Initial response to DOUBLE FANTASY?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by WLL, Jul 12, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. mwheelerk

    mwheelerk Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm listening to music...

    Location:
    Gilbert Arizona
    Same response to it I have now, it's okay.
     
    MitchLT likes this.
  2. What a pain to have to lift the stylus after each John song to avoid the following Yoko song.
     
    MitchLT, ohnothimagen and Daven23 like this.
  3. bvb1123

    bvb1123 Rock and Roll Martian

    Location:
    Cincinnati Ohio
    I was 10 and a huge Beatles and JL fan. I loved the album. I was too young to think it was soft and the Yoko songs didn't bother me that much. I only had the album for a week when he was assassinated. I was devastated. I listened to it all the time after that (along with selected Beatles albums). I was old enough to understand death but it didn't seem real that it could happen to someone like that. No one in my family had died up to that point so that was really my first time facing death and dealing with it.
     
    IronWaffle likes this.
  4. Daven23

    Daven23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hyde Park NY USA
    Double Fantasy could have been Lennon’s finest work if half the songs weren’t Yoko filler.
     
  5. applebonkerz

    applebonkerz Senior Member

    I recall thinking ho-hum pretty much, this wasn't worth the five year wait for something new, and after all that time he couldn't even fill up the whole album by himself. In other words, it was a disappointment to me. Even more so later when I heard the outtakes using the Cheap Trick guys, and then knew how much better the record could have sounded even with the same songs.

    My opinion didn't change after, or because, December 8th happened.
     
  6. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    loved it but I skipped the YOKO tracks...
     
  7. Hoover Factory

    Hoover Factory Old Dude Who Knows Things

    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    I thought it was okay, but nothing special. I still feel that way. My favorite song from the album is “Watching the Wheels.” I am not a big fan of much of John’s post-Beatle output, but,(ironically I guess) his last album “Milk and Honey” has one of my favorite John Lennon songs - “Nobody Told Me”
     
  8. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    The forum Hall Monitors always feel a need to make their point. I would just appreciate it if they would show their credentials.

    [​IMG]
     
    ohnothimagen and Zoot Marimba like this.
  9. I feel and felt like you. I was 22 when I happened to be visiting a long lost pal of mine who was and probably still is a huge Lennon fan. He had just acquired the new album and proceeded to play it for me. I think I was already familiar by then with the first single, and from my friend's enthusiasm at the come-back, this visit could only have happened before John got murdered.

    But as big a Beatles (and early solo B.) fan as I am, I must say that for me, by 1980, ALL their solo careers had went downhill and held no interest for me anymore.

    I don't recall any early critics, though, negative or positive.
     
  10. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    The typical Status Quo: loved the Lennon songs, hated Yoko's.
     
  11. Robber Soul

    Robber Soul Forum Resident

    I was an 8 year old Beatles fanatic in 1980 when Double Fantasy came out. Being young, I knew nothing about it. All I knew was "The Beatles". Looking back, I'm not even sure I was aware they broke up as a band before I was even born!
    I had just turned 9 the day before John was tragically murdered and only found out about DF at that time. It took me many years afterwards to check it out, along with Paul, George and Ringo's solo material. To this very day, I don't think I've listened to any of the Yoko tracks.
     
  12. ronm

    ronm audiofreak

    Location:
    southern colo.
    For an 18 year old at the time it was to commercial and light for me.
     
    somnar likes this.
  13. FangfossFlyer

    FangfossFlyer Forum Resident

    Location:
    York, U.K.
    At the time... disappointment ☹️

    And now.... slightly sorry that John had lost it and wished he had got back to the U.K. to get a change of vibe and some excitement away from what is to me a middle of the road sound of the time.
     
  14. It was slick, continued Lennon's MOR out touch streak, but once his death happened it became untouchable.
     
    Mickey2 and somnar like this.
  15. Bossyman

    Bossyman Forum Resident

    Here on the east coast, nyc, it was all the rage. Radio station loved it, newspapers, etc. it was very well received if memory serves. A very exciting time. For a short period. :(
     
  16. bosskeenneat

    bosskeenneat Forum Resident

    I think that's why the overall reaction to DF, especially by longtime Beatle fans, has been stuck on lukewarm. There was a sense that Yoko had completely squeezed the last of any Rock 'n Roll fire out of John, same way the army experience seemed to have done to Elvis. And like Buddy Holly getting on that plane, that awful December evening will never allow John to change that picture forever.
     
