Double Fantasy

Strange as it seems now, the last album John Lennon released in his lifetime was intended as a comeback, or rather as a parting wave at retirement: "Watching the Wheels" and "Beautiful Boy" celebrate the joys he found outside the star system, and "(Just Like) Starting Over" is a slightly awkward rocker about rejoining the domestic world that's also sort of about rejoining the pop world. The studio-pro arrangements are a little too slick, but Lennon rarely sounded happier. Ono, whose songs alternate with his in a series of thematic diptychs, was taking a stab at channeling her artier impulses into pop and is generally less successful--her voice works in a context of art-weirdness, but not as well in conventional tunes. This 2000 remastered reissue is fleshed out with a demo of "Help Me to Help Myself" and Ono's solo version of "Walking on Thin Ice," which was recorded on the same day her husband was shot to death. --Douglas Wolk  more