Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band is the debut solo album by the Japanese artist and musician Yoko Ono, released on Apple Records in December 1970 alongside her husband's album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The album features Ono's vocal improvisations accompanied by the Plastic Ono Band (consisting of Lennon on guitar, Ringo Starr on drums, and Klaus Voormann on bass), with the exception of "AOS", on which she is backed by the Ornette Coleman Quartet. Also recorded at this time was "Between the Takes", which was released on the 1998 CD reissue of Ono's 1971 album Fly. with lyrics referencing a miscarriage that were derived from Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit. Ono's vocalisations on tracks such as "Why" and "Why Not" mixed hetai, a Japanese vocal technique from kabuki theatre, with rock vocal styles and a raw aggression influenced by the then-popular primal therapy that Lennon and Ono were undertaking at the time. According to Ono, the recording engineers were in the habit of turning off the recording equipment when she began to perform; at the end of "Why", Lennon can thus be heard asking "Were you gettin' that?"</blockquote>
Critical reception
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band was released through Apple Records to considerable critical disdain on 11 December 1970, at a time when Ono was widely blamed for the recent break-up of The Beatles. It peaked at number 182 during a three-week run on the Billboard album chart in the United States, and failed to chart in the United Kingdom. He further stated, "It wasn't until the long freak-out on the back of the live Toronto LP that Yoko began to show some signs that she was learning to control and direct her vocal spasms, and John finally evidenced a nascent understanding of the Velvet Underground-type feedback discipline that would best underscore her histrionics." David Browne of Entertainment Weekly has credited the album with "launching a hundred or more female alternative rockers, like Kate Pierson & Cindy Wilson of the B-52s to current thrashers like L7 and Courtney Love of Hole". NPR Music ranked at number 136 on their 2017 list of "The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women". The site's Marissa Lorusso deemed it "jarring, experimental and stunning" and cited its "fearless curiosity" as influencing subsequent experimental rock, experimental electronic music, post-punk, and sound art.
In a 2017 Bandcamp Daily feature on Ono's impact, British electronic musician Kiran Leonard applauded the album, writing: "the strength and range of vocal techniques on [the album] is simply astonishing...to do what Ono does with her voice on [the album] is no easy task."
Release
The covers of Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band are nearly identical. Lennon pointed out the difference in their 1980 Playboy interview: "in Yoko's, she's leaning back on me; in mine, I'm leaning on her". The photos were taken with an Instamatic camera on the grounds of their Tittenhurst Park estate in Berkshire by actor Daniel Richter, who lived with them and worked as their assistant at the time.
The album was reissued on compact disc by Rykodisc in 1997, with three bonus tracks from the era. An "LP replica" special edition was issued by V2 Records in Japan in 2007, and the album was reissued again on LP, compact disc, and digital download by Secretly Canadian in 2016, with bonus tracks and rare photos.
An alternate version of "Open Your Box", the B-side to the UK issue of Lennon's 1971 single "Power to the People", appears on the 1997 and 2016 reissues.
Track listing
All songs written by Yoko Ono.
Original release
Side one
- "Why" – 5:37
- "Why Not" – 9:55
- "Greenfield Morning I Pushed an Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City" – 5:38
Side two
- "AOS" – 7:06
- "Touch Me" – 4:37
- "Paper Shoes" – 7:26
1997 reissue
Tracks 1–6 per the 1970 release, with the following bonus tracks:
- <li value="7">"Open Your Box" (alternate version) – 7:35
- "Something More Abstract" – 0:44
- "The South Wind" – 16:38
2016 reissue
Tracks 1–6 per the 1970 release, with the following bonus tracks:
- <li value="7">"Open Your Box" (alternate version) – 7:35
- "Something More Abstract" – 0:44
- "Why" (extended version) – 8:41
- "The South Wind" – 16:38
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band – The Live Sessions (2020)
The 2020 deluxe box set of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band included a Blu-ray disc containing the unedited live sessions for Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band as well as three previously unreleased songs and three B-sides that appeared on John Lennon singles in 1969 and 1970. "Life" is the full version of the track "Between the Takes", which appeared as a bonus track on CD reissues of Fly.
- "Why" (Live Session) – 18:00
- "Why Not" (Live Session) – 21:22
- "Greenfield Morning I Pushed an Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City" (Live Session) – 8:22
- "Touch Me" (Live Session) – 15:54
- "Paper Shoes" (Live Session) – 12:17
- "Life" – 6:57
- "Omae No Okaa Wa" – 6:31
- "I Lost Myself Somewhere in the Sky" – 5:01
- "Remember Love" – 4:04
- "Don't Worry Kyoko" (Live Session) – 9:29
- "Who Has Seen the Wind?" – 2:09
Personnel
- Yoko Ono – vocals
- John Lennon – guitars <small>(all but 4)</small>
- Klaus Voormann – bass guitar <small>(all but 4)</small>
- Ringo Starr – drums <small>(all but 4)</small>
- George Harrison – sitar <small>(3)</small>
- Ornette Coleman – trumpet <small>(4)</small>
- Charlie Haden – double bass <small>(4)</small>
- David Izenzon – double bass <small>(4)</small>
- Ed Blackwell – drums <small>(4)</small>
Technical personnel
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|align=center|3
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Release history
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+ Release history of Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band
!scope="col"|Country
!scope="col"|Date
!scope="col"|Format
!scope="col"|Label
!scope="col"|Catalog
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|United States
|rowspan="4"|11 December 1970
|LP
|rowspan="6"|Apple
|SW 3373
|-
|Cassette
|4XW 3373
|-
|8-Track
|8XW 3373
|-
!scope="row"|United Kingdom
|LP
|SAPCOR 17
|rowspan="2"|AP-80175
|-
!scope="row"|Japan
|13 January 1971
|LP
|-
!scope="row"|United States
|20 May 1997
|rowspan="4"|CD
|rowspan="3"|Rykodisc
|rowspan="2"|RCD 10414
|-
|24 January 2007
|Rykodisc, Apple
|VACK-1308
|-
|LP <small>(Clear)</small>
|-
|CD
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"|Japan
|7 December 2016
|CD
|rowspan="2"|Sony Records International
|SICX-73
|-
|22 February 2017
|LP <small>(Clear)</small>
|SIJP-33
|}