Double Fantasy
Encyclopedia
Double Fantasy is an album released by John Lennon
and his wife, Yoko Ono
, in 1980. Though initially poorly received, the album is notable for its association with Lennon's murder three weeks after its release, whereupon it become a worldwide commercial success, and went on to win the 1981 Album of the Year
at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards.
in 1975, Lennon had put his career on hold to raise him. After five years of little musical activity aside from recording the occasional demo in his apartment in New York
, Lennon felt ready to resume work. He was quoted as saying that when making the album, his ambition was to "do something as good as "Heroes", the 1977 album by David Bowie
.
In the summer of 1980, Lennon made a sailing trip through treacherous waters from Newport, Rhode Island
to Bermuda
. Almost losing his life in that journey, he began to write new songs, occasionally reworking the earlier demos. He stated that he was the most content he had ever felt in all his years and he celebrated this and the love for his family in the lyrics of his new work.
Ono also wrote many songs, inspired with new confidence after Lennon had stated that he believed that contemporary popular music such as the B-52's
"Rock Lobster
" bore similarities to Ono's earlier work.
The couple decided to release their work on the same album, the first time they had done so since 1972's politically-charged Some Time in New York City
. In stark contrast to that album, Double Fantasy (subtitled A Heart Play) was a collection of songs wherein husband and wife would conduct a musical dialogue. The album took its title from a species of freesia
, seen in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens
, whose name Lennon regarded as a perfect description of his marriage to Ono.
, with whom both Lennon and she had worked before, and gave him Lennon's demos to listen to. “My immediate impressions were that I was going to have a hard time making it better than the demos because there was such intimacy in the demos,” Douglas told Uncut
's Chris Hunt
in 2005.
They produced dozens of songs, enough to fill Double Fantasy and a large part of a projected second album, Milk and Honey.
Douglas brought Rick Nielsen
and Bun E. Carlos
of the band Cheap Trick
to play on Lennon's "I'm Losing You" and Ono's "I'm Moving On", but were eventually re-recorded with the studio musicians. (The Cheap Trick version of "I'm Losing You" was included on the John Lennon Anthology
collection released in 1998.)
In the UK album charts, the album had peaked at #14 then slipped to #46 whilst in the US, the album had slowly risen to #11. Upon Lennon's murder, the album jumped to #1 in the US chart, where it stayed for eight weeks and in the UK, it jumped to #2, where it remained for seven weeks before finally spending two weeks at #1.
In 1982, Douglas, Lennon and Ono won the 1981 Album of the Year
for Double Fantasy at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards. In 1989 the album was ranked #29 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.
In 2010, a two-CD set called Double Fantasy Stripped Down, which included a newly remastered copy of the original album along with an alternative version of the album featuring simpler arrangements, was released.
| style="width:35px; text-align:center;" rowspan="3"|1982 || rowspan="2"| Double Fantasy || Album of the Year ||
|-
| Best Pop Vocal Performance - Male
||
|-
|"(Just Like) Starting Over" || |Record of the Year
||
|-
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and his wife, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, in 1980. Though initially poorly received, the album is notable for its association with Lennon's murder three weeks after its release, whereupon it become a worldwide commercial success, and went on to win the 1981 Album of the Year
Grammy Award for Album of the Year
The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammys. It has been awarded since 1959 and though it was originally presented to the artist alone, the award is now presented to the artist, the producer, the engineer and/or mixer and the mastering engineer...
at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards.
Background
Following the birth of his son SeanSean Lennon
is an American singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist and actor. He is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His godfather is Sir Elton John.-Early life and education:...
in 1975, Lennon had put his career on hold to raise him. After five years of little musical activity aside from recording the occasional demo in his apartment in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Lennon felt ready to resume work. He was quoted as saying that when making the album, his ambition was to "do something as good as "Heroes", the 1977 album by David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
.
In the summer of 1980, Lennon made a sailing trip through treacherous waters from Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
to Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
. Almost losing his life in that journey, he began to write new songs, occasionally reworking the earlier demos. He stated that he was the most content he had ever felt in all his years and he celebrated this and the love for his family in the lyrics of his new work.
