Double Fantasy

[mervap]

I titled my comp. "John Lennon Fantasy", but I like yours better! Never thought of adding "I Am the Greatest". Gonna get right on it.

[sirARDIE]

Listening to Watching the Wheels at them moment..

[EddieV]

Yes, but John's songs on Milk and Honey are very weak and incomplete, compared with the ones from Fantasy.

Not completely true, I´m Stepping Out and Nobody Told Me are great numbers

[EJMalmo]

Does anybody have a suggested play list for combining DF & M&H? I also have always wanted to do a "Beatles" series of the 70's..take a couple songs from each solo album of certain time periods and put them together..anybody ever do this?

[sirARDIE]

Paul liked Beautiful Boy in this album.

[L Dozier]

"Double Fantasy" sounds like John is finding his legs again after not being in the studio for five years. It's good, but tentative is a word that comes to mind.

As for Yoko's stuff, I can't stand it...

...and that sums up the other half of the album!

[Cologne girl]

"Double Fantasy" sounds like John is finding his legs again after not being in the studio for five years. It's good, but tentative is a word that comes to mind.

I can't really follow you there at all - to me it is possibly as close to perfect as you can get. Lyrics ("the queen is in the counting house, counting out the money - the king is in the kitchen, making bread and honey" ), melodies (not by accident have people called the album "McCartney-esque"), arrangements of the usual top notch quality we are used to from John.. by which I refer to the John part of the Fantasy, but even Yoko has one or two songs on it that I don't usually skip (above all the one that starts "I'm your angel, I'll give you everything...") - she actually proves she has some talent.

As I see it, John left with grace and dignity - but this makes it all the sadder, what would he have been capable of still

[linclink]

John's stuff from 1980 doesn't sound "tentative" to me either. In fact, to these ears and this heart, if you combine all the tracks from "Double Fantasy" & "Milk & Honey" (toss in whatever extra tracks from the 1975-80 period leftover unreleased demos or Threetles tracks- "Real Love" especially & "Free As A Bird" too) and there you have as great a solo Beatles work as there was. Check it out: "Grow Old With Me", "Watching The Wheels", "Woman", "Nobody Told Me", "Clean Up Time", "(Just Like) Starting Over", "I Don't Wanna Fact It", "Borrowed Time", "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" "I'm Losing You", "Dear Yoko", "I'm Steppin' Out", "Real Love", "Free As A Bird", only "(Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess" sounds like something less realized or tentative to me.
The 1980 Lennon, along with "Imagine" are my fave Lennon works. Only "All Things Must Pass", and "33 & 1/3" by George rate that high for me as far as Beatle solo works go....though "Plastic Ono Band" is, objectively, a masterpiece as well (prefer the others myself) and "Brainwashed" isn't far behind either. I'm quite a fan of most of "Mind Games", and "Walls & Bridges" as well.
I also have to come out here a a pretty big Yoko fan. Alot of her earlier stuff was really hit, and miss for me...never sustaining a complete great work...but, for me (and beleive me I understand those who don't hear or feel it) she really stands up tall with Lennon here. The whole "Heartplay" dialogue thing really works for me here. I LOVE both albums most all the way through. There are a few lesser Yoko moments, but few and nothing that really misses totally for me. What an amazing double album those two albums (DF & M&H) make. Blessings!!

[jjs]

This is my favorite John album. I think all of his songs from this era are among his best. In my mind, this will alway be the return of Beatle John after an absence of a decade and a half.

The sound is great... nice punchy drums and bass, great sounding guitars. I often feel this kind of well-recorded rhythm section is missing from Paul's albums, especially his 70's output. I think that is unfortunate, because it gives an album a sort of cohesion or foundation.

I like George's 'Cloud 9' for the same reason, although I don't care for Jeff Lynne's drum sound. I wonder how Jack Douglas (DF's producer) would have done Cloud 9 differently.

[mageestout]

Not sure if it was said yet but it sure was a nasty trick of Yoko to have John's songs and her "songs" alternate on the LP. As if she knew not many people wanted to hear her garbage, and you were forced to be exposed to her warbling unless you wanted to get up and fix the turntable after each of John's presentations. Thank goodness for CD's so you can program her out.

As a side note it's fun to read about the making of the LP in THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN LENNON by Fredrick Seman in which Yoko never did the same performance (or even the same melody) of her songs twice. It reminds me of the Syd Barret story of "You got it."