Is it me, or is Mind Games Lennon's blandest album?

..yea...too much "swooping"...and lousy tone, IMO.

 

Its probably you.

 

Agree.
I think POB is still stunning to this day;
as good as any Beatles material, imo.
John found love, so power to them both ..
.. I don't know why John's material was
spotty after POB - I guess no one will ever
really know for sure. I love Walls & Bridges enough to say that I feel he still had it in him at that point in his life, so he definitely hadn't lost the Beatle magic. He was just trying out new sounds with the production on Double Fantasy, as he'd been away from the studio for five years and there were new technologies to play with in 1980.

 

Lennon never did a bad tune not to mention a bad album (even NYC was a 9/10 record) and I'll take his work over The Beatles any day.

 

My mind goes numb when I listen to this thing. Many of these songs manage to be saccharine, plodding and bland all at once. I like the title track and I think that there are about 15 seconds in “You Are Here” I like. That’s about it.

 

Haven't seen you around in a while.
Still posting the craziest things!

 

Mind Games may the the Lennon album I listen to the most!
'Aisimusen' has one of the GREAT guitar solos of all time.
'One Day At Time' is weak, and 'Only People' has one of the ugliest clavinet sounds of all time.

 

Mind Games, to me, is where he misses McCartney the most.

I find the songs dull and Lennon himself uninspired.

I love the title track. And Meat City is fun.

And after that, it's bland.

If it was a McCartney album, it would be Off The Ground.

Walls and Bridges was a huge step forward, mostly because John had something to say, and there was that return of Beatle John, too.

 

Yes, very hit and miss. It's got a few tracks I really dig, like Tight As, Freeda People, Out Of The Blue, Meat City and the title track but the rest is forgettable.

 

Both Mind Games and Walls and Bridges are half good/half indifferent(or poor) releases and its during his "Lost Weekend" phase and split from Yoko. I've always thought combining the best material from both releases would've made for an excellent single album that would rival his prior works like Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. Maybe something like this:

Whatever Gets You Through the Night
Bring on the Lucie(Freda People)
Mind Games
Going Down on Love
Intuition
What You Got
Tight A$
Steel and Glass
Only People
Old Dirt Road
Meat City

 

Works good as a playlist , but I think 'W&B'
is just fine the way it is. For that matter, I
think 'Mind Games' LP is mostly fine,
except I would replace tracks 4 &7 ( One
Day At A Time, & Intuition ) with Stand
By Me & You Can't Catch Me off of the
'Rock 'n' Roll' LP and then just send the rest of the latter to the trash heap !

 

It's you


It doesn't surprise me te see all the bad posts from folks who thought Kiss should be in theR&RHOF, or think the Monkees are a valid pop band who should be in the R&RHOF, which to me is ridiculous, also talk of the next Peter Noone, the Partridge Family, or Mickey Dolenz concert tours like they are even valid as events. Probably serve kool-aid and cookies for snacks. Sometimes I can't tell if it's a joke or not. Some of the stuff I see is almost silly and then they run down John, or any number of Blues artist. I like Rock and Roll and some sense of being an adult in my music, it's fine with me if you don't but you don't have to be so mean and spiteful in you critique of Johns music, jst grab hands and dance a circle to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
My response here I feel is valid due to the ire some are making of Johns music and his life.

Thanks for reminding me of the cd, I listened to it as I wrote this response.

 

Now you can put me on ignore, or laugh at my blues music that is so simple to play.

 

I agree with some of what you're saying disagree with other parts; personally, I wouldn't spend a penny on Peter Noone, Dolenz or The Partridge Family. But regardless of what you think of these people as "artists" or (non)viable contributors to Pop music, there's nothing INvalid about what their performances mean to a lot of people, even if you (or I) wouldn't bother with any of them. On another "note", I'm a huge Beatles/Lennon fan but I see nothing wrong a little musical dissection now and then even if it leans towards the negative. I agree that negativity expressed on his personal life is not only uncalled for but very judgmental (as if anyone here, or elsewhere, is perfect.....???). But when it comes to the music , whether it's a specific period in his life or a particular album, it's actually a lot of the negative opinions that make for the best discussion.

• ...so by the way...did you listen to the original-mix CD or the remix..??

 

Not really I have always heard the pain expressed in Walls And Bridges to lack the urgency of other Lennon solo projects...

Although Steel & Glass from day one has remained a top 10 Lennon fav

 

Rock N Roll is the most mundane or bland. NYC is the most pretentious (outside the 3 "Unfinished Music volumes). Mind Games is a slight notch above Walls And Bridges, and somewhere below POB and Imagine. Not sure where to place Double Fantasy though.

I prefer the remixes on all the above. (I do not like the original mixes that bury and obscure John's voice).

 

Sorry, I can't reply to a "what say you?" question. The grammar makes me mental. It might be just me.

 

I agree with the OP.

"MG" is a perfectly listenable little album, and I like both the title track and "Meat City" a lot.

Otherwise... I can't point to any crap but I can't point to anything that I think is better than just okay.

It's a much better album than the execrable "NYC" or "R&R", and it's a bit superior to "DF" or "M&H", too, but it's definitely much worse than "POB", "Imagine" and "W&B"...

 

I prefer 'Mind Games' to both 'Walls and Bridges' and 'Sometime In NYC', but each album has its merits. My favorite tracks on SINYC are Yoko's anyway.

 

I own the CD. I listen to the title track (Mind Games) and I really like it. All of the other songs on the CD, I skip.

 

they really did need each other didn't they.....if it was a beatle album it would have the best songs - title track...freeda is almost fantastic..and paul could've helped polish the other so-so ones....and the sound would be a lot better....

 

That's how I feel about "DF". "Kiss Kiss Kiss" and "Give Me Something" are easily my favorite songs on that one!

 

If it were a Beatle LP...3/4 of it wouldn't have made the cut. Agree on Bring on The Lucie...

 

I love the Mind Games album. Sounds to me like the first full album Lennon put out where you can really hear him enjoying making music for the sake of making music. No primal scream therapy, no focus on politics, no Paul hating, just a guy making music for himself with a great sounding band. The original mix is a bit murky, but it works - the remix tries to put every single instrument front & center, clear as a bell, where some things need to be in the background.

I'm not a fan of Walls & Bridges or the Rock n Roll covers album, both seem lifeless and Lennon sounds bored to me. Seems like a lot of people lump Mind Games in with that sort of review, but I think it's a different sounding album and succeeds for it.

 

I got the UK 45 of Mind Games very cheap with it's original picture sleeve yesterday in excellent condition. I'd forgotten how much I dislike the song. It's ghastly!

On the positive side I got #9 Dream and Whatever Gets You Through The Night with it. I like both of those. There were a few Wings 45s too.