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Day One Hundred Forty

So, I finally got "Double Fantasy" imported into iTunes tonight. When they re-released all of Lennon's solo stuff in October for what would have been his 70th birthday, they made a big deal about how "Double Fantasy" came with a second disc, that was the album stripped down to the bone. This, in theory, fixed John's fears about his voice after 5 years away (the original pressing of the record, also included, had the vocals buried in the mix as well as a host of extra instrumentation).

Usually, when an artist claims to have pulled back the curtains on a classic album, i.e. Alanis with "Jagged Little Pill," it makes me nervous, simply because the revision never lives up to the original. In the case of "Double Fantasy," however, I may have found the exception to the rule. Maybe it's because Jack Douglas (the original producer) and Yoko were the ones behind the remixes, but the changes they made (bringing the vocals up in the mix and stripping away all of the extraneous overdubs) worked out really well. They succeeded in making an already great record more immediate.

Hearing John's voice pushed so far forward gives me chills. The only thing I can compare it to is hearing Nirvana's "You Know You're Right" for the first time on the radio, and having to pull over and stop the car, because this voice was coming from the grave, through my car radio.

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