It's easy to see John Lennon around the time of "Plastic Ono Band" (1970) as an angry, thirty year old lashing out like an adolescent at those whom he believed had let him down, but his creative energy was at such an intense point that the resulting work transformed that anger into something surprisingly mature; Paul's breakup album ("McCartney") is equal parts pretty, well-constructed pop and boring filler, while George's ("All Things Must Pass") is a clearinghouse for an excellent barrel-full of sometimes very spiritual songs he was unable to air while still a member of The Beatles. John's breakup album, though, is by turns tormented, bitter, iconoclastic and tender, but overall unrelentingly confessional, probably the closest thing in rock music to Sylvia Plath's "Ariel" poems: sharp, brutal and personal, yet profoundly universal on the whole.

To be fair, some of this can be melodramatic stuff. The funeral bells tolling at the beginning of "Mother" are a heavy-handed opening, but the songs on this album arguably warrant that kind of introduction: this isn't going to be an easy ride, and you should know what you're getting yourself into. Borne of primal therapy, a number of these compositions address elemental human issues ("Mother," "Love," "Isolation," "God") in such a simple, straightforward manner that it's easy to see something of ourselves in Lennon's observations. "Love" may, in fact, be the last word on that particular subject, stripping away the complexities that emotion arouses to reveal the essence of the little engine that governs us all. And, while it may seem a very 1960s notion, "Love" may also be the keynote song here: its presence and its lack inform every other piece of music on the album, from the sense of abandonment in "Mother" to the cultural rebuke of "Working Class Hero," a deadpan folk song (in the most literal sense of that term) that frankly sums up the absurdity of trying to adhere to constantly shifting social values. "I Found Out" covers similar ground as it taps an inner reserve summed up thusly: "No one can harm you, feel your own pain." Finally, whether or not you care when he sings "I don't believe in Beatles" at the climax of "God," it's an unparalleled moment in the history of popular music, one that only Lennon could have managed convincingly, while the wobbly, unaccompanied line "I just believe in me" that follows it reveals a vulnerable hopefulness that is really, genuinely affecting.

All of the above paints a bleak picture of this recording, and those listeners who revel in relentless self-flagellation will find much here to their liking. The difference, however, between "Plastic Ono Band" and, say, the nihilism of punk and grunge that followed years later, is that despite the pain laid out in these songs, there is also hope and the acknowledgment that each of us has the strength to carry on. In a world where we have in the past couple of decades been inundated with pop psychology and where it has become commonplace to dismiss a person for having "issues," it is refreshing to realize that the language and music on "Plastic Ono Band" continue to resonate and have not dated a bit. Credit Phil Spector's uncharacteristically restrained production, which leaves the songs as naked as the emotions they describe, and Lennon's heartfelt singing and soon-to-vanish clear-headed writing for making this music age-resistant. A rewarding album worth returning to often.

I remember the release of this album. I was 11 at the time. I remember the "establishment" being stunned senseless by it. There was scorn at its unmusicality, moral outrage at its foul language, shocked recoil at its emotional intensity. And I remember the youth of the day (the older kids I looked up to) getting behind its rampaging intensity like a battering ram to say "Yeah ... we feel like this too!". When I first heard it I ran away as fast as I could. It was too wierd. To me it was the work of an insane madman - and the DO NOT TOUCH mental tag has remained for 34 years.

Until now.

For what reason I am not quite sure, but I am revisting The Beatles. It began with a what-the-heck listening to All Things Must Pass, which I had never heard, and was pulled up short by it's excellence. Now I am on an 'odyssey' to re-encounter music from the 'Fab Four' as I approach my autumn years. With Lennon, I began with Mind Games and found myself captivated by a man grappling intensely with major questions of philosophy, personal meaning, and social ethics - and extraodinarily, doing it in a genre of music he helped create. On the strength of favourable reviews here on Amazon, I decided I would tackle Plastic Ono Band. I purchased the CD and, listening to it now with ADULT ears, what I hear astounds me!

Lennon is pushing music's capacity to carry emotion to its ABSOLUTE limits. He has stripped it bare of lush production values (orchestras, choirs, brass sections) and instead uses the most basic of elements - drums, bass, guitar, voice and reverb. With just these he INSISTS we concentrate on what he's saying, and DEMANDS we get the emotion and passion he is feeling. As I listen, I realise this is the recording of a very rare sort. In 1970 there was no other man alive who had the personal listening attention of so many young people worlwide than Lennon. The intimacy he felt with his listening public is palpable on the album - how else could you possibly explain the risk he takes in screaming the way he does, taking production risks like leaving in count-ins, not bothering with fade-outs, not disguising edits, etc. and then releasing it. It would be one thing to discover this material postumously. It's entirely another for him to have published it for his audience, to have them receive it as his next offering for them. It can't be that he didn't care what he gave them - it can only be that he cared ENORMOUSLY, and he wanted them to hear THIS. Raw. Unvarnished. Honest. Real. Truth as he was experiencing it in order for them to experience their own truth. He was showing them how to do it ... to FEEL their pain, to own their own lives, to stop being 'peasants' and 'worshippers' and become thinkers who take responsibility for themselves, their lives and the world around them.

