Customer Reviews

Feeling the Space

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

More so than any of their previous collaborations or dual releases, "Feeling The Space" could stand along with John's "Mind Games" (released the same year) as two halves of the whole. Here, Yoko shows she was paying attention to John's world, even while he was learning from her. This is the debut of Yoko Ono, pop songwriter. A great, great album from a woman who will always be under an unfair burden. While sadly her next great album would be "Season Of Glass", then the brilliant "Onobox", this is Yoko writing about difficult issues, but in a musically positive mood, with many clever melodic tricks obviously filtered through from her husband. This album (and Onobox), leaves you wishing she had done more in this vein.

I treasured this record for years and now finally have it on CD. I love almost every song - especially Mildred, Mildred recorded at an impromptu session with John Lennon during the Bank Street period. Women Power is a classic as well as well Women of Salem. Wonderful and highly recommended!

First best is the album Yoko did right before this Approximately Infinite Universe. You want a picture of what the world was really like for women in the early-mid 1970's listen to Yoko.

This album, the last of the Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band period, is quite a different step from the direction Yoko had been heading with previous recordings. On this, her 4th solo LP, Yoko opted for a smoother, more jazzier style than the pre-alternative rock she had been venturing into on "Fly" and "AIU".

Here we find an album about women, for women and by a woman. Most songs deal with the stress and strain of women trying to survive in a male-dominated society, however you don't have to be a woman to enjoy this album. Songs like "Angry Young Woman", "She Hits Back", and the album's single "Woman Power" could have easily been anthems for the feminist movement. Others like "Yellow Girl", "Coffin Car", and "Woman of Salem" depict the damage done to woman by the ongoing oppression of the male society.

This album also features many other fine moments. The song "Run, Run, Run", a single in Europe and Japan, deals with drug addiction and a world passing you by without your knowledge. The key lyric of the song, "Feeling the room, Feeling the space, when suddenly I noticed it wasn't spring anymore", is quite a reality check in itself.

The highlight of the album though is it's closing track, a song titled "Men Men Men". Here Yoko turns the tables on men by depicting what she seeks in a man and not the other way around as was custom at the time. Yoko gives a hats off to Mae West in the songs final refrains when she breathfully beckons "Come up and hmm-hmm, come up and see me sometime." In probably one of the most clever lyrics of the time,Yoko announces "Ladies and Gents, I'd like to introduce you to...my lower half, without whom I won't be breathing so heavily!" This is concluded with "Honey juice, you can come out of your box now." then after the song fades you hear John's voice simply saying "Yes, Dear".

This album was definately a step in a different direction, but shows where Yoko was heading when she recorded the ill-fated "A Story". That album which was shelved after her reconciliation with Lennon, was not to see the light of day until almost 20 years later when several tracks were featured on disc 6 of Onobox.

Yoko Ono is an artist in her own right. Her relationship with John Lennon is a huge part of her art/music, but not the element she should be judged against. She pushed boundaries, played with sound, noise, different aspects of expression. She was an innovator. Her music opened the door to punk and post-punk and new wave, without ever sounding like anything else. Listen to it without succumbing the tired old (codger) bias about how she screwed up the Beatles. For real, people. Some of these reviewers offer nothing enlightening about the music, good or critical. Just more boring ideology. People must have a lot of time on their hands in order to simply express their dumb, and frankly annoying, small-minded outrage about Yoko Ono.

There's nothing like listening to Yoko on vintage vinyl,when music was anything but boring,like today.Feel The Space!!!

When you listen to "Feeling The Space" along with her cuts on "Sometime In New York City" you see a more articulate, directed energy emerging from Yoko. The womens' condition and movement is very much in the forefront of her thoughts as a woman and as an artist. You now see the primal sounds of yesterday turn to a very pronounced voice in need of a more structured form in which to communicate. I believe this contrast heightens and helps to reveal the deeper undertones Yoko uses when she creates and expresses her thoughts, feelings and experiences through her arts. Yoko's abstract and advant-garde work speaks very clearly to me, and sometimes the more structured and "coherent" form seems more distracting. However, the lyrics during this and her later periods are poignant and sometimes good poetry. The womens movement has greatly changed since the early seventies, so sometimes the lyrics seem a little dated, as women take ceo positions and show they are as ruthless, petty and blind as were some of their male predecessors they so loudly condemned. Equality and justice are surely "ideals" to strive for. Womens' equality and human rights must surely remain on the forefront of our individual and collective consciousness. It's just that too much and too narrow of a perspective (in this case woman) the message becomes dated and tiresome. That is not to say that this cd hasn't much to say and worth the effort. I would say that POB and Fly speak with a clearer and more universal voice than FTS. FST remains an important and very listenable collection. Take the time to sift through this collection, and you will find some gold nuggets. I especially liked the two bonus tracks, the live "talking" intro by Yoko is not dated.

I remember buying this album the week it was released in '73! Wow! Ever since YO responded to a fan letter I sent her in '71 - she mailed me an autographed copy of a paperback Grapefruit; I was 11, I was astounded! - I've been (sorta) her biggest fan. Years later I did a technogrunge tribute of her 1st album at CBGBs.

That said, FTS is a letdown after AIU. The LP's 45 - "Woman Power" / "Men, Men, Men" - offers most of the fun. The problem with FTS, I believe, was YO's replacing Elephant's Memory with session pros. "Angry Young Woman", "She Hits Back" and "Woman of Salem" are great tunes, feminist fire ... hampered by indifferent performances.

YO never had as cool a band as EM - especially hot guitarist Wayne Gabriel ("We're All Water"!) - and, alas, Ono employed a bland pop sound throughout the 80's. FTS often sounds like YO emulating Helen Reddy's big chart action, nice try but she sacrificed her shockrock touch.

Supposedly YO is getting a new project going with Sonic Youth. That could be blazing. Spotty career or not, Yoko Ono, the Hillary of rockNroll, is elemental cool, an American icon. Woman power!

In the early 1970's, it was impossible to avoid Yoko Ono's presence. Her music was played on radio to the point you'd have thought she owned the stations.

When Feeling The Space was released in October 1973, her previous album Approximately Infinate Universe was still in the top 10, and Fly, after 2 years, was still in the top 40! Yoko vowed to take a break after this album to avoid burnout.

Feeling The Space quickly became yet another Yoko blockbuster. Staying atop the #1 position on Billboard for 13 weeks, through Christmas 1973. Much like Fly and Universe, this album was also chock full of hit singles. 2 #1's (Women Of Salem and Men Men Men) and 3 other top 10 singles (Coffin Car #2, Women Power #6 and She Hits Back #7). The album sold 8 million copies in the US. Which was a huge hit, but a sign that Yoko was teetering on burning out. We would not see a new album of hers again until 1980, when she conquered a whole new generation and flew back up the Billboard charts.

The best feminist album ever

Out of all the album covers Yoko has put out over the years, this is my favorite.
The ancient splendor of the pyramids and Yoko as the mysterious Sphincter is so apropos.