"Double Fantasy" by John Lennon – ****

First released: 1980

When this album came out, I was very excited because it was the first John Lennon album released after I became a Beatle fan. No longer was Lennon considered a performer from the past like The Beatles, this was fresh, new material. I really enjoyed it too. If there was any sort of complaint is I thought that the material could have been a little meatier, but the tunes were so good, it was just petty quibbling. I also enjoyed Yoko’s material despite one review at the time stating “You have to skip over Yoko’s junk to get to Lennon’s gold”. This really isn’t true as Yoko’s material works quite well here unlike on "Some Time in New York City" and three of the tunes ("Kiss, Kiss, Kiss", "Give Me Something", "Yes, I’m Your Angel") rank as some of Yoko’s best.

When the tragic events of December 8, 1980 occurred, I could not listen to this album for about three years and whenever one of the tunes was played on the radio, I had to change the station. Lennon’s killer had a profound influence on the death of George Harrison in my opinion as Harrison basically lost the will to live for the next 21 years. Yes he did put out some fine solo albums and even had some hit singles, you could tell that his heart was no longer in it.

The album was released to CD various times. First, Geffen released it to CD. They Capitol took control over all of Lennon’s material and reissued it. The 2000 CD reissue added the following tracks "Help Me to Help Myself", "Walking on Thin Ice" and "Central Park Stroll (Dialogue)".