John Lennon

These are demos for John and Yoko's planned LP after Starting Over. "Nobody Told Me" is one of Lennon's all-time best cuts, and it's the strongest thing here. Such tracks as "I Don't Wanna Face It" and "I'm Stepping Out" are so good that it's a shame that Lennon didn't dump Yoko's tracks on Starting Over and just release one kick-ass album on his own.

Milk and Honey was conceived as a companion piece to Double Fantasy. Each is subtitled
"A Heart Play," and while the earlier album was meant to be something of a healing ritual
(coming after John and Yoko's eighteen-month separation and Lennon's subsequent
five-year "retirement" from recording), its successor seems designed as a portrait of
domestic bliss. According to Ono's liner notes, she and Lennon consciously ado... More >

Those too numbed by tragedy or hope to connect with Double Fantasy aren't likely to hear this one either--it's definitely more of the same, in John's case outtakes. But these were clearly rejected on conceptual rather than musical grounds, as just too quirky to suit the careful househusband image John wanted for his return to the arena. Which is why I like them better, especially spiced with asides he would have erased before final release. Yoko's songs are more recent and that's another plus, because her pop only began to jell with Double Fantasy; the horny querulousness of "Sleepless Night" and the cricket synthesizers on "You're the One" are confident personal elaborations of a tradition she comes to secondhand. Only the two middle cuts on the B get soupy. What a farewell. (Grade - A)