Someone please fire this Amazon reviewer !!!
Mactavish | 12/28/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This is Lennon's lost masterpiece & is definitely up there with Plastic Ono & Imagine as one of his 3 great post-Beatles albums. If there's anything wrong with this CD it's "Whatever Gets you Through the Night", a throwaway song that sounds out of place on this collection. Lennon should have had Nilsson sing it with Elton.
First of all, the singing is phenomenal on Walls & Bridges. Listen to the bluesy phrasing on "Bless You". Can anyone else in pop/rock/blues sing like this? Hell, no! "Going Down on Love", "Scared", "Surprise, Surprise" & "Steel & Glass" are great songs that only Lennon fanatics seem to know about. "#9 Dream" is a cool radio song. You can hear the influence on Wilco, World Party & The Flaming Lips from this era of Lennon, in production, singing & sometimes even blatant stealing of chord changes or melodies.
My only quibble about W&B, is too many songs have horns & strings. It would be nice to hear a few of these with more guitar & less pomp, but this record is so much better/more consistent than Mind Games, Double Fantasy, Live in NYC & Milk & Honey, that any self-respecting Lennon fan MUST own this."
Awesome album! John Lennon Is the best musician in the world
billy whitmire | katy, texas, US | 08/09/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Great record, The best songs on it. awesome inserts. Its just a cool, fun album!"
Classic
Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber | Mahwah, NJ USA | 09/25/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you ever wonder why music fans want to shoot music critics, come with me............
Plastic Ono Band is recognized universally as a definitive rock album, and it is. A Beatle literally ripping himself apart and putting himself back together in public was a gripping, frightening sight. Rock stars in 1970 just didn't do this. Lennon did. Any artist that does a "confessional" album is probably referencing this album, know it or not.
A lot of Plastic Ono Band felt like raw proto punk, and if it was not in sound, it was in spirit. Walls and Bridges is slick, 1970s rock.
It is also, I feel in a lot of ways, more naked, more vulnerable, then Plastic Ono. If the more produced structures on Walls And Bridges are lost on the punk obsessed music pressed elete, this does not surprise me. There is a rule that you have to hate Yes and love The Velvet Underground to REALLY understand music, and most rock writing stems from that premise
Which is why these imbeciles will 'never get the importance of Walls and Bridges. When a Beatle, an Icon, a God, does no intro, no lead in, but starts an album "Got to get down/down on my knees." something is up. Hello, Mr/Mrs. Critic. Anyone HOME in there?
"Going Down On Love," is the track. The track one of the two best songwriters, a maker of late 20th Century culture, writes when he has been SUCH a bad boy, his wife kicks him out. A King, banished to LA, wants nothing more than to be forgiven.
What amazing courage. Not since 1954, when Frank Sinatra made In the Wee Small Hours has a major star let us see him this broken. This lost, paying this heavily for his mistakes. "Somebody please, please help me," says Lennon, "You know I am downing in a sea of hatred." The master in LA, drinking heavy. In deep s--t, and knows it.
Walls and Bridges was made on Lennon's "lost weekend." Basically, all of 1974. Lennon and Harry Nillson and Keith Moon and Ringo got together, and drank, and drank. And drank. Brandy Alexanders. That is brandy and milk. To get a whole picture of this, get Wallas and Bridges and Harry Nillson's Pussy Cats, which Lennon worked on at the same time. Two bookends of the same wild party.
"What Ya' Got," could have actually been off Plastic Ono Band. "You Don't Know What You Got, Until You Lose it," Lennon screams, on perhaps his most blistering rock. It is about as fun as alcohol detox for Lennon, who bellows "Oh Baby baby baby give me one more chance." He is taking standard puppy love rock lines and turning them into emotional brutality. Our idol, our Beatle, is in pain, and we can do nothing but listen to it. It's searing.
I really don't need to explain "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out," or the rest of Walls and Bridges. If you listen and don't hear, I can't help you.
But for those that can, this album is essential for any understanding of Lennon and his story. Rarely has there been such a clear picture of one of our best artists in such a scary, hurtful place."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1