Why (Yoko Ono) (LP 3412 - 3416)

Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band  Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1970) *****  

Yoko Ono  Fly (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1971) ****  

Yoko Ono  Approximately Infinite Universe (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1973) **** 

Yoko Ono  Feeling The Space (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1973) **  

Yoko Ono  A Story (CD, Ryko, recorded 1974. released 1997) **   

Genre: Apple Records, Avant garde, experimental rock, rock 

Places I remember: Slow Boat Records, Real Groovy Records, Marbecks Records.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Why (Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band)

Gear costume: Looking Over From My Hotel Window (Approximately Infinite Universe); Mindtrain (Fly) 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I've divided the Yoko collection into two parts. First part (this one) - the albums when John was alive, and second - the post John years.

I love each of these albums from the seventies. Yoko and John's albums were recorded with similar personnel and released at the same time, so they are often yin yang of a creative whole.

I lost all of these albums (on Apple Records) during a traumatic house move, so I bought new re-released copies with a lovely Grapefruit replacing the iconic Apple. All of the lavish packaging remains the same.

Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band is the sister album to John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band (the covers are similar with their positions reversed under that tree). Both were done as a response to their primal scream experiment. Both, for me, are their best albums because of the raw, naked delivery. Both have Ringo on drums and Klaus Voormann on bass (both take a suitably minimal approach).

Whereas John's album uses lyrics and has aspects of primal scream in his delivery, Yoko is all in, and John is all in on primal guitar. It's an extraordinary album with each track distinctive and effective. 

Why, the lead off song, is breathtaking. John's guitar is a howl of emotion and a mimic to Yoko's screaming WHY over and over. Her finest moment on record for me. I've played this song to countless people over the years, and no one gets it as I do. It's beautiful and frightening at the same time.

Fly is a double, recorded around the same time as Imagine. It's a transitional album - featuring some rock singing (Midsummer New York is brilliant), some traditional ballad styles (Mrs. Lennon is terrific) and Yoko's primal vocal gymnastics (Fly, the 'song', can be hard going, even for me). Mindtrain is an extraordinary 16+ minute track featuring John's mind-bending guitar again, and vocals by Yoko.

Approximately Infinite Universe, another double album, moves much more to a traditional pop/rock sound. It was recorded post Sometime In New York with Elephants Memory. They play with a lot more subtlety on Yoko's album.

It's sprawling and the quality varies over the four sides, but she gets credit for the high points. 

Her final album for Apple Records was Feeling The Space (concurrent with Mind Games). It's a stridently feminist album and worth your time, but it's not one of my favourites. John contributes but only on a few tracks.

A Story was recorded in 1974 without John (during the so-called 'lost weekend'), who was also at work - on Walls And Bridges. The style is again traditional pop/rock with Yoko trying a variety of styles similar to Feeling The Space. It went unreleased until after John's murder and is an interesting footnote.

Where do they all belong? The post John albums are next. Deep breath, because there are a lot of them!