Search - Yoko Ono :: Feeling the Space

Woman Power

yokoboy@hotmail.com | Northern California, USA | 02/06/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This album, the last of the Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band period, is quite a different step from the direction Yoko had been heading with previous recordings. On this, her 4th solo LP, Yoko opted for a smoother, more jazzier style than the pre-alternative rock she had been venturing into on "Fly" and "AIU".Here we find an album about women, for women and by a woman. Most songs deal with the stress and strain of women trying to survive in a male-dominated society, however you don't have to be a woman to enjoy this album. Songs like "Angry Young Woman", "She Hits Back", and the album's single "Woman Power" could have easily been anthems for the feminist movement. Others like "Yellow Girl", "Coffin Car", and "Woman of Salem" depict the damage done to woman by the ongoing oppression of the male society.This album also features many other fine moments. The song "Run, Run, Run", a single in Europe and Japan, deals with drug addiction and a world passing you by without your knowledge. The key lyric of the song, "Feeling the room, Feeling the space, when suddenly I noticed it wasn't spring anymore", is quite a reality check in itself. The highlight of the album though is it's closing track, a song titled "Men Men Men". Here Yoko turns the tables on men by depicting what she seeks in a man and not the other way around as was custom at the time. Yoko gives a hats off to Mae West in the songs final refrains when she breathfully beckons "Come up and hmm-hmm, come up and see me sometime." In probably one of the most clever lyrics of the time,Yoko announces "Ladies and Gents, I'd like to introduce you to...my lower half, without whom I won't be breathing so heavily!" This is concluded with "Honey juice, you can come out of your box now." then after the song fades you hear John's voice simply saying "Yes, Dear".This album was definately a step in a different direction, but shows where Yoko was heading when she recorded the ill-fated "A Story". That album which was shelved after her reconciliation with Lennon, was not to see the light of day until almost 20 years later when several tracks were featured on disc 6 of Onobox."

Give Yoko a Chance

Nathaniel Bradley | 11/04/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yoko Ono is an artist in her own right. Her relationship with John Lennon is a huge part of her art/music, but not the element she should be judged against. She pushed boundaries, played with sound, noise, different aspects of expression. She was an innovator. Her music opened the door to punk and post-punk and new wave, without ever sounding like anything else. Listen to it without succumbing the tired old (codger) bias about how she screwed up the Beatles. For real, people. Some of these reviewers offer nothing enlightening about the music, good or critical. Just more boring ideology. People must have a lot of time on their hands in order to simply express their dumb, and frankly annoying, small-minded outrage about Yoko Ono."