John Lennon, Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music #2: Life With The Lions
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Artist: John Lennon, Yoko OnoEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1997-06-03
Music Label: Rykodisc
Soundtracks:
- Cambridge 1969
- No Bed For Beatle John
- Baby's Heartbeat
- Two Minutes Silence
- Radio Play
- Song For John
- Mulberry
Music reviews of Unfinished Music #2: Life With The Lions
Music Review: Yoko Predominant in the Empress' New Clothes
Rating: 1 Stars
There are any number of avant garde or experimental recordings one could consume. Varese experimented with sound poems but there was always an underlying structure that justified its definition as music. The Residents have made a variety of albums with varying degrees of weirdness but they didn't just pass themselves off as a concept, there was more going on than that. Many minimalist composers have explored structure, composition and development without losing the link to musicality.
Then there is...this. "Unfinished Music #2: Life With The Lions" comes off as performance art without the visuals, a performance piece purposed to examine the degree to which consumers can be lured in by a familiar name (Lennon), then exposed to an objet f'art. The Beatles' "Revolution 9" was a warm up for this album, but that was infinitely less repetitious and more engaging.
Most avant garde recordings revolve around the grand 'concept'. For instance, Harry Partch pursued new sounds by creating a whole new scale and an armory of musical instruments capable of delivering his audio vision. But 'concept' isn't just the domain of the avant garde, it's exploited from the most grand of recordings to the most base of popular musics. You've undoubtedly read some sort of Rolling Stone babble where the artist or their proxy journalist shill "explains" an album to make apparent the meaning that was otherwise absent from unindoctrinated listenings. But once the concept is digested the questions that remain are,
* how well did the artist achieve what they set out to do?
* apart from the constructs used to purpose, design or restrict the expression, are the end results something to which you'd actually care to listen?
Often the concept is exploited to explain away a universe of expression so self-absorbed that it becomes reminiscent of the type of insanity that creates its own language entirely incommunicable to others. The artist in the self-imposed straitjacket deliberately babbles in an incomprehensible 'language' to obscure communication. A universe of one certainly provides a sense of being elite. And critics reward this, as they love to play hide and seek with artists, chasing implied or hidden meanings.
But while a caption applied to the work may indicate a context for meaning, it doesn't mean that it's worth one's time or money. Think of it as the 180 degree inverse of musicians who actually had promise at one point but devolved into whoring out their music to the lowest common denominator, then trying to pass off that soulless gristle as "music from the heart". At what point does desperate populism also become a form of insanity?
The tracks in this recording must be consumed in sequential order for any hint of narrative to be apparent. For instance, a five minute recording of a fetal heartbeat, followed by two minutes of silence, does tell a sad tale.
However, Yoko's vocals are a vanity pressing at best, and will undoubtedly be defended by those for whom the DIY ethic trumps everything. One could listen to Tuvalu throat music, or Iranian folk singing, or the voices of India communicating in a more nuanced scale of tonalities if one had a curious mind eager to explore the world. But 26 minutes of random screaming - albeit with slight changes that might justify its eventually being broken up into "movements" (symphonic, bowel, or otherwise) - is not a narrative, nor is it music, it's just an arbitrary, unpleasant vanity.
The listener can set expectations by framing this not as a musical recording but as sound effects which require no readily apparent structure, skill or training to deliver. The recording might have been more efficient by limiting each sound sample to one minute so that more feedback, screams, offkey singing, and such could have been employed to convey more separate moments of anguish and resentment in the sequence of events leading to the miscarriage.
Description of Unfinished Music #2: Life With The Lions
Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. Vall. 2007.Alternative Rock CDs
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