lennon originals but the Lennon voice and delivery is in top form throughout. And there are several moments of brilliance.
A companion piece to 'Walls And Bridges' recorded in the same year. They both show Lennon at the top of his game and provide regret that he hung up his guitar for a full five years thereafter.
Some tracks work wonderfully well, others less so. So let's start with the triumphs. 'Be Bop A Lula' is an inspired opener, delivered with gusto and aplomb. 'Stand By Me' is such a timeless cover that he practically makes this great song his own. If only because Lennon's vocal is so utterly brilliant and full of desperate conviction. He must have been sub-consciously crying out to Yoko here who at the time of its recording has not yet taken him back. So here we have a great song taken to a new level by the passionate singing which was, one suspects, straight from Lennon's heart. Everybody Hurts as Mr Stipe later commented.
Apart from those two, there are four Spector produced songs that survived from what were thoroughly drunken and difficult sessions from 1973. And at least three of them provide true highlights here: 'Sweet Little Sixteen' is taken a beat or two slower than the original and benefits from this to great effect. Again Lennon has virtually transformed this famous Chuck Berry original into a powerful Lennon tour de force, full of quintessential Lennon singing and phrasing which are totally absent from the original. It is brilliant. The same is true of 'Bony Maronie' which is a great chugging rocker with a fantastic vocal, the like of which could have taken 'Walls And Bridges' to an altogether higher level had it been included there. Not that 'Walls And Bridges' wasn't utterly brilliant of course. Just that in a parallel universe, that album could have been combined with this one to make an unbeatable double album which rocked and agonised in equal measure. For that is about the only criticism that can be levelled at 'Walls And Bridges', that it didn't rock enough. But this album was recorded mostly in the same month!
A third Spector produced track 'Just Because' is brilliant, for its lyric for sure (it is a cover by the way) but more importantly for the quality of Lennon's vocal which is again awesome in its passion, almost on a Plastic Ono Band level, though not quite as Lennon didn't write this one.
Other highlights include rollicking versions of 'Ain't That A Shame', 'Rip It Up / Reddy /Teddy' and of 'Slippin And A Slidin' which are mostly memorable again for Lennon's scathing and passionate vocals.
Other tracks work less well, for example 'Do You Wanna Dance' is an unfortunate attempt at a reggae cover of a well known '50s song, 'Peggy Sue' is OK but rather seems like Lennon is rather going through the motions here. 'Ya Ya' is pretty average in its conviction and its production.
But taken as a whole this Rock 'N Roll cover album is pretty successful. And it is so much rewarding than Paul McCartney's attempts at the same thing: 'Chocca B CCCP' (1988), much of 'Unplugged' (1991) and also 'Run Devil Run', the pretty much disastrous live album from 1999.
The difference is partly in the choice of material perhaps. But I have to say that whenever Paul lapses into a '50s cover version these last two decades it just gets quite annoying. Quite quickly. This album of Lennon's was of course no more than 5 years after the Beatles split. So it has that advantage. At that time remember (1975), McCartney was preparing a triumphant world tour with Wings. And indeed Lennon received accusations from some quarters at the time that he had lost his ability to write songs and reduced to this Oldies But Goldies collection. So Paul at the time could not have won either way had he attempted this kind of album at the time!
History has shown this latter accusation of Lennon's lost ability to be ridiculous and if it wasn't for his untimely death we would surely have had many memorable Lennon songs in the ensuing decades. But this was not to be. The correct historical assessment of this album is that Lennon was having a lot of fun and recording much uplifting music to boot.
No one after all, as we saw from 'Twist And Shout' onwards, can sing rock and roll like Lennon can. This album kicks ass for the most part and it has endured as an album well worthy of investigation. And for freaking out to....Ready Now Ted I'm Ready!!
(Footnote: These bonus tracks I already have on other releases for the most part (on Lennon Anthology or Menlove Avenue for example) so do not add value to the above review from my perspective. I am basically reviewing the original album, not these tedious extras, which frankly should have been included in the afore mentioned Anthology or were a couple of them kept back deliberately to entice fans to 'repurchase' this album? Sorry Yoko but I don't buy it)
So for that I will drop a star if you already own this album on CD. If you don't it is worthy of 4 stars.
Product Details/Specifications
Artist(s):
John Lennon
Recording label: Parlophone
Manufacturer: Parlophone
EAN: 0724387432925
Binding: Audio CD
Format: Original recording remastered,
Release date: 2004-09-27
Universal product code (UPC): 724387432925
Number of discs: 1
Disc 1 Tracks:
1. Be-Bop-A-Lula
2. Stand By Me
3. Rip It Up/Ready Teddy
4. You Can't Catch Me
5. Ain't That A Shame
6. Do You Want To Dance
7. Sweet Little Sixteen
8. Slippin' And Slidin'
9. Peggy Sue
10. Bring It On Home To Me/Send Me Some Lovin'
11. Bony Moronie
12. Ya Ya
13. Just Because
14. Angel Baby
15. To Know Her Is To Love Her
16. Since My Baby Left Me
17. Just Because (Reprise)
Publishers: Parlophone
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