John Lennon Power to The People

Released as part of Apple/EMI’s extensive 2010 John Lennon remasters series, the single-disc Power to the People: The Hits covers familiar territory, but then again, that’s the point of this collection. It’s not designed to dig deep into John's catalog, it’s designed as the latest iteration of the canon, replacing 1997’s Lennon Legend, the last big-budget single-disc compilation. Power to the People is five cuts shorter than Lennon Legend, ditching album cuts “Love” and “Borrowed Time,” swapping the charting singles, “Mother” and “Nobody Told Me,” for the non-charting “Gimme Some Truth” and the actual number 18 hit “Mind Games,” but the end result is the same: Power to the People feels interchangeable with its predecessors because it is another collection with “Imagine,” “Instant Karma,” “Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” “Jealous Guy,” “(Just Like) Starting Over,” “Watching the Wheels,” “Stand by Me,” “#9 Dream,” “Give Peace a Chance,” “Power to the People,” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” The remasters are excellent so if you are in need of a tight Lennon comp this is a good choice but if you already have a hits collection, there’s no reason to replace it.

On August 30, 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with Elephant’s Memory and guests headlined 2 historic One To One concerts at Madison Square Garden, NYC. These benefit shows played to a combined audience of 40K people and helped raise over $1.5 million to support children with disabilities. They were his only full-length concerts after leaving the Beatles and the last shows John and Yoko performed together. Produced by Sean Ono Lennon, both concerts have been completely remixed and re-engineered by Paul Hicks and Sam Gannon, using new HD multitrack transfers by Rob Stevens with mixes mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road. Both concerts are condensed into a single ‘hybrid’ show.