Customer Reviews

Rising Mixes

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

 

 

I'm a bit surprised by how much negative reviews heaped on this release. First of all, if you're looking for a female vocalist to pop in your player to augment your Madonna, Britney Spears & Sheryl Crow collection, then you shouldn't even consider entering "yoko" into a search. If you like Yoko because you heard a house mix of one of her songs in a club, then you should also skip over this. However, if you'd like to consider listening to something else besides Sonic Youth, Lydia Lunch or Portishead, then this release is for you. This is Yoko's best work since her "Walking on Thin Ice" single (and unfortunately she hasn't duplicated this effort since its release). Yes this "EP", which actually runs longer than most albums, is divided between some reworkings (by Tricky, Beastie Boys, Ween, Thurston Moore, & Cibo Mato) from the Rising album and a long experimental piece that includes her son. Since I became familiar with this material before the album, I like this work better than the album versions, but I tend to like more experimental stuff. Yoko excels because she more readily captures raw emotion (i.e. in screaming vocals) than someone like Alanis Morrissette or Sleater-Kinney. The remixes here do run the range of trip hop to experimental guitar. The only short coming to this release (and why it gets 4 instead of 5 stars) is the fact that Perry Farrell's (Janes Addiction) haunting remix of "Kurushi", the best of all the remixes, is left off the CD & can only be found on the vinyl version.

In all honesty, I think the reason I don't particularly care for this one is due to the fact that is isn't a TRUE Yoko Ono album, but a representation of Yoko's music as seen through the eyes of other artists. For the most part, the tracks from 'Rising' seem to have lost the playfulness featured in their original forms.

The one exception is in the Ween remix of "Ask The Dragon" which adds somewhat of a comedic twist portraying Yoko as sort of a minister preaching about asking the members of the animal kingdom why they do what they do (don't know, I'm just doing it), while her congregation mutters "I understand, I understand".

The Cibo Matto remix of "Talking To The Universe" is a cheap attempt at trying to pass Yoko off as the Japanese Dr. Dre, possibly. This doesn't work at all! If the girls had covered the song, maybe it would have been easier to pull it off as sort of a bubblegum hip hop, but really, the song was fine as it appeared in it's original form. That in mind, don't even get me started on Tricky's "Where Do We Go From Here" or Thurston Moore's "Rising". The new track, "Franklin Summer" showcases Yoko in more of a free-form style similar to her early Plastic Ono Band Days.

The most impressive of the cuts on this compilation has to be the ABA Allstars "The Source", a musical collage featuring snippets of Yoko's music, mostly from her 'Fly' era recordings. Now THIS is a true tribute to the artist, and shows that Adam Yausch and Co. have really done their homework in Onoism 101.

The real noteworthy material on this disc lies in the enhanced portion. This features a mini-bio of the artist and her work, and also features many installations from 'Grapefruit', Yoko's book of instruction originally released in the early 60's and updated for publishing in the early 70's. Along with all of this is the video for the song "New York Woman" taken from the 'Rising' album as well as the soundtrack of the movie "Somewhere In The City".

this album surprised me. I didnt like Yoko's music at all, but this album completely changed my mind. Whether her other albums are too weird or not, or they are not your taste, you can listen to this one. maybe her music is not for majority, but it's worth trying. you should find out Yoko can do music or not yourself. and I garantee you will be surprised like me. she can. * I love her pictures and poems in her CD, enjoy!

30 years of flack from ruthless Beatles fans and critics have not been able to obscure the fact that this 65-year old avant-garde rock performer is probably the most influential of her genre. Following a decade outside the limelight, she resurfaced in 1995 with the ambitious "Rising". Due to the alternative rock revolution that exploded into the mainstream some 6 years after her hiatus from rock music (which had had Yoko unsuccesfully trying to court the pop charts), her return to the abrasive style of her early 70s work suddenly sounded fresh and inventive. It is true that some Yoko fans have been exaggerating the importance of this woman in sculpting the post-punk sound, and sometimes she censors her intriguing ideas in favour of more conventional rock phrasing, but she still has a remarkable vision.