When I 'got' this, when I realised what Lennon was attempting, I couldn't help but feel enormous respect and see him as a communicator way ahead of his time. And the wake-up call to the world he crafted as this album Platic Ono Band is just as potent and relevant today as it was 34 years ago - perhaps even moreso. It's a privelege to own and experience this astounding recording.

I finally bought this album along about 2001. I had never owned the vinyl, never listened to it. I was familiar with "Mother", and "God" thanks to the Imagine soundtrack. "Power To The People" of course, I had heard before.

Little did I know what powerful, intense, sad and hopeful art I had been missing, for 30 years. Imagine a 41-year old, hearing these tracks for the first time, 30 years after it was released. One rarely has the opportunity to listen to a legendary piece of music for the first time, long since having reached mid-life. I still marvel at the effect this music has on me. I am listening to it now.

For making a profound connection with the listener, Plastic Ono Band rivals the best offerings of the Beatles. Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road were overall better pieces of work, but nothing the Beatles ever did made you feel you were communicating with the artist, in the same room, as well as John does on this album.

Also, I always love hearing Ringo on the drums of a Beatle solo album. The product is all John, but there is a linkage to the Beatles sound. That is, he breaks away on this album, without repudiating the Beatles, per se. There is an aura of familiarity. It is the John we know. But he is sharing himself with us, for the first time, openly and honestly.

So - before I go over the top, if there is anybody out there that still has not heard or purchased this album: if you love the Beatles, you've got to have this in your collection. It might rank in my Top Ten most relevant, enjoyable, and even Beatles-esque solo albums.

"Plastic Ono Band" opens with the sound of funeral church bells and ends with the line "My Mummy's Dead." Indeed it is a very grim album that shows us John Lennon's personal hell we'd never seen in his music with The Beatles. The result is his first masterpiece on his hands and probably the best debut of the Post-Beatles solo albums. A lot of artists when doing cathartic personal work usually still hide under cliches and we can't really feel any empathy for them. However "Plastic Ono Band" is the most authentic and realistic I've ever heard. As an Actor, hearing John Lennon scream at the end of "Mother" was what I wish all Actors could do in performing. Speaking of screaming, the first time I owned "Plastic Ono Band"(On vinyl for 65 cents at the Goodwill!) I played it all day with the door opened until a neighbor came by and told me to turn that "Screaming punk rubbish" off. I personally shiver and the hair on the back of my neck still goes up even to this day when I listen to songs like "Mother, "Working Class Hero," and "Well, Well, Well." I still debate with myself as to weather "Working Class Hero" is better than "Imagine" or not. It's the best folk song written since Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. Although I must also tell the reader that there are lights moments on this record. Songs like "Hold On" and "Love" show a Lennon struggling and seeing the light. "God" is an anthem to the modern world that wanted to find spirituality through the church but then realized it can only be found within. Anyways, the way John Lennon says "I don't believe in The Beatles" is just classic. I could go on and on about how great "Plastic Ono Band" but I'll just restate that; It is John Lennon's first masterpiece(Second was "Imagine" of course) and would make it on a list of top five favorite Beatle solo albums. Find out for yourself now.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is probably my second favorite rock album (under the Beatles' white album). This is so incredibly far removed from the two minute pop songs that John was singing a mere eight years earlier. JL/POB is pure art and pure emotion. This is probably the least commercial-sounding thing that John ever recorded, and possibly his greatest. The songs on this album are brutal, honest, open, brilliant, angry, beautiful and bitter all at the same time. This is an essential rock album, especially for Lennon and/or Beatles fans.

The remaster is very good too. It sounds great and the liner contains John's handwritten lyrics. Very cool. There are, unfortunately, no liner notes to detail the making of this work of art. A further discrepancy is the choice to include two bonus tracks on the CD while neglecting to distinguish them as bonus tracks. Please, all who are unfamiliar with this album, be aware that "Power To The People" and "Do The Oz" were NOT part of the original 1970 album. They were tacked on by the record label and were never intended to be part of this album. Please view them as such. I would have much prefered the inclusion of outtakes from the sessions or demos such as Columbia has done wonderfully with The Byrds' albums.

Even with those minor complaints this is still a must-own CD. Everyone should have this! Buy it now!!