Oh Yoko!

While I must admit that I'm curious about the whole "faux news" and "Barb is on the right" thing, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to put on my gort hat and ask everyone to drop politics from this thread.

thanks,

jeff

 

Fox News = Faux News. And now we return you to the Yoko Ono thread...

 

Oh, now I get it!

Name calling is such clever critique... HA!

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand, the video for #9 Dream with Yoko in it is, in fact revisionist history, Bill O'Rielly not withstanding. All of Lennon's fans need to get comfortable with the idea that Yoko is the holder of the cookie jar now, and realize that she will soon (if she hasn't already) remix Walls and Bridges because I guess, John would have wanted his records to sound to up to date with today's technology. She assumes she knows better than John Lennon what a John Lennon album should sound like.

This sucks IMO. Thank god she's not in charge of Robert Johnson's (or fill in the blank's) recorded output.

 

According to John the reason GPAC was credited to L-M was to thank Paul for helping to record " The Ballad of John & Yoko" on the spur of the moment. For those who might not know John & Paul are the only Beatles playing on the song.
As for Another Day it has already been pointed out that the original credit is McCartney-McCartney. This was one of Paul's attempts to get half the publishing by giving Linda credit. ATV sued or threten to sue him over it and it is now credited to McCartney.

 

[JOHNNY CARSON VOICE]I did not know that.[/JOHNNY] Thanks, Dugan.

 

I miss Johnny!

 

It's interesting. There are plenty of other big name artists whose old material has been remixed for CD: The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Who, Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel, just to name a few.

When those CDs are criticized on this forum, the criticism is usually directed at the quality of the work. But for some reason with the Lennon CDs, the criticism is usually in the form of personal attacks on Lennon's widow.

 

All of this is so silly. Songwriting credits schmedits. We all know who the real two genius songwriters are as far as the Beatles were concerned and Yoko is certainly not one of them. What is sad is that she is creating false impressions for future generations. She is making her mark, that's for sure.

 

Exactly, as it should be!

The Beatles have been remixed (lord knows why) and I blame the record company for removing the artist's original mixes for no reason at all. I always thought they never needed "improvement." That's why you see so many threads dedicated to "which (LP) pressing sounds best for "Beatles For Sale" or whatever, and you know that.

Elvis was remixed only to make his records sound modern or current, to sell to a contemporary market. The original mixes were the ones I love, I always thought they never needed "improvement."

I would think that Who fans would have been happy with proper mastering of their mono releases as well as new stereo mixes. Give us both. Instead, we will end up with only new stereo mixes. As far as the later releases are concerned, nice mastering of original mixes of Tommy, Who's Next (mastered by Steve), etc., would be wonderful. I just think things don't sound as good as they used to.

Dylan's output is available on SACD in stereo, and surround on a few titles; on vinyl in mono, and what's wrong with that? I'm happy!

Simon & Garfunkel were remixed because the orginal master mix-down tapes were gone or had crapped out. IIRC, their music was remixed by the original producers referring to first pressings of their vinyl LP's. All the care in the world was given to make the remixes sound the same as they did originally in the sixties.

The criticism towards Yoko (the "widow", as you call her) is based on the fact that she has removed John's vision of his work from the stores. Not a big deal to collectors, but your kids will never hear his version or his vision.

 

What is the distinction you are making? Why do the Lennon remixes merit personal attacks on the instigator but not the others?

 

I've really got nothing against Yoko as a person.

I understand your question, and I see your point. However, I can't see how saying that keeping John Lennon's original mixes in print is a "personal attack" on (the widow) Yoko Ono. She makes money if these things are presented as new. (Notice I have said "new" not "better.") You know the public loves "digital" and "remastered", these are buzz words that sell. This is an easy way to make money for Yoko. You can't argue that John Lennon most likely represents 98 percent of her income. That and her memories (and lots of Beatles guitars) are all she has left from her long dead husband. (Twenty-three years ago!! Unbelievable!)

Yoko makes money when these albums sell. If she didn't change and remix them, they wouldn't make "new release" news and they wouldn't sell.

I think it's too bad she/they can't make money on re-releasing John Lennon's albums "as he intended." How many more of us would have bought the new MFSL's if they had NOT been remixed??

