New book on Plastic Ono Band album ahead of anniversary reissue?

I would be happy if all of John's solo albums receive a SDE treatment. They will not all be like Imagine was, meaning probably no standalone book for something like Mind Games. They likely all will not have a visual component, but Bluray audio is a safe bet.

 

I would have to believe the next big package of audio and video will be One to One concerts. There were strong rumors about that six or so years ago that Jack Douglas had worked on or was going to work on. It has to be coming one of these years.

 

I agree, John’s catalog is so small, especially if you don’t include the avant garde stuff, that all his studio albums should get similar treatment,a new mix, 1-2 discs of outtakes and a nice book detailing the recording and release with plenty of photos ( like the one included in the Imagine Ultimate set) would be great. Plastic Ono Band and Double Fantasy would probably be able to support a bigger multimedia release on the level of Imagine, but the other 5 or so studio albums with just the audio and book in the same format as the Imagine Ultimate set would be great. Really hope the “Ultimate” edition isn’t just for the “big” albums and winds up being Lennon’s version of the Archive collection.

 

Yeah, thats another major Beatle related release that should have been available already, the only full concert by John post beatles and it’s still not easily available! But I found Jack Douglas says a lot of stuff that winds up being totally incorrect, at least the last few years, so now whenever he says something I take it with a grain of salt.

 

That statement describes the Plastic Ono Band 50th to a T.

A Plastic Ono Band 50th would fit this description better.

 

Maybe they can spring Phil Spector from prison and have him go in the opposite production direction and make
POB sound more like All Things Must Pass.

 

I am not very up on Record Store Day or when it is, but it is hopeful at least that the Instant Karma single that is coming is called an ultimate mix. Like perhaps "Ultimate" is how the Lennon collection will be known as like McCartney's team has chosen Archive Collection.

 

Yeah didn't he tell someone or a whole crowd the Imagine box was delayed until the following winter?

 

Yeah, that sure is my hope, although me being greedy, it would be a great opportunity to do a Ultimate set for Double Fantasy as well- 50th anniversary of POB, 40th anniversary of DF and 80th anniversary of his birth. It markets itself

 

Hey what would have been his 70th birthday had quite a lot of releases too, so you could be on to something there.

 

Double Fantasy is what needs to happen this year.

 

Or both! October and December. If the prices are Imagine Ultimate area I think that may work.

 

I wonder if the book and Imagine DVD and Bluray being separate purchases had some impact on keeping the price down. I know there was an excellent book in the set too, but they had to figure Lennon fans would go for the trifecta. I expected to pay much more for Imagine Ultimate so it was a nice surprise.

 

Mozart liked to use the word "Ultimate".

Salieri preferred to use "Archive".

 

Noooooo! The sparseness is part of what makes it great IMO.

 

Agreed. I was joking.
I should have put a happy face.

 

I definitely got the joke.

 

Personally, I'm hoping for all sessions including the Yoko stuff. Give me more Ringo & Klaus!

 

With John's 80th Birthday coming up, and estate has promised "surprises" related to that, so something music-wise is coming. Is a POB 50th the best way to celebrated John's 80th birthday?

On one hand, yes, it's his debut solo album. So celebrating that in a big way makes sense as it's a huge anniversary. It's also a very dark piece of work filled with a lot of pain and frustration and agony, things not typically associated with a birthday celebration of sorts. It all just depends on how Yoko and Sean are thinking about this. Double Fantasy has a big anniversary, too.

 

I can’t see them having two major releases 2 months apart, much easier to promote 2 releases at the same time under the 80th birthday celebration angle. And not to keep comparing to the Macca Archives, but they have done 2 simultaneous releases a few times, and I doubt it affected sales negatively (I’m sure many fans wish he would do it more often!)so there is precedent within the Beatles camp.
Of course Lennon’s catalog is much smaller then Paul’s so I can see them wanting to stretch it out longer, but I just think the promotion writes itself on this occasion.

 

I was really making the point that there have been multiple releases such as the McCartney archives. I think we will have a birthday release, but to release specials for POB and Double Fantasy at the same time would be a little odd, chronologically and style-wise. Having said that if they do pair the John and Yoko POB albums in the same package perhaps it would not be as strange as it could have been.

If they were going to release Double Fantasy I would have perhaps expected a companion book as well. Hopefully some announcements in the near future or perhaps a leak!

 

50 would get more fanfare than 40, but there is no precedent in the Lennon camp beyond celebrating his big number birthdays with a fall release. Imagine did not wait until 2021 to have what most would say is a big anniversary package. I just hope we aren't in for another compliation of ultimate mixes this October.

 

Yeah I think it's clear Imagine's Ultimate set was pushed up because of Yoko's songwriting credit on the title track, it was in her interest to seize the moment and present Imagine as a real collaboration with a new film and book, and it was on her mind to do that album with this "Ultimate" treatment first. There was

I could see it going either way....POB50 or DF40....But I'm not of the belief that just because there was an RSD reissue of the Instant Karma single that that means POB50 is a guarantee just because POB was released the same year as Instant Karma. Those releases have nothing in common and came out about 9 months apart, even if Instant Karma ends up a bonus track on POB50....

And as I said earlier, it would seem slightly odd if for John's 80th birthday the only music release was one focused on his darkest, most harrowing work.

I'm hoping to be surprised. Birthdays and anniversaries and numbers seem to mean a lot to Yoko, and her health has been ailing the past few years. She may view John's 80th as her last big hurrah as caretaker of hiss work before Sean takes over.

Personally I'd love to see a massive Dakota Demos album project!

Discs 1-2 would be the best of John's home demos, as he recorded them, all collected in one place, mixed and mastered better than we've ever heard them.

Discs 3-4 would be talented artists covering and completing studio versions of each of those songs, produced by Sean with Julian participating, too.

Beyond music, which I'm sure we will get something, I'd like to be surprised with things like some art prints/posters available of John's drawings and a nice Coffee-Table style repress of Skywriting By Word of Mouth (perhaps updated with some more of John's diaries and letters) that have since been uncovered since the original publication of the book...


BTW as of 5 DAYS ago, John's instagram is posting portrait after portrait of John, with no caption or context, which is unusual because the posts are almost always well documented with date and info related to the image. This could be early social media clues/cues that some kind of birthday announcement is imminent. I could see the instagram account continuing the caption-less portraits, and then dropping a big announcement about John's birthday releases soon after Flaming Pie is out of the way in early Aug.

 

I agree, and the book that is coming also does not guarantee a 50th anniversary package. Ken Womack is putting out a book about Lennon's last year of 1980 as well.

That is interesting. I don't really check instagram. We will hopefully get more information about what is planned for John's 80th next month.

 

Amazon has posted some images from the upcoming book including session photos and the chapter index:



https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1681885891