Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:


John Lennon Photos

More from John Lennon

Imagine	Lennon Legend	The U.S. vs. John Lennon
Mind Games	Working Class Hero	Walls and Bridges

Amazon.com's Best of 1998:
John the primal screamer, John the street politician, John the L.A. party boy, and John the house husband. The John Lennon Anthology provides a window into all those phases of the artist's post-Beatles career. Compiled under the watchful eye of Yoko Ono, this rich stash of demos, studio outtakes and chatter, and live and alternate versions serves as both historical artifact and source of entertainment. --Steven Stolder

Amazon.com:
The story The John Lennon Anthology tells--that of the questing former Beatle who took five years off to raise his son before returning with an album of peaceful reflections on the househusband life--isn't new, but for all its monumental status, it does help bring Lennon into focus again as a person and a musician. Since his murder in 1980, Lennon-the-man-of-peace has too often obscured the rocker, the dad, the flawed human being in the public consciousness. While this massive stock of odds and ends--studio outtakes and chatter, live and alternate versions, demos--is necessarily diffuse, it does a great service. It restores the iconic Lennon to normal size.

Some of the set's most striking moments come at its beginning, in eight previously unreleased takes of songs that filled most of 1970's Plastic Ono Band. One of rock's most uncompromised albums, it found him angry, sad, and reflective to bursting. The tapes included on Anthology, though, feature a Lennon who, if not happy, is fully in his element--making rock & roll. Even as he's making dry runs for exorcising demons, he's still the guy who fell for the music as a Liverpool teenager; on an early, shuffling version of 'Hold On,' he leads his guitar line into the main riff of Bill Doggett's 'Honky Tonk.'

Elsewhere, we get long looks at the fits and starts of Lennon's years as a solo artist and as part of a duo with Yoko Ono. He slips from the grace of 'Imagine' and 'It's So Hard' into the raw polemics and lousy rhymes of 'John Sinclair' and 'Attica State.' (Contrary to a stage announcement preceding the latter, it's not this failed anthem that has ensured the ongoing memory of the prison massacre.)

The honesty of Lennon's vocals throughout his career is often commented on, and they provide some of the greatest treasure here. Whether an alternate of the pained 1974 'Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out,' the joyfully full-on rocking of 'Be Bop a Lula' and 'Move Over Ms. L,' or a gorgeous 'Be My Baby,' it's the voice that's the window to this man's soul. We also see how pained he was at his temporary separation from Yoko, as he even inserts a line of 'Jealous Guy' into the demo for the rollicking 'Whatever Gets You Through the Night' and abashed pleads for 'one more chance' on a similar tape of 'Mind Games.'

Finally, there are the many moments of good humor--the outlines of 'I'm the Greatest' and 'Goodnight Vienna' for Ringo, the loose-as-a-goose 'Be Bop a Lula'--and pleasingly bad, like 'Serve Yourself,' a snipe at Dylan's born-again phase, or some battling studio exchanges with a Phil Spector crazed enough to drive anyone out of the business for half a decade. Anthology is flawed, but its wide-ranging picture of Lennon's post-Beatles years is that of someone you'd love to have spent some time with. --Rickey Wright









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• Mind Games
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• Imagine (Deluxe Edition)
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Disc 1:

1. Working Class Hero
2. God
3. I Found Out
4. Hold On
5. Isolation
6. Love
7. Mother
8. Remember
9. Imagine
10. 'Fortunately'
11. Baby Please Don't Go
12. Oh My Love
13. Jealous Guy
14. Maggie Mae
15. How Do You Sleep
16. God Save Oz
17. Do The Oz
18. I Donít Want To Be A Soldier
19. Give Peace A Chance
20. Look At Me
21. Long Lost John

Disc 2:

1. New York City
2. Attica State (live)
3. Imagine (live)
4. Bring On The Lucie
5. Woman Is The Nigger of The World
6. Geraldo Rivera - One to One Concert
7. Woman Is The Nigger of The World (live)
8. It's So Hard (live)
9. Come Together (live)
10. Happy Xmas
11. Luck of the Irish (live)
12. John Sinclair (live)
13. The David Frost Show
14. Mind Games (I Promise)
15. Mind Games (Make Love, Not War)
16. One Day At A Time
17. I Know
18. I'm The Greatest
19. Goodnight Vienna
20. Jerry Lewis Telethon
21. 'A Kiss Is Just A Kiss'
22. Real Love
23. You Are Here

Disc 3:

