None more so than in the brilliant title song. Like his previous album, Imagine has Yoko Ono’s influence all over it. Imagine is a very different album from the one that went before it, as John told David Sheff in 1980, “I call Plastic Ono with chocolate coating.” This record is more instantly accessible, but don’t let that fool you into thinking John had gone soft. Imagine: The Ultimate Collection can be bought here. The earlier sessions were at Abbey Road and the May sessions were at the Lennon’s home studio at Tittenhurst Park, the New York sessions in July were at the Record Plant. Recording his new album was done in three separate stages, the first between February 11 and 16, followed by another from May 24 to 28, before some final overdubs and mixing in New York over the 4th of July weekend. John began work on the album that was to become Imagine a little over three months after finishing John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. With John’s acerbic wit ever-present, though, the album never approaches the kind of music that John found irrelevant and meaningless. One song does not make a great album, even when it is as seminal and defining as Imagine… and, make no mistake, this is a great album, full of brilliant songs, with great hooks. Powerful, poignant, important, and beautiful are all words that describe Imagine – both the title song and the LP that was John Lennon’s second solo album release, in the autumn of 1971.
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