Ono also wrote many songs, inspired with new confidence after Lennon had stated that he believed that contemporary popular music such as the B-52's
The B-52's
The B-52's are an American rock band, formed in Athens, Georgia in 1976. The original line-up consisted of Fred Schneider , Kate Pierson , Cindy Wilson , Ricky Wilson , and Keith Strickland . Following Ricky Wilson's death in 1985 Strickland switched to guitar...
"Rock Lobster
Rock lobster
Jasus edwardsii, the southern rock lobster, red rock lobster, or spiny rock lobster, is a species of spiny lobster found throughout coastal waters of southern Australia and New Zealand including the Chatham Islands. This species is commonly called crayfish or crays in New Zealand and in Māori...
" bore similarities to Ono's earlier work.
The couple decided to release their work on the same album, the first time they had done so since 1972's politically-charged Some Time in New York City
Some Time in New York City
Some Time in New York City was released in 1972 and is John Lennon's third post-Beatles album, fifth with Yoko Ono, and third with producer Phil Spector...
. In stark contrast to that album, Double Fantasy (subtitled A Heart Play) was a collection of songs wherein husband and wife would conduct a musical dialogue. The album took its title from a species of freesia
Freesia
Freesia Ecklon ex Klatt is a genus of 14–16 species of flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, native to Africa. Of the 14 species, 12 are native to Cape Province, South Africa, the remaining two to tropical Africa, one species extending north of the equator to Sudan.The genus was named in honor...
, seen in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens
Bermuda Botanical Gardens
Bermuda Botanical Gardens features of flowers, shrubs, and trees. The Botanical Gardens are located in Paget Parish, Bermuda a short drive from downtown Hamilton....
, whose name Lennon regarded as a perfect description of his marriage to Ono.
Recording
Ono approached producer Jack DouglasJack Douglas (record producer)
Jack Douglas is an American record producer. He was born in New York City. Starting out as folk musician and performer, he worked on Robert Kennedy's senatorial campaign as a song-writer. Douglas then moved to England and joined a succession of bands before returning to New York to attend the...
, with whom both Lennon and she had worked before, and gave him Lennon's demos to listen to. “My immediate impressions were that I was going to have a hard time making it better than the demos because there was such intimacy in the demos,” Douglas told Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
's Chris Hunt
Chris Hunt
Chris Hunt is a magazine editor, journalist and author. He has worked in journalism for over twenty years, most often writing about football or rock music. He was managing editor of Match from 1993 to 2001, a period that saw the weekly title become Britain's biggest selling football magazine...
in 2005.
They produced dozens of songs, enough to fill Double Fantasy and a large part of a projected second album, Milk and Honey.
Douglas brought Rick Nielsen
Rick Nielsen
-External links:* * *...
and Bun E. Carlos
Bun E. Carlos
Bun E. Carlos, born Brad Carlson, June 12, 1951, is the primary drummer for American rock band Cheap Trick. He is the band's chief setlister and archivist, and maintains recordings of all the band's shows, some of which have been released under the name 'Bun E's Bootlegs'.Carlos is left-handed, but...
of the band Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...
to play on Lennon's "I'm Losing You" and Ono's "I'm Moving On", but were eventually re-recorded with the studio musicians. (The Cheap Trick version of "I'm Losing You" was included on the John Lennon Anthology
John Lennon Anthology
John Lennon Anthology is a box set of home demos, alternative studio outtakes and other unreleased material recorded by John Lennon over the course of his solo career from "Give Peace a Chance" in 1969 up until the 1980 sessions for Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey.The anthology was divided by its...
collection released in 1998.)
Reception
Unimpressed with its cosy domesticity, critical reaction to the album was largely scathing—"a self-obsessed disaster" according to one reviewer. However, three weeks after the album's release, Lennon was murdered and many of the poor reviews were withdrawn from publication.In the UK album charts, the album had peaked at #14 then slipped to #46 whilst in the US, the album had slowly risen to #11. Upon Lennon's murder, the album jumped to #1 in the US chart, where it stayed for eight weeks and in the UK, it jumped to #2, where it remained for seven weeks before finally spending two weeks at #1.
