My Amazon Reviews: John Lennon "Double Fantasy Stripped Down"

Doubling Down
5 Out of 5 Stars

To state the obvious; if you were alive when "Double Fantasy" was released, into music, and heard "Double Fantasy," the stunning events to follow changed everything in your world. As such, it rates five stars on my ratings method in that it altered the course of music in its wake. What was meant as a return to creation was suddenly altered into an elegy for lost talent.

Which made the songs all the more heartbreakingly ironic. "Just Like Starting Over" was meant to be a love letter to rediscovered romance. "Watching The Wheels" an explanation as to why John Lennon had spent five years out of the spotlight. And "Beautiful Boy" a fuller explanation, as an ode to his son Sean. Even the album's concept, as a 'heartplay' between John and Yoko Ono, altering songs back and forth between them in what was often a call and response. John would sing "I'm Losing You," Yoko would respond "I'm Moving On." John even gave Yoko the last word, with "Hard Times are Over."

Thirty years on, the irony and the pain are just as sharp. The album also has held up well in that time, with Lennon's love songs still comforting. Yoko, well, Yoko still sounds like Yoko. Her bird squalling just proves that she made the world safe for Bjork. "Kiss Kiss Kiss" still packs a good new-wave kick as well.

But the main reason to check into this now is the second disc, "Stripped Down." Yoko and original producer Jack Douglas have gone to the original tracks, scrubbed away almost any production sweeteners, bumped John's vocals into a more prominent place in the mix, and issued it as something John would have wanted. While I find this odd (Lennon is not known for that kind of production in the first place), it also makes one question the original album. Lennon was headstrong enough to be able to demand what he'd want, so was there a problem with "Double Fantasy" to start with?

The remixes suggest not. One of the things that struck me on the original album were some of the production touches, like the three finger chime strikes at the beginning of the album (on "Just Like Starting Over"). They seemed to be an obvious pointer to the doom-sounding bells on Plastic Ono Band's "Mother;" a signal that Lennon had found lightness and joy since then. The harmonies are gone, which doesn't help either. The songs are now in a rawer form, more like demos than completed work.

These changes just don't ring true. Like the 2004 "Acoustic" release, "Stripped Down" just seems to be clocking in on the mythology without adding anything to the history. The original "Double Fantasy" still merits the five stars, but the bonus disc is someone reinterpreting Lennon's vision and trying to pass it off as Lennon's own. Thirty years from now, it's the original album that will still ring truest in people's memories.