 

Simon and Garfunkel, the Who, and Dylan all have approved any remixes that were done, whereas John of course hasn't. And the Elvis remixes have not replaced the original mixes on the market, just supplemented them. I think those are the reasons people get *more* upset about the Lennon remixes than other ones out there, and the personal attacks stem from that "more upsetness". Not that they are justified, but that's part of the cause, anyway. And actually, one of the people involved in the Who remixes HAS come under intense personal attack here and elsewhere, so Yoko is not the only one.

 

I don't agree with that. I think remastered Lennon CDs with bonus tracks would be just as promotable to the general public, and would sell just as well as remixed ones do. I don't think greed is motivating the remixing of the Lennon catalog. It costs more to remix than to simply remaster, for little to no net gain in sales. I think Yoko sincerely believes the albums are being improved, and that's why she's doing it. We may disagree with her, but I think that's what her motivation is. If she truly just believed "remixing=greater sales", she would have had Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey remixed too, instead of just remastered.

 

I think this is really the case.

If I may make an assumption here (oh no!), from Steve's defense of Yoko (many more times than this thread) I would guess that Yoko may have been in Steve's corner as far as the attempted DCC Gold Beatles releases. I remember Steve once saying that we would be suprised if we know who was for it, how close it came to being a reality, and who/what eventually stopped it.

 

Well, you're right, that's a very good point.

I always found it funny that when Yoko's albums were reissued on Ryko, she used the original mixes for those. And many of those were recorded at the same time, same studio, same musicians as John's albums!

I've been listening (a lot) to the Imagine album (original U.S. vinyl pressing). It is such a beautiful mix, to this day is sounds awesome. The remixed cd sounds different, wrong. The new mix changes how that record sounds, how it is heard, changes it's history. That's just my opinion, but it seems sad that we can't get a good sounding cd of the original album. (Of course I guess that could be said for many artists' work!)

 

That is strange, but I don't think it's because she believes her original albums are sacred and untouchable and John's are not. Maybe she didn't think it was worth the expense of remixing her own albums, because she knew they wouldn't sell well enough to recoup the cost?

For whatever reason though, it is too bad John's original mixes are not currently in print.

 

i've picked up the mofi imagine remix and it sounds like a big improvement over the previous CD.

yeah, its revisionism, but boy those early CD pressings of Lennon lps sounded awful.

the first mind games cd was pure crap. there was no bass.

the first POB CD was dull and lifeless.

several of these LP mixes were produced by Phil Spector and they suffer from his turgid brand of self-reflexive, masturbatory hypercompression.

the most horrid of all the Spector produced Lennon material may be Live In New York City 1972 and Rock and Roll. just a sonic mess.

BRING ON THE REMIXES!!

 

I've said the same thing, only I hope you don't get as much grief as I did for using the "C" word.

The remixed strings on Imagine sound fantastic.

 

I personally enjoyed the Imagine remix. All I have is Imagine from MoFi. I plan on picking up POB after Xmas.

Sean

 

That is one of the big problems with that "New" Imagine album. It sounds like they spent days getting the song"Imagine" right (or at least sounding good and a decent mix) and them burned through the rest of the LP carelessly in about 3 hours!

 

John and Yoko were one. Insults to Yoko are insults to John.

John

 

I think the idea has always been, right or wrong, that this is true and that Yoko loved Yoko too.

 

Well, then he really insulted himself the night he took Yoko to a party in someone's apartment and then took another woman into the adjoining bedroom and had sex with her while everyone else tried to pretend that it wasn't happening! (This according to Yoko, by the way.)

Real life is sometimes less romantic than people try to make it out to be.

 

Well, if John and Yoko really were one, then I guess Yoko was having sex with that other woman too, in spirit.

I don't buy the whole "John and Yoko perfect soulmates LOVE story" stuff that is often put out there. Their relationship was a troubled and screwed up one in many ways. But I also don't buy the "Yoko was a mind-controlling domineering witch" concept either. The truth is somewhere in between.

 

The real love story was Paul and Linda, not Yoko and John. It's just that Yoko and John (especially Yoko) spent so much time and effort shoving it in everyone's face constantly. At least Paul wasn't naked on the cover of Rolling Stone wrapped around Linda. Thanks Paul.