Now, 4 cutting-edge artists have had their crack at displaying just how comparable Yoko's music is to the alternative rock scene. Cibo Matto, members of the Beastie boys, Ween, Tricky and Thurston Moore transform tracks from "Rising" (although the Beasties take their cue from her 1971 "Fly" album) into styles suiting their own, yet maintaining the Ono sound. At times, it feels a tad contrived, as when Cibo Matto add Riot Grrl-esque raps to "Talking to the Universe", but it frequently shows a link between her notorious 70-s work (incorporating primal screams and atonal soundscapes) and the genre-bending, melting pot philosophies of 90s music. The Thurston Moore remix is particularly inspired, though very few will find the strength to endure it.

You might think that the reason to buy this CD is if you really love Yoko or you had a special fondness for Rising. Personally, Rising was worth all of the four dollars I got it for, and Rising Mixes was worth all of the three dollars that I got that for. That being said, this is neither a CD for fans of Rising or Yoko. This is primarily a CD for people who like remixes. Personally, unless the remixer is doing their own thing (like Fatboy Slim does in my opinion) then the track comes off as a sad copy of the original. This is obviously better than a standard remix album because I bought it and I would not buy a standard remix album. Of course I was feeling flush and it was only three dollars used here.
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Out of the six tracks here, four are remixes and they are all bad. Talking to the Universe (Cibo Matto Remix) sounds like CM felt that they wanted to do something "difficult" and so they went on board. Ask the Dragon (Ween Remix) is like a standard remix (the instrumentals are a little more repetitive and dull) but with the standard Ween weirdness...any band that has a 25 minute song called "Poopyship Destroyer" can't be that dull. Where do we go from Here (Tricky Remix) is the worst of the bad remixes (none of these are particularly enlightening), Tricky seems to be over his head here. He just ends up being obsessed with the really weird chorus of the song, which probably has too much profanity to rewrite here, making some convoluted play on words where he's the killer and not the cats. Since Yoko gives Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) a freaking orgasm, we would expect it to be really highbrow and pretentious and it is. He brings in literally the entire noise community in to create fill for this sparse remix. The odd effect it has though is that since he puts the harsh noise right before one of her patented yelps, it comes across as that Thurston is torturing Yoko.
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I don't know what The Source (ABA Allstars) is supposed to be, but I know one thing it's not: entertaining. For a track with so much talent (half of the Beastie Boys, Yuka Honda, Sean Lennon, and Yoko Ono, this is stupid. Oh well.
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The last track is Franklin Summer which is exactly a half hour long. With sparse bongos and acoustic guitar and soft moaning, it is a classic ambient track and like all ambient music, it's kinda dull. The only reason I would listen to this is if I was in an epic song kind-of mood. Half Japanese's "Heaven Sent" (an hour) and Morton Feldman's "String Quartet II" (five to six hours) are good examples of this. It's not something that I'll probably listen to again, but I'm glad I got to hear it, because there are a lot of names on this record.

I'm sorry, I just had to say that was the funniest review I have read in a long time. I despise this album, too. A bunch of crappy remix work without any original signature to it.

By all accounts, I am a kind and generous man. I give to charity when it's thrown in my face, I have many pets that are well-taken care of, I vote moderate Republican (but with "compassion", by golly) and though I eat meat, I occasionally feel marginally remorseful for the act. By all accounts I am, if not a good man, at least a decent one.

So when I tell you I HATE this album, you must believe that I do mean it. This "mix" of an earlier Ono release makes me want to act in a way that would cause the still-undiscovered Amazon jungle cannibals to shake their heads, drop their poison arrows, pack up their victim's skulls in a suitcase, and hitchike to the nearest oil rig to start a new life. That is how much I hate this album. I hate the purple and black cover color scheme, the cheap jewel case it is in, and I even hate it's catalog number. #37268!!!! You are dead to me as a number! If I need to express you, I will say 37,267 PLUS 1!!! I have no 37268!

As I am writing this, the thought creeps into my mind that you might think my hatred the product of a diseased psyche. I assure, my friends, that I am quite well. Perhaps you should not ask yourselves why I hate this product so, but why anyone outside of rather effeminate gatherings of men in New York City would enjoy this CD. Answer me that, and then see if you still believe me mad.