Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Thursday April 28

Perhaps I have a more dispassionate reaction, being too young to remember the Beatles breaking up, but I think Yoko Ono gets way too much crap, from everyone. She is a total badass, and I think she is due a lot of props.

However, that doesn’t mean I enjoy all of her music. In fact, I enjoy very little of it. Listening to Don’t Worry Kyoko all the way through (16 minutes of it) about killed me. However, Sisters, O Sisters, Born in a Prison, and We’re All Water are decent songs that I can get into, both musically and lyrically.

The Yoko disclaimer out of the way, I think Some Time in NYC is very underrated. This album epitomizes the theory that John Lennon started as a rocker and mutated into a folk singer (while Bob Dylan started as a folk singer and mutated into a rocker).

Woman is The Nigger of the World is a very ballsy song to write, and is somewhat offensive and true at the same time. Attica State, New York City, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Luck of The Irish, John Sinclair, and Angela are all very rocking and poignant political folk songs. The 70s saxophone can be very cheesy in many other situations, but for some reason it works to great effect in John Lennon songs. He had some kickass musicians working with him here.

Except for the aforementioned Yoko screams punctuating too many of the songs, the live jam with Frank Zappa is very funky as well, and seems like an awesome show to have attended. Who doesn’t want to scream “Scumbag” while dancing their butt off to amazing music?