Consumer Guide Album

John Lennon: Menlove Ave. [Capitol, 1986]
The late-night session-band workups of songs later embalmed on Walls and Bridges are startlingly stark and clear, making side two the finest music of the hiatus between Imagine and Double Fantasy, whose precisely felt studio-rock they prefigure. Phil Spector produced the commercial versions. He also produced Rock 'n' Roll, source of the outtakes on side one, which were rejected because they're even stiffer than the intakes. John never could figure out what to do about loving Rosie & the Originals. And Phil wasn't the guy to tell him. B+