1. What You Got
2. Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out
3. Whatever Gets You Through the Night (home)
4. Whatever Gets You Through the Night (studio)
5. Yesterday (parody)
6. Be Bop A Lula
7. Rip It Up/Ready Teddy
8. Scared
9. Steel And Glass
10. Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)
11. Bless You
12. Going Down On Love
13. Move Over Ms. L
14. Ainít She Sweet
15. Slippiní And Slidin'
16. Peggy Sue
17. Bring It On Home To Me/ Send Me Some Lovin'
18. Phil and John 1
19. Phil and John 2
20. Phil and John 3
21. 'When In Doubt, Fuck It'
22. Be My Baby
23. Stranger's Room
24. Old Dirt Road

Disc 4:

1. I'm Losing You
2. Seans 'Little Help'
3. Serve Yourself
4. My Life
5. Nobody Told Me
6. Life Begins At 40
7. I Don't Wanna Face It
8. Woman
9. Dear Yoko
10. Watching the Wheels
11. I'm Stepping Out
12. Borrowed Time
13. The Rishi Kesh Song
14. Sean's 'Loud'
15. Beautiful Boy
16. Mr. Hyde's Gone (Don't Be Afraid)
17. Only You
18. Grow Old With Me
19. Dear John
20. The Great Wok
21. Mucho Mungo
22. Satire 1
23. Satire 2
24. Satire 3
25. Sean's 'In The Sky'
26. It's Real

Rating: - O'Boogie, Oh so fine!
John Lennon is shown here in this box set as a true individual that he was. Afforded independence to do what he wanted, one gets a feeling of honesty which one rarely hears from major artist. On the other hand, if your not a complete Lennon nut like myself, I wouldn't buy this set. I would try a "greatest" CD first then if it's to your liking, come back
and get this Box set. To me, this set was just what the doctor order...I needed a little of Dr. Winston O'Boogie to get me through the "Holidays".

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Rating: - Wonderfully raw.
I'm more of a "casual fan" like the kind mentioned in Annie Van Auken's review. However, I really enjoyed this set. It's a nice collection of live tracks, alternate takes, and pre-production, stripped-down versions.

Some of the major highlights:
1. Love (which doesn't have the almost too quiet to hear opening like the album version)

2. Remember (which shows that, even when something has him tickled, John still has a powerful voice despite giggling in parts of the song,

3. John Sinclair and the audio of the quote prior to the song which is on the previous track (Apathy isn't it, and we can do something. Ok, so flower power didn't work, so what. We start again.)

4. Two nice alternate takes on Mind Games.

5. Stranger's Room - which is a wonderful early cut of I'm Losing You

6. The Hank Williams-esque Life Begins at 40, which is very eerie to hear now for obvious reason.


These and some superb in home and live recordings of old favorites, including three versions of Imagine, and a nice rendition of Come Together.

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Rating: - Hold that line... hold that line... hold that line....
This album presents the potential purchaser with an imaginary line. Whether or not you should buy ANTHOLOGY really depends upon which side of that line you're on. For completists, LENNON * ANTHOLOGY is a godsend or revelation; for the casual fan, this collection is a jumbled rough-cut head-scratcher. If you don't own all of John's solo albums, you probably won't want this one.

More so than the BEATLES ANTHOLOGY series, this set is replete with fragments, false starts, incomplete demos, slight or off-key vocals and silly chatter. If John was still alive, he never would have released most of this stuff, and with good reason. There's something to be said for specifically detailed Last Wills.

TOTAL RUNNING TIMES --
DISC ONE (Astor) -- 65:41
DISC TWO (New York City) -- 65:01
DISC THREE (The Lost Weekend) -- 63:25
DISC 4 (Dakota) -- 72:52

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Rating: - Why did I wait so long?
I've looked at this set for many years, but never could bring myself to pay the premium price for it. I finally gave in and bought it and I'm really glad I did.

It's a fantastic set, both in content and packaging. It's refreshing to hear different versions of the songs we're all used to hearing. And there's plenty of music that I had not heard previously.

Overall, the sound quality is very good, but some songs do suffer the limitation of being home recordings but are still very listenable. I actually prefer John's solo "Real Love" over the doctored up Beatles version.

I could have done without Sean's contributions, but as he was an important part of John's life, I can accept them.

Like Johnny Cash's "Personal File" this is an intimate look at the performer; kind of like having him sitting in your living room and playing a private concert just for you.

Yoko often gets criticized for her handling of John's material, but this is a quality offering in every respect and shows us John the Man vs. John the Beatle.

Highly recommended.

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Rating: - It's John - what more needs to be said?
The only knock on this excellent box set is that there is a little too much chatter. I really don't need to hear Lennon talking. The music does the talking here.

5 stars - excellent amazon purchase.