Over the years Yoko Ono has been one of the most divisive artists in music.
To one camp, she’s awful: a screeching lady who broke up the Beatles. To others, she’s a trailblazing artist who’s constantly on music’s cutting edge. There really aren’t many people who are both familiar with her music and sit on the fence.
I mean, this is someone who, when they got a six-CD box set looking back at her career, had it advertised with the line “not as bad as you may think.” This is also someone who’s been an influence on everyone from the B-52s to Sonic Youth, had her work exhibited in museums and galleries across the world and made some of the most raw, daring and forward-facing music of the last 50 years.
In 1992, Rykodisc released Onobox, a six-disc set spanning her career to that point; a single-disc distillation Walking on Thin Ice, was more budget-oriented. Since then there hasn’t really been another best-of, although there’s been a few remix albums. Which makes a lot of sense, actually. While Ono’s music was always experimental, even her most out-there songs are driven by rhythm and grooves. Songs like “Why” or “Mind Train” have her shouting against Klaus Voormann and Ringo Starr’s steady beat, while Lennon’s guitar slashes away in the background.
The first such remix album was 2007’ s Yes I’m A Witch, where artists like Cat Power, The Flaming Lips and Porcupine Tree reworked the back pages. Earlier this year, Manimal Vinyl Records released Yes I’m A Witch Too, another remix album of Ono’s music, this time with more contemporary stable of artists: Death Cab for Cutie, tUnE-yArDs, and Portugal the Man, plus others.
Each of the songs on Yes I’m A Witch Too rework the songs from the ground up, building new songs around her vocals. Penguin Prison makes “She Gets Down On Her Knees” into a dance banger, while Sparks change the pulsating and frantic “Give Me Something” into a lush, piano-driven piece of pop.
Sometimes the effect is jarring if you’re familiar with the original tracks.
For example, “Approximately Infinite Universe” was a rocker even in it’s original form, but Blow Up’s reworking strips away the 70s instrumentation and makes it into a taut, lean dance-rock track.
At other times, the remixes bring out new aspects of the music’s emotion. tUnE-yArDs gives “Warrior Woman” a lo-fi, chaotic treatment, complete with digital drum crashes. It also gives Ono’s vocals a larger presence: she leaps out of the speakers, her voice fragmented and amplified by Merrill Garbus’ beats and backing vocals.
There are some interesting selections among both the artists and the tunes they chose to remix and include.
For example, the Sparks remix dates back six years. Songs like “Catman” or “Warrior Woman” qualify as deep cuts, even for Ono fans. And not all of the remixes really click. Moby extends “Hell in Paradise” to more than double its running length, stretching it well past its welcome. And where’s Holy Ghost? They’d have fit in here perfectly.
Generally, however, my reservations are few.
At it’s best, this compilation puts Ono’s music in entirely new contexts, making songs a good 40 years old sound like they’re new again. And in a sense, it acts like a good introduction to Ono’s music. You get a taste of it here, but it’s palatable, where her regular records aren’t always an easy listen. That said, Between My Head and the Sky is stylistically pretty similar to this. It’s a good record to try if you liked Yes I’m A Witch Too.
The ease which Ono’s music works in this new context is interesting.
To me, she’s always been an artist who was light years ahead of her contemporaries. When Paul McCartney made light pop like “Maybe I’m Amazed,” Ono’s hard edges and driving rhythms anticipated Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. Maybe anticipated is the wrong word; maybe I should use influenced. After all, what is influence if not making a style of music a good decade before anyone else does?
Rating: 4/5