Customer Reviews

Sometime in New York City

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I recently purchased the 2005 STINYC, it Sounds much better than My previous CD, the Muddy 1990 version; The Songs are Dated, of course, stuck in a 1972 Time Capsule, with Extreme Left-Leanings, but they mostly Rock hard and retain a Passion for their Subject matters. Dylan must have heard "Angela", as He followed with His Leftist Hit "George Jackson" (Angela Davis' Imprisoned Lover, Shot Dead while attempting a Jailbreak for those who don't know) soon after; "Sinclair" has excellent Slide Guitar from Lennon, and "Sisters" shows this is a True collaborative effort from John/Yoko....I like the Single Disc 2005 Edition, the 1990 CD was a Double Set that had the Jams relegated to Disc 2, which I tossed out as mostly irrelevant, but I'm glad the best of that side, and 2 Bonus Cuts are presented Here to fill out 75 minutes, Good/Wise Editing from Yoko in My Opinion....

Aside from their late '60s experimental albums, "Sometime in New York City" remains Johnandyoko's weakest effort. Yoko improves this remastered reissue by shaving off half of the "Live Jam" portion, with "Jambag," "Scumbag" and "Au" all coming under the ax. Oddly, she also edits her own "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow)" and takes two minutes off of the end of "We're All Water," probably her best song on the album. She adds the single "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" and her own terrific "Listen, the Snow is Falling." Over all, it's an improvement on any prior edition, but especially over the muddy-sounding 1990 CD.

another fine restoration supervised by Yoko Ono. I think this was a commercial and career disaster for Lennon when it was released at some sky high price during the 1972 election campaign. Now it's an interesting period piece. Feminism was the hot topic that year, and Lennon sang about it like a recent convert in "Woman is the Nigger". Lyrics get silly but the vocal and production are first rate. Elephant's Memory was a nice backing group with at least one radio hit of their own ("Mongoose" I think). Yoko's "Sisters O Sisters" is lyrically quaint and musically very witty as it sort of evokes the Phil Spector heyday. And I love the singing couple on "Born in a Prison" although the lyric gets very silly. And Yoko does ruin "Luck of the Irish" with her "blarney." And her willful avoidance of western pop singing tradition can seem very strange. She also misses rhythm and meter on the "Water" song. The best Lennon numbers from this record are on the new soundtrack about his persecution from the U.S. federal government. But you'd miss the great live vocal on "Baby Please Don't Go".

Basically Ono went for broadly general artistic statements and Lennon wrote songs as almost a visceral response to heavy handed violence practiced by various governments. Unfortunately his fascination with all things "instant" prevented him from rounding these protests into strong songs.

For me, and I may be alone on this, the comedic highlight of the album is in the live portion when John is tearing through "Baby Please Don't Go" and in between the Lennon's phrases Yoko injects her, and I use the term lightly here, "singing". It just has to be heard to be believed. You could not make this kind of stuff up. You could NOT make it up. The remaster sounds good and the big surprise is that this album rocks. I go around humming "Attica State" sometimes and there are a lot of nice musical touches, the slide guitars on John Sinclair or the chord changes of "Woman is the Nigger of the World". The new CD is cut (this does not include all of the original album) but does sound pretty good. I had an original 8-track of this album, still laying around the house somewhere, and I don't think the cuts will be missed much unless you just have to hear everything.
This is a very mixed bag but John is in spectacular voice. If anyone else had done this album it would have been a total bomb (why does this remind me of Elvis' early 1960s recordings). This is not the place to start digging into Lennon's albums, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" would be my vote for that, but it does have enough merit to venture a listen to, a very quirky cause-of-the-moment kind of album.

Although sonically it sounds less muddy with the remixed sound, "Sometime in New York City" still is the worst album that Lennon recorded during his brief post-Beatles career. Certainly there are some songs with merit including Lennon's "New York City" and "Woman is the Nigger of the World" but most of the lyrics are political sloganeering put to a rock 'n' roll soundtrack. Lennon was just as political and less forced sounding on this first two solo albums. For all its lyrical drawbacks, Lennon rocks in spots with conviction and his blues playing on tracks like "John Sinclair" are memorable. Phil Spector's original mix sounds less muddy with the remix and sonic detail is clearer with better depth to the recording. At times the previous CD could sound quite mushy.

Condensed to a single disc and dropping the part of the jam session The addition of the two bonus tracks will make Lennon completist happy as it makes them more likely to listen to the last part of the CD. "Happy Xmas" sounds terrific (as usual)while "Don't Worry Kyoko" is still a slice of sonic pie with its lilting Japense sounding melody.

Lennon would regroup with the much more commerically charged "Mind Games". There craft would dominate the material. He would also be going on his "lost weekend" pretty soon away from Yoko relocating to Los Angeles to hang with best friend Harry Nilsson.

...is likely due to Yoko Ono's wish to avoid conflict with the the estate of Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa had stated in an audio interview (which, as late as 2002, could be found on the bootleg file-sharing services as "Frank Zappa Interview About John Lennon") that John and Yoko had appropriated their Fillmore East jam with him without permission. What had particularly angered Zappa was that "Scumbag" and "Jamrag" were parts of Zappa's own composition "King Kong" that John and Yoko had edited from the longer piece, renamed, and put on this album without so much as a please or thank you, let alone a royalty. Worse, they had credited those parts of the jam to themselves. Whatever the Lennons' contribution to the piece, it was still Frank Zappa's song. (For example, Paul McCartney was credited by George Harrison himself for coming up with the piano line that opened Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- but it's still Harrison's song. Paul McCartney did not get co-writing credit.)

Given the enormous wealth of his adversaries Zappa despaired of finding justice in a court of law, so he retaliated by writing a piece called "A Small Eternity With Yoko Ono" and telling anyone who asked his side of the story about his time with the Lennons. For my part, I'm impressed that Yoko left any part of the Fillmore East concert with Zappa on the album at all. She may not have apologized, but at least she didn't perpetuate the steal-and-rename-and-claim-for-credit crime into the next century.

I have not heard this remaster, so my rating is due to my memories of the original album. As much as I applaud the Lennons for having their hearts in the right place, I have to agree with the general criticism that the songcraft fell too easily into self-parody. I recommend the albums *Plastic Ono Band* and *Imagine* for examples of political statements in music done right. That the title track of the latter album still rankles right-wingers and Christo-fascist Talibanners today all but settles the argument.

As you are undoubtedly aware, Sometime in New York City is not typically grouped together with Lennon's strongest albums. In fact, it's often considered to be his worst.

As far as the remaster/remix goes, however, this is a tremendous leap from the 1990 CD release (or even the original LP, for that matter). The sound is very clean and crisp overall, as opposed to the somewhat muddled/muffled sound of the 1990 version. And while it's true that the topics of John and Yoko's political protests, like "John Sinclair" and "Attica State," haven't exactly kept with the times, the songs still sound fresher than ever.

Although some may grumble and complain about the album's political slant, each song from the original first disc is very listenable. I have never been much of a Yoko fan myself, so I was surprised to find "Sisters, O Sisters" and "We're All Water" quite enjoyable. And of course, Lennon's tracks are filled with his biting lyric and sharp voice that keep the album rolling smoothly.

The live jam "bonus" disc (some would call the phrase "bonus disc" a cruel joke in this case) has been ditched entirely, save for "Cold Turkey," "Don't Worry Kyoko," and "Well Baby Please Don't Go," the strongest songs of the jam. Thankfully, Yoko was wise enough to keep "Jamrag," "Scumbag," and "Au" off the album. Thank God. Although these three tracks are certainly the weakest on the album (and I am sure that Yoko herself knows this), they provide the listener with just enough (and not too much) of the performance with Zappa to stay interested.

The album closes with two bonus tracks, "Listen The Snow Is Falling" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," neither of which really fit in but are still a suitable and enjoyable close to the album.

While it may be true that this album isn't one of the highlights of Lennon's collection, it is an essential piece for any Lennon (or Ono) fan. Don't let someone else tell you what to think of this album without hearing it for yourself first. You may be surprised to find that it isn't so bad after all.

I was looking forward to listening to a remastered version of "Scumbag" but it looks like it isn't going to happen. This is like removing the Apple Jam Cd from All Things Must Pass.

As a purist, believe this album should have been released with all of the original material. Granted, the deleted jams were not worth listing to more than once or twice (a situation similar to that of the jam originally disc released on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass -- another album that was screwed around with instead of being released in its original state), but I'm not comfortable with this sort of revisionism be it with music or books.

Chances are you either will love this album or hate it. But if unorthodox musicianship and left-wing politics bug you, what are you doing shopping for a John and Yoko album anyway?

If you're still on the fence with that out of the way, this album's reputation might be scaring you off. That's understandable, as it has scared off a lot of other serious Lennon/Beatles fans who have probably never actually heard any of the songs. Whatever you have heard from people like that, it's probably true: the politics are strident and extreme, and they're everywhere, and there's not an "Imagine" or "Watching the Wheels" to be found anywhere near here.

If you're still reading this and wondering if you want this CD or not, the answer is yes, and you want this edition of it. Here's why:

1. It's a key part of the Lennon story. Love his politics or hate them, you can't ignore them and still appreciate the man and his music as a whole. The same goes for Yoko, who for once actually displays some musical talent here.

2. Most of the songs have artistic merit. Not all of them do, but the same is true of all his other solo albums (except the first one, which is truly one of the greatest records ever). The slide guitar on "John Sinclair" (for which Lennon made a point of taking credit on the original LP) is superb. "New York City," essentially the sequel to "The Ballad of John and Yoko," is quite possibly the catchiest rocker of his entire solo career, and it sets the politics aside however momentarily. Despite its rather offensive title, "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World" is not only a great vocal performance, it's pretty refreshing coming from the guy who had treated us to the misogyny of "Run for Your Life" and "You Can't Do That" just a few years earlier. "Luck of the Irish" is the only song I've ever heard about the era's Northern Ireland conflict that tries to address both sides. (Lennon was criticized - perhaps rightly - for not articulating things more clearly on this one, but at least he tried.)

3. This copy is a big improvement over the original LP both in terms of what it adds and what it leaves off. It includes two of Lennon's best non-LP singles of the era, "Cold Turkey" and the ubiquitous "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." (Admittedly, you may already have one or both of these on some greatest-hits compilation - but if not, they're essential.) It also wisely leaves off the dull and indulgent live performances with Frank Zappa that made up most of the second LP on the original album, keeping only the one worthwhile track from there, John's terrific performance of "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)." Unlike his later fifties rock and roll covers, this one rocks with sincerity and real emotion. Yoko's songs are, as always, an acquired taste at best, but the additions here are among her stronger efforts.

It's a product of its troubled time, and it's dated. But it's still John. Try it, you just might like it.