"John Lennon - Acoustic"

I had high hopes and expectations for this album when I borrowed it for my uncle, even though he warned me not to. If I'd been expecting something revelatory along the lines of any of Dylan's Bootleg Series or even the Beatles Anthologies, I was sorely disappointed. I know it's blasphemy for me to even dare to decry something produced by a member of the Beatles, but I'm afraid that's what it comes down to here--Acoustic isn't worth the money.

What Acoustic is, above all else, is a collection of exceptionally rough demos, outtakes, and odds'n'sods that Yoko Ono found lying around the house one day and decided to toss together to sell. It's something of an effort to capitolize on the fact that some folks will buy anything with a Beatle's name on it. There are a couple of new songs on the CD, but for the most part this is just a bunch of rough versions of songs that sounded much better in the final draft. Take "Cold Turkey," for example--never one of my favorite Lennon songs to begin with, this acoustic guitar version suffers from poor recording quality, shaky performance, and a lack of any significant difference between it and the final take except that the final take had a better sonic quality to it. It's completely unremarkable. The sad fact is that most of the songs we have heard before are presented here in inferior and rougher versions, and nothing new is gained from the newly-released material. "Working Class Hero" is the best example of this problem--it's virutally identical in delivery, instrumentation, and performance to the released version, except that it doesn't sound as good.

The new songs, which include a tune for a jailed stoner ("John Sinclair") and a biting protest song with a humorous chorus ("Luck of the Irish") are decent, but nothing remarkable. "Luck of the Irish" is almost good enough to be a great song, with a wonderfully witty stab at the way the English have treated the Irish and a decent tune, but it's bogged down by poor instrumental accompaniment.

There are two songs which in and of themselves almost make this album worth it--a live guitar version of "Imagine" and the original basic recording of "Real Love," one of the two new Beatles songs from the Anthologies. The former has a great performance from Lennon, and the simple, stripped-down solo acoustic guitar style works really well for a song I've always felt suffered from over-production. "Real Love" is the real treat, though--Lennon alone with a guitar, laying down the basic track and guiding vocal. You get a feel for what he wanted to do with the song (the whistled lead guitar solo he does is wonderful, and Harrison follows it almost exactly with his slide guitar work in the final version on the Anthology). His performance is loose, warm, and almost heartbreakingly beautiful. It's haunting, really. The fact that you have to wait until almost the very end of the CD for these two tracks is frustrating.

Really, the collection is okay. There are some decent tracks here, a few tunes that are rather interesting and manage to hold your interest while they are playing. You can see the glimmer and spark of inspiration in a few of them, but it's so rough and unfinished that it's frustrating. Acoustic ends up a set of small, frugal pleasures, doled out in a miserly fashion that leaves you wishing it offered up more than just a taste of the genius we knew Lennon could be when he wanted.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: John Lennon, "Real Love"