John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Nothing can be more clear about the difference between vinyl and CD than this gem from 1970.

I never really liked the Beatles growing up, thinking of most of their songs as vapid pop--having only been exposed to their hit songs like "She Loves You" and "A Hard Day's Night."  Eventually my father made me listen to Abbey Road, the eponymous white album, and (his favorite) Rubber Soul.  It didn't take long for the stranger songs to grow on me, weird kid that I was.  Furthermore, John Lennon seemed like the most inaccessible of the Beatles.  There was Paul, who had the amazing voice and was always writing romantic nostalgia songs.  There was George, who transformed the guitar into ethereal beauty.  And there was Ringo, who was...well, Ringo--made fun of a lot, but always far more important than everyone led on.  John was different somehow.  I could always tell when he was playing piano because of the way he hits the dark chords as if he were playing everything bright and sunny--like something bouncing happily on your chest while it devours your heart.  As for his guitar, I never really paid much attention given the superstar George was.

I remember first listening to this album on CD (with its bonus tracks) and thinking, a decent album but not something I'd listen to all the time.  Certainly it didn't seem as important an album as Imagine.  Some deep dark stuff, the John Lennon who probably needs prozac and should get on in his life.  Still, it is considered by Rolling Stone to be #23 in the greatest albums of all time or whatever, not that I take much stock in that sort of thing.

When I found John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band on vinyl at a reasonable price, I did not hesitate to pick it up.  Still relatively uncommon by vinyl standards, it has not gone through tons of reissues or changes in the sound.

Vinyl really makes a difference.  On "Mother," John's screams always sounded a bit affected and over-the-top to me in digital.  In the vinyl world, the quiet of the background instruments gives his yowling a quality that can make your spine tingle.  This kind of desperate quality carries over throughout all the other songs, most notably "Love," a song which makes me truly appreciate Phil Spector.  The fade-in of the piano is a gimmick that works, makes you almost think the song is over, then comes back in just at the right time--and it is Phil on piano, surprisingly, not John.  Any doubt I had about John-the-guitarist is eliminated in "Well Well Well," a song which was also made me instantly recognize and appreciate Ringo as a stand-up musician.  And the way the album ends, on "My Mummy's Dead," brings the entire experience on such a down note and ties it back together to the beginning.  Screw bonus tracks, this is really the way the music begs to be heard.

Finally, there is the jacket art.  There are no liner notes, not even a list of songs, only a picture of John and Yoko under a tree on the front and John as a child on the back.  There is nothing more that needs to be said, the music is what is speaking for itself.  Pure John Lennon, in a way that he has never sounded better, before or after.