MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JOHN LENNON - GIMME SOME TRUTH

 

I'm sure any Lennon fan worth their salt has at least one of the many greatest hits sets from over the years, whether it's Shaved Fish (1975), The John Lennon Collection (1982), Lennon Legend (1997), Working Class Hero (2005), Power To The People (2010), or one of the various box sets or soundtrack collections. So in order to celebrate John's 80th, something new would be required. What this set offers is pretty much the usual setlist, but now with newly remixed sound. The 36 tracks have been sourced from the original master tapes, and remixed according to the family's wishes. Yoko and Sean wanted first and foremost to have a cleaner sound, and increase John's vocals in the mix. They haven't messed around with the instruments, like the recent Beatles remixes for Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper, but instead gave them a basic cleaning-up.

This is most noticeable on the early productions, singles such as "Instant Karma" and "Power To The People," produced in a lump of sound by Phil Spector. Others, such as "Cold Turkey" and "Give Peace A Chance" were simply not made with clarity as a priority. So these simply sound better, warmer in the vocals, and less sloppy. Same goes for the tracks from Rock 'n' Roll, "Stand By Me" and "Angel Baby," another album crunched together by the erratic Spector, as his talents continued to erode. The live "Come Together" from 1972 sounds way better too, Lennon now way up from in your ears.

Time to use your surround sound too, as the 5.1 mix is put to great effect. There's a little more mix fun here with the extra channels, and a very enjoyable experience listening to these very familiar tracks. Well, not all of them are very familiar. There's a couple of deep album cuts from the Mind Games lp, "Out Of The Blue" and "I Know (I Know)," plus "Angela" from Some Time In New York City, a good song from a so-so album. It's there as a replacement for the usual inclusion on these packages, the minor hit "Woman Is The (N-word) Of The World," which isn't very popular at all these days.

The other big part of this set is the very gorgeous hard-cover book. I know, it's all packaging, and they charge a ton for it, but this book is simple and smart and attractive. Instead of wasting time on self-serving essays, it's mostly made up of great photos and great individual articles on each song. And the info comes largely from Lennon himself, excerpts from various interviews, essentially the stories of the songs from the horse's mouth. You have to decide whether you need another Lennon set, but if you're wondering if there's anything new, the answer is yes.