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John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No. 1 Two Virgins
Review:
Review Summary: Brilliant, innovative, wild, weird, and bold. Yoko and John redefine musical art with their debut.
In November 1968, the same month that the Beatles released its self-titled “White Album,” John Lennon and Yoko Ono released Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, their first album together which contained two extended experimental avant garde songs. The album was a great shock to Beatles fans for two main reasons: The material was extremely unconventional, almost unlistenable for most people, and the album cover featured Lennon and Ono completely naked. Distributors were so outraged that they refused to sell the album unless it was covered with a brown paper wrapper.
The two songs that appear on the original LP are probably more shocking than the cover art. The album is in the same vein as the “Revolution 9” track that appeared on “The White Album,” (also a Lennon/Ono collaboration). The recordings consist of tape loops, random adlib dialogue, delays, distortions, and strange crooning.
“Two Virgins Side One” starts with what sounds like bird whistling and random distorted noises and builds up to unstructured playing of various instruments, archive music samples, and Yoko singing oddly in the background. Towards the end Lennon and Ono play back and forth in improv caricature husband and wife roles, with John sounding like a Honeymooner parody and Yoko sounding like a submissive child on LSD.
“Two Virgins Side Two,” which is also a little over 14 minutes, primarily consist of Yoko’s strange, psychotic, and almost annoying crooning. Nine minutes and fifty seconds into the song Yoko seems to imitate the bird chirps and whistles heard in “Side One,” but in a much more deranged way. John continues to play around with instruments, distortions, and samples in the background as Yoko’s croons take the lead.
On the remastered re-release that was issued out in 1997, a bonus track, “Remember Love,” is included. It initially appeared as a B-side to the “Give Peace A Chance” single, released in 1969. In sharp contrast to the first two tracks, “Remember Love” is a quiet tender acoustic song with Yoko Ono on lead vocals.
The 1960s was all about breaking down conventions. Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins is strange, off-beat, and incoherent. But all of those adjectives greatly underestimate what this album truly is: Revolutionary. Lennon and Ono presented pure art on a commercial platform to common people that loved John for hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” There really haven’t been a commercial artist before or after Lennon that have reached that level of success and had the nerve, audacity, and courage to release something so innovative and fascinating. People may hate this album, but avant garde art isn’t meant to be loved and accepted by everyone. Its persistent marginalization is what keeps it fresh, edgy, and always a step ahead of everyone else.
Review by Griff Fuller Jr
Rate 4.5/5
Track List:
1. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Two Virgins Side One (14:16)
2. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Two Virgins Side Two (14:43)
3. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Remember Love (4:05)
Summary:
Country: UK
Genre: Avant-garde
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~683-753 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
John Lennon Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No.2 Life With The Lions
Review:
Track by track:
1. "Cambridge 1969" -- Yoko sings free jazz (in the same manner that people play it on wind instruments). The sounds she makes are absolutely astonishing. How does she do it without frying her voice? How does she overcome physiological barriers? If you know how to listen to a pitch or timbral curve, she not only calls and responds with her own phrases, she calls and responds with John's feedback guitar. I once spoke to John Tchicai about this track and he smiled really wide and recalled it very fondly, so they must have been having fun. He also informed me the performance went on much longer without John & Yoko (John & Yoko's sets blended with Tchicai and John Stevens), typical for free jazz performances. Check Alan Silva's "Seasons" for a 2 hour and 26 minute big band freakout -- something really astonishing and scary if this floats your boat.
2. "No Bed For Beatle John" -- Funnily enough the chants in this song are catchy enough that I find myself sometimes humming the melody to this song. This is a nifty trick. I wonder what John & Yoko were thinking about as they were reading these newspaper accounts.
3. "Baby's Heartbeat/Two Minutes Silence" -- I've always thought these tracks went together. You hear John and Yoko shuffling to get the microphone onto Yoko's belly to record the heartbeat, and you hear it churning along like a Hafler Trio track. And suddenly it quits just as you've hit the point that George Clinton calls "where repetition becomes sacred." The vigil for the loss of the baby in the two minutes silence gives you plenty to ponder as the track passes and you hear the ambience of your surroundings.
4. "Radio Play" -- this is an interesting artistic statement -- a glimpse into John & Yoko's every day life, but there's a barrier in between you and them -- someone playing with a radio. Sometimes my ears strain to hear what's on the radio, sometimes it's fascinating to try to hear what John & Yoko are doing at the time. But the point that there *is* a barrier doesn't go unnoticed.
5. "Song For John" -- what a pretty, sad song, full of images. Countless movies play in my mind upon hearing.
6. "Mulberry" -- As Yoko holds her tones quietly, repairing her voice from the frying she did with other pieces such as "Cambridge 1969", John plays (with) a dobro. I like the contrast between John's busy sounds and Yoko's controlled, quiet chanting of the word "Mulberry." This track is quite like some of Fred Frith's more experimental guitar pieces or Sonny Sharrock's early records.
There's plenty to like about this album. I just wish more people got what they were trying to do. Having big ears for free jazz (which I do) helps.
Track List:
1) Cambridge 1969
2) No Bed For Beatle John
3) Baby's Heartbeat
4) Two Minutes Silence
5) Radio Play
Bonus Tracks:
6) Song For John
7) Mulberry
Summary:
Country: UK
Genre: Avant-garde
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 639 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
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