This is a product of a true genius! Not only do we have the song of the millenium ('Imagine') by the artist of the millenium but also an excellent assortment of acoustic and rock tracks. 'It's so hard', 'I don't want to be a soldier', 'Gimme some truth' and 'How do you sleep?' show Lennon's true characteristic grit with biting fuzzy guitar and equally fitting vocals. Emotional acoustic ballads like 'How?' and 'Oh my love' go nicely with the more jolly 'Jealous guy' and the folksy 'Crippled inside' and 'Oh Yoko!'. A great performance by John, Phil Spector and the Plastic Ono's and also by George Harrison who plays brillient slide guitar. Overall, an enlightening and cheerful album which follows nicely from the outstanding melancholy album 'Lennon/Plastic Ono band'. Nobody will ever rival John's lyrical abilities and certainly won't capture John's mood in quite the same way again. We miss you John.

A truly over-rated album, compiled by one of the greatest hypocrites of the 1960s. Try as I might, I cannot imagine John Lennon without possessions.His estate was estimated at $500 million when he died...Why didn't you show us the way, John, by divesting yourself and giving away your vast fortune? The rest of the songs are forgettable, and mediocre. Take a pass on this album and buy a Beatles' CD.

If there was one Beatle's solo album to buy, this is it. It easily ranks with anything that the Beatles ever recorded and has not one weak song on it. Whereas Plastic Ono Band is a wrenching personal statement that just also happens to have great songs on it, Imagine is a record that will appeal to a larger majority of the record buying public because of it's outstanding production and it's less challanging subject matter. Imagine has also aged remarkably well since it's release in 1971. Everthing on this album works well and it covers a lot of styles from straight on rock and roll with Gimme Some Truth and How Do You Sleep, to Blues with It's So Hard and I don't Want to be a Soldier. The ballads are also very convincing as well with Jealous Guy and Oh My Love. But the song Imagine is a masterpiece and one of popular music's greatest achievements.

Note:George Harrison who plays guitar on five of this album's ten tracks is outstanding everywhere he plays.

It's funny how you can have a song like "Imagine" on the same CD as "How Do You Sleep?". Still, it works (at least I think so). If you're skeptical, just get it for the title track. You don't have to like the rest of the songs, it's a classic. It's more than a classic, it's a masterpiece. As for the rest of the album, "Jealous Guy" and "Oh My Love" are beautiful and touching. "How Do You Sleep?" is amusing. Still, it's a little upsetting how sinister and mean Lennon was towards his former buddy. "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead". Overall, the most Beatles-like album of John's short solo career. One of the best ex-Beatle solo albums. NOT another Plastic Ono Band. Definitely an essential.

This still is my all-time #1 album by an ex-Beatle. It is impossible to imagine a world without IMAGINE. Even though the album's sound might not be perfect - his music was.