John Lennon Special (Mojo)

Member Name: sharktrager

Product:	Mojo
Date:	09/12/00 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some fascinating and highly educational articles

Disadvantages: Absolutely none at all - GO OUT AND BUY IT NOW!

Having never paid much attention to The Beatles in the past, the last six months have been a period of intense research for me into their lives and their music as preparation for some work I am doing. I've found both their personal and professional lives to be fascinating, and now feel that I am well versed in the history of The Beatles.

Last Friday, I was standing in WHSmiths, trying to decide which magazine to buy for that weekend's reading (I'm addicted to magazines, mainly to do with movies).

I decided on which one to buy, when all of a sudden MOJO's most recent 'special edition' caught my eye. I've never read MOJO before, but I really wanted this magazine - it had a fantastic portrait of John Lennon on the front and the tagline was 'John Lennon: His Life, His Music, His People, His Legacy'.

Can I afford £4.99 for this I asked myself, almost decided no, but then bought it anyway.

And wow, am I glad I did. I haven't put it down all week and for the first time in my life I have read every word in a magazine, cover to cover, and I cannot praise it too highly.

The magazine is divided into a number of articles, many taking a particular period in Lennon's life and analysing both the personal and professional aspects of that period. I learned many things which I had not known before, despite my recent intense research.

One of the great advantages of the magazine is that it doesn't simply regurgitate information from other sources, but has a number of new interviews, including a substantial one with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono.

Another article covers Lennon's comments on all the songs written which are credited to 'Lennon-McCartney'. Many people are still suffering from the misunderstanding that John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all of their songs together, or that one wrote the music and one wrote the lyrics, but this is simply not true. Althou
gh some songs were written together, 50-50, most were written individually, and the reason why they receive joint credit it due to a gentleman's agreement they made when they were first starting out together.

Another substantial part of the magazine is a song-by-song assessment of all the songs which appeared on John Lennon's solo albums, following the split from The Beatles in 1969/1970.

There is an article suggesting recommended books for further reading and research, and I think that I am probably going to spend a substantial amount of my next month's pay packet on a few of these recommendations.

There is even an article about Albert Goldman, the infamous biographer who produced a book on Lennon (entitled THE LIVES OF JOHN LENNON) which offended many Lennon fans and associates.

All in all, this is an excellent magazine, and is one which I think I will refer to many times in the future. Go out and buy it now before it sells out, and well done MOJO for producing a document of such quality. Now how about 'special editions' on each of the surviving Beatles?

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