In 1982, Douglas, Lennon and Ono won the 1981 Album of the Year
Grammy Award for Album of the Year
The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammys. It has been awarded since 1959 and though it was originally presented to the artist alone, the award is now presented to the artist, the producer, the engineer and/or mixer and the mastering engineer...
for Double Fantasy at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards. In 1989 the album was ranked #29 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.
Aftermath
In 2003, a copy of the album that Lennon had signed for his murderer only hours before his death was put on sale at a price of $525,000 (equivalent to $ today).In 2010, a two-CD set called Double Fantasy Stripped Down, which included a newly remastered copy of the original album along with an alternative version of the album featuring simpler arrangements, was released.
Original
2000 re-issue bonus tracks
2010 Stripped Down mixes
Grammy Awards
|-| style="width:35px; text-align:center;" rowspan="3"|1982 || rowspan="2"| Double Fantasy || Album of the Year ||
|-
| Best Pop Vocal Performance - Male
Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance was awarded between 1966 and 2011...
||
|-
|"(Just Like) Starting Over" || |Record of the Year
Grammy Award for Record of the Year
The Record of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards presented annually. It has been awarded since 1959.-History:The honorees through its history have been:*1959-1965: Artist only.*1966-1998: Artist and producer....
||
|-
Chart positions
| Chart (1980/81) | Position |
|---|---|
| Australian Kent Music Report Chart Kent Music Report The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1998... |
1 |
| Austrian Albums Chart | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Albums Chart RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,... |
1 |
| Dutch Mega Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
4 |
| French SNEP Albums Chart | 2 |
| Italian Albums Chart | 6 |
| Japanese Oricon LP Chart Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc... |
2 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart | 1 |
| Norwegian Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... VG-lista VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... Albums Chart |
1 |
| Swedish Albums Chart Sverigetopplistan Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association .... |
1 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
1 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
1 |
| West German Media Control Albums Chart | 2 |
Year-end charts
| Chart (1980) | Position |
|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart | 12 |
| Chart (1981) | Position |
| Australian Albums Chart | 1 |
| Austrian Albums Chart | 2 |
| Canadian Albums Chart RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,... |
3 |
| Italian Albums Chart | 9 |
| Japanese Albums Chart Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc... |
29 |
| UK Albums Chart | 10 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 | 2 |
Certifications & Sales
Personnel
|
The Ritchie Family The Ritchie Family was the name of an American vocal group, based in Philadelphia, who achieved several hits during the disco era.-Career:... , Cheryl Mason Jacks The Ritchie Family The Ritchie Family was the name of an American vocal group, based in Philadelphia, who achieved several hits during the disco era.-Career:... , Eric Troyer Eric Troyer Eric Lee Troyer is an American keyboardist, singer, songwriter, and occasional guitarist, best known as a member of ELO Part II and its successor, popular live band, The Orchestra. Troyer was a founding member of ELO Part II, having been recruited by band leader Bev Bevan in 1989.-Life and... , Benny Cummings Singers, The Kings Temple Choir – background vocals. Bob Gruen Bob Gruen is an American photographer known for his rock 'n' roll photographs.Gruen was born in New York City. He began photographing rock stars with Bob Dylan and served as John Lennon's personal photographer during his time in New York City. Gruen is best known for his photograph of Lennon... – photography. Kishin Shinoyama is a Japanese photographer.Shinoyama graduated from Nihon University. He worked with the Light Publicity agency while still a student, and freelanced after graduation.... – cover photo and photography. David Spindel David Michael Spindel is an American photographer. He began his professional career in 1964 working with still-life objects... – photography. Bruce Replogle Bruce Replogle is an American music manager and publicist. A graduate of The College of William and Mary, he worked briefly in television before serving as publicist for John Lennon and Yoko Ono on their 1980 Double Fantasy album... - publicist. |
External links
- Double Fantasy at Graham Calkin's Beatles Pages
- Just Like Starting Over The Recording Of Double Fantasy by Chris HuntChris HuntChris Hunt is a magazine editor, journalist and author. He has worked in journalism for over twenty years, most often writing about football or rock music. He was managing editor of Match from 1993 to 2001, a period that saw the weekly title become Britain's biggest selling football magazine...
, published in UncutUNCUT (magazine)Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
John Lennon Special, 2005