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Unfinished Music 1: Two Virgins
John Lennon, Yoko Ono
Rykodisc
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Side One- Side Two
- Remember Love
Average customer rating:
classic
This is a classic on two levels, musical and social.
Two Virgins was John Lennon's first music outside the Beatles. This music had absolutely nothing to do with the Fab Four. The album is a huge sound collage--the only Beatles track that sounds anything like this is Revolution #9 from The White Album, and that came out after Two Virgins.
Is this music music? Is it pleasing to the ear? Well, to most, probably not. Lennon and Ono made Two Virgins at Lennon's house the first night they made love, using tape loops, a reel to reel deck, and their own voices.
So what: well, do you like hip hop, trip hop, DJ Shadow? If Two Virgins were made today, it would be a sleek collage cut on a computer. Lennon and Ono were so smart, they had the idea of cut and paste, sampling, just not the technology. These techniques were used in classical music in the 1950s, but Two Virgins was one of the first that brought them into a rock sphere. Any DJ or rapper owes a technical debt to Lennon and Ono. This is a 1990s concept made with 1968 tape recorders. Different machinery, same template.
The cover is revolutionary too: sex is soaked into pop culture now, for good or ill. But this was a bold move in 1968, and opened the gates. A move only a Beatle could make.
Technically and socially inventive. Great album. I am glad it was made in '68. Could you imagine a seventy year old Lennon and an even older Ono standing in the buff, 2010?
Now THAT might be a problem
WTF Is This CRAP?
Shockingly bad, unlistenable. This is the end result when narcotics totally screw up your judgement and sense of reality. This should have never been released. I don't understand why this is still in print, just because its Lennon? If anybody else would have made this the master tapes would have been thrown in a dumpster. At least they could have put some sounds of them screwing at the end of Side B.
Strangely Hypnotic- Until Yoko Pipes In
JOHN LENNON had many sides to his personality. What we have on full display here is John The Artist, Avant-Garde John and John The Cynic. Its is the last trait of Lennon's personality that most intrigues me. His foul tempered rants at the world are legendary. I was not convinced by his peace 'n love act. This particular album can only be John at his most cynical- convinced that Beatles fans would buy anything that the guys put out there, even if it was a 30 minute sound collage of John changing TV stations, banging away on a piano and shouting out the odd phrase. This is nothing that anyone with a 4-track and a microphone couldn't do themselves in no time at all. Surprisingly though, the effect does become strangely hypnotic after a while. That is until Yoko opens her mouth. Her tiresome shrill, bleating voice threatened to burst my eardrums on more than one occasion, and rendered the whole thing virtually unlistenable at some points. If it wasn't for Yoko, I could see myself listening to this again- if I was in a particular mood. But the idea of again sitting through 30 minutes of Yoko aimlessly embarrassing herself does not appeal, personally. Worth owing as a curio, and a must for Beatles die-hards, Two Virgins could have been an interesting release if it wasn't for Ono. I've heard her screaming and wailing on other recordings, and given the right environment it can work (kind of) but here it is unforgivable. More (in)famous for THAT album cover, than for what is actually on the record, Two Virgins isn't a disaster, but it isn't particularly interesting either. Some forty years after it was released, it all just sounds a little silly.
just like what you do in the bathroom
The cover just makes me vomit, lennon and ono, two horrible persons naked... and people actually bought this cr*p??? This doesn't even have musical value. JUst like the thing you do in the bathroom
Shocked me back to reality;probably a good thing
I was but a wee lad of 8 when the Beatles hit our shores, and I was entirely smitten. Their music, their dress, their actions, words and manner all captivated me. I thought they could do no wrong. Imagine just four years later at the tender age of 12 I was accosted with this nonsense. It was dreck then at age 12, it is dreck now at age 53. Though I continued to like much of the Beatles music, both group and solo, this album proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only were the Beatles not Superman, they (or at least John) was capable of putting out embarassingly bad product. George followed suit with Electronic Sound, but at least his embarassing moment was covered with his own bad drawings rather than his and his wife's genitals.
Shockingly bad taste then, shockingly bad taste now. That it is in print 40 years later is only due to the rather pathetic need for the Beatle fan to "have it all."