    ParloFax likes this.
  17. That's about how I felt too. I loved John Lennon, but found that the "shock factor" in his art was sorely missing from DF.
     
  18. somnar

    somnar Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC & Amsterdam
    As a 15 year old fanatical Beatles fan, I was very excited about the record coming out. But while waiting for the big day, I heard “Starting Over” on the radio and thought “uh-oh.” Dopey pastiche, played and recorded far too slickly by a room full of session guys.

    Got the album on day of release and a friend and I did what millions of other Lennon fans did: we put the thing on and picked up the needle after each of Lennon’s songs, skipping to the next one. To say we were underwhelmed would be an understatement: these songs were - and are - dopey AOR tunes. Melodically and harmonically simple and easy to digest in ways that Lennon’s softer songs hadn’t been before. Only “I’m Losing You” had any bite at all and even these two fifteen year olds knew that there was already a song - a much better song - with that very title.

    In terms of the lyrics - in particular “Watching the Wheels” - I was told that many things here made a lot more sense to people of a certain age. But, having passed that age a dozen years ago, I can’t say his lyrics here provide anything more than greeting card level insights into love and maturation..

    All that said, when we did let the damn thing play all the way through a couple of days later - with Yoko’s songs - it got a LOT better. I hadn’t been a fan of her music - am still not particularly a fan - but there was and is no doubt in my mind that her contributions saved this record (from being something that got thrown into something I listen to every five or so years, hoping it’ll have miraculously turned into something good).
     
    swedwards1960 and Crimson Witch like this.
  19. Crimson Witch

    Crimson Witch Roll across the floor thru the hole & out the door

    Location:
    Lower Michigan
    I find that I am often irritated by the "stitched-together-at-the-hip" oneness that pervaded John and Yoko's work just before the tragedy. I know I shouldn't be. I am, after all, happy they had their time together in love - nothing is more important than happiness and they both knew that. Perhaps there is jealousy in me that manifests in this way (?)
    Anyway, it is very little trouble to compile a John Lennon "Fantasy" album out of his songs from "Double.." and "Milk.." If I want to hear Yoko, I can play her compilation just as easily. In the end, it seems to have been about more than John's "final LP" .. after all, nobody knew at the time that this is what these sessions would end up becoming.
     
    somnar likes this.
  20. Mickey2

    Mickey2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bronx, NY, USA
    I mostly remember hearing (Just Like) Starting Over frequently on the radio before Lennon was killed. Personally, it was a little too nostalgic and sappy in style for my taste at the time. Of course after Dec 8, 1980 everything changed. Every song on this record (and even his past recordings) took on a different feeling and meaning. I bought the record then. Not sure if I would have otherwise, sad to say. It is still hard to listen to this album without thinking about that day and the mournful aftermath.
     
    Mr-Beagle likes this.
  21. Mr-Beagle

    Mr-Beagle Ah, but the song carries on, so holy

    Location:
    Kent
    Be glad you haven't got it on cassette!
     
  22. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    from the first time i heard 'double fantasy' right up to this minute i have loved every lennon song on the record and abhorred every note on the yoko songs.

    if yoko ono is an acquired taste i have not acquired it.
     
  23. Onrd

    Onrd I am not a number

    I thought it was a huge disappointment. Mediocre, paint by the numbers drivel. This from the fellow that wrote Walrus?
     
    somnar and FangfossFlyer like this.
  24. 007james

    007james Forum Resident

    Location:
    nyc
    How nice it was having the ability on cd's to skip every other song :)
     
    Dodoz likes this.
  25. musicfan37

    musicfan37 Senior Member

    I was so glad John was back! It was exciting hearing “Starting Over” on the radio. I was given the new album for my birthday a week before that dreadful day.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine