John Lennon

For John Lennon, in the eleven years that sat between the Beatles final studio recording Abbey Road in 1969 and his tragic murder in late 1980, there was no shortage of defiant music made within his solo realm. Although Paul McCartney was the most commercially successful ex-Beatle with his light pop song-writing and ambitious efforts with Wings; there is no denying Lennon’s commitment to social consciousness and brave avant-garde music experiments, held a more fascinating realm within popular music culture.

Lennon Legend, provides a visual journey alongside the twenty songs that apperared on 1997 greatest hits CD version titled Lennon Legend. Although Lennon’s work was molded prior to the outrageous 80’s age of video, one can only imagine how he would have used that medium to enhance his work – Lennon Legend comes close to making up for lost time. Using various autobiographical footage and clips from the 70’s, videos were made to accompany each of these twenty songs. The music of course is undeniably timeless and heroic, but due to the lack of video material, some of the visuals and themes get overdone. A majority of the footage shows Lennon with wife Yoko Ono, re-visiting all the adventures of their care-free bohemian lifestyle that transcended from bed ins to protests marches. Love it or hate it, it was this revealing relationship that served as the creative fuel for a majority of Lennon’s solo efforts – political, artistic, and musical.

Beginning with the renowned "Imagine," perhaps one of the few true cinemographed videos on the compilation, reveals Lennon and Ono in a classic serene setting on the piano; clearly a minimalist international symbol of optimism and wonder. Live versions of "Instant Karma" and "Cold Turkey" show Lennon’s live tenacity on guitar and piano. The psychedelic "#9 Dream" is quite trippy with its oldie special effect imagery while "(Just Like) Starting Over" is a touching retrospect of Lennon’s life. Serving as a dear tribute, the later montage does a valuable job of reaffirming us how we indeed lost a legend on December 8th, 1980. Lennon Legend is a candid time-sake for an icon who upon reaching middle age, was just brushing the surface of transcending music and the video form. We can only imagine what the future would have held for him.

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