 Various Artists Anyone who set foot in a record store from 1984 to about 1987 surely ran across one or a hundred copies of Every Man Has a Woman glutting the budget bin … in fact, I wonder if anyone at all bought the album at full price. Joke's on them if so, because all the copies in the world can probably now be purchased for approximately the original list price of $8.98. Originally conceived by John Lennon as a 50th birthday present to Yoko, the album brings Yoko's oft-discussed but little-heard songwriting front and center, with relatively popular artists covering some of her smoother tracks. She certainly deserves a tribute record, but this one feels more like a compromise than not, pairing her most accessible songs with big popular artists as opposed to maybe smaller ones who were more genuinely influenced by Ono. Now, Yoko's music was all over the map, from noisy and volatile to quasi-Rocky Horror-esque rock 'n' roll and on to weirdo electro-pop … bands usually give lip service to the screechy stuff, while critics insist that the forward-thinking dance-ish stuff was the best. Both are wrong, because in each case, it's not Yoko they're responding to at all, but whatever the wall of sound was that surrounded her. No one seems to want to admit that her straight pop stuff was excellent … sure, the voice takes some getting used to, but so does Dylan's. Yoko's music was personal, it was specific, it was all hers. Having anyone else do her songs is a setup for virtually guaranteed ridiculousness … I mean, Eddie Money covering a Yoko Ono song – that's a practical joke, right? Some kind of "Candid Camera" stunt? Surprisingly, though, the album is solid, heartfelt, and overall a pretty good argument on Yoko's behalf. Lennon kicks things off with the very nice title track, illustrating the real empathy he had for her music. He's probably the only artist on here who really makes any sense, come to think of it. Like her own recordings, there are indeed moments of real ridiculousness, as the Spirit Choir's rendition of "Now or Never" – a chorus of children singing this: "Are we gonna keep pushing our children to drugs?/Are we gonna keep driving them insane?" That has all the cracked hilarity of a good bad children's record. But mostly, the record succeeds … and Eddie Money, somehow, puts in by far the best track. "I'm Moving On" turns out to be a perfect song for him … it's not much different from any other Eddie Money song, actually. Probably could have been a single, though the record company would surely have had to downplay the songwriting credit. Rosanne Cash gets the second-best honor with "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do," one of Yoko's prettiest songs, and a good match for Cash's style. Roberta Flack provides a lilting, lite-reggae "Goodbye Sadness," which is pretty nice. For all of her supposed "influence" on the new-wave and electro scenes, no one all that cutting edge contributes to the endeavor (The B-52s are most conspicuously absent), but tracks by Trio ("Wake Up") and Alternating Boxes ("Dogtown") do a good job of showing this aspect of Yoko's music. Three Harry Nilsson tracks is a bit much, no doubt, especially as they degenerate exponentially … "Silver House" is woozy but warm, "Dream Love" is tolerable at best, and "Loneliness," given a late-era Sugar Hill treatment, is flat-out wretched. Elvis Costello fulfills his obligation to be on every tribute record ever made (hm, perhaps I should compile Every Tribute Record Has an Elvis Costello Track That Loves It) with the baldly disingenuous "Walking On Thin Ice," certainly one of his more spiteful recordings. It's an exceptionally poor cover (also included, incidentally, on his Punch the Clock reissue), clearly chosen with little or no knowledge of Yoko's catalog. If anyone could, Elvis may have been able to pull off one of those mid-70s pop tracks (how about "What a Mess?"), but not this one … it sucks. Sean Ono Lennon, aged 9, closes the album with "It's Alright," the video for which received some MTV airplay back in the day, bolstered no doubt by the "How cute!" factor. Cute, yeah, but not a song I want to have to hear more than once every 30 years. This record could have been a real catastrophe, but manages to remain appealing even through its less listenable moments. It's an underdog win, albeit one where several players are carted off the field on stretchers. I'd love to see a more current assembly of artists do a Yoko tribute record, and one with less disconnect between featured artists and songwriter. However, that would probably end up about as half-baked as this one … they could include Galaxie 500's "Listen the Snow is Falling," then have Sonic Youth do "Fly" … Sinéad O'Connor could get "No Bed For Beatle John" … Cat Power, "Mrs. Lennon" … er, k.d. lang and "What a Bastard the World Is?" … um, maybe the Hedwig cast doing "I Felt Like Smashing My Face in a Clear Glass Window?" Ah, maybe it's not such a good idea. Plus, Costello would probably weasel himself onto it again, and no one needs to hear his "Don't Worry Kyoko."
Review by Christian Goth |