The 1990s gave rise to the creation of the Tribute Album, a sneaky new way for record companies to simultaneously sell and promote new emerging acts on the backs of older, established artists and their respective catalogues.
And seeing as John Lennon is more popular than Jesus, countless tributes have been released over the years, often authorized by widow Yoko Ono and son Sean Ono Lennon to raise funds for charities.
Many of these reimaginings of the John Lennon songbook have come and gone with varying degrees of success, but the most authentic one by far is the first.
Working Class Hero: A Tribute To John Lennon was released by Hollywood Records in 1995. 15 tracks for 15 years, one for every year after Lennon was gunned down at his home in New York City in 1980.
And the most astounding fact about these 15 tracks is that all but four of them were written over a 24 month period. Two tracks were released posthumously (Nobody Told Me and Grow Old With Me) and two emerged from Lennon’s now infamous 18 month long weekend.
At age 32, in the early summer of 1973 (“Now I’m only 32 and all I wanna do is boogaloo”) John Lennon embarked on what has become known as his “Lost Weekend”, a trial separation from his wife and partner Yoko Ono as well as a change of American coastlines, trading New York City’s east Atlantic cool for the California sunshine of L.A.’s Pacific south west. Lennon’s naughty foray into bachelor inspired bad behaviour ended suddenly a year and a half after it began. The couple unexpectedly reconciled following Lennon’s surprise performance at Elton John’s Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in the fall of 1974.
Two songs representing this period of Lennon’s life appear on Working Class Hero, the title track from his 1973 Mind Games album and Steel And Glass from his 1974 Walls And Bridges album.
Any lesser artist would be more than pleased to base an entire career around any one of these 15 songs.
And yet, the album is but a glimpse of greatness, a mere two year representation, a brief phase in the monumentous Lennon legacy. Hardly any of his ballads from the era are represented and not one single Beatles track.
Lennon would have been pleased. Pleased that his work outside of the Beatles was finally getting the kind of attention and recognition he felt it deserved. A man pleased to have nothing but GUITARS on all his songs, Lennon surely would have appreciated the balls out, in your face, rage guitar emanating from the waxy grooves of this release.
When asked whether he was any good at guitar, Lennon famously quipped:
“Well, it depends on what kind of guitarist. I’m ok. I’m not technically good, but I can make it fucking howl and move. I was rhythm guitarist. It’s an important job. I can make a band drive.”
And drive it does. Don’t swallow the two star rating douche bag hipster music snobs AllMusic gave Working Class Hero. Don’t take their lame ass word for it. Drop the needle and decide for yourself. If anything, Lennon espoused a “think for yourself” attitude. Punk before punk. And in the age of optics we’re in, something vulnerable and raw, unrehearsed and unpolished, unapologetically controversial and perhaps even a bit naive, is more welcome now than ever.