John Lennon's "Rock 'n' Roll" Reconsidered

A B minus no longer

My math could be way wrong here—both the measurement and the calculation proved onerous and sometimes confusing—but let’s just say that what I call the A shelves in my office, hallway, and living room, where I store alphabetical-by-artist CDs I’ve ranked high enough to be worth another listen (sure there’s plenty of vinyl around too, but not as much, plus it’s more awkward to play), accommodate somewhere between 4500 and 5000 positively reviewed CDs, most in jewel boxes with readable spines with plenty of lesser stuff in paper or flexivinyl sleeves to save space. So it sometimes happens that at a temporary loss for something to play while Carola and I are chatting or eating I hightail over to the A shelves, armed with a flashlight when possible, spot a title that jogs my memory and put it on. A few nights ago the winner was John Lennon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, which I dimly remembered was produced by Phil Spector and came out sometime in the ‘70s.

That memory is dim no longer. Not for nothing did Rolling Stone kick up a fuss by ranking Lennon fifth—behind Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke, and Elvis Presley—on its 20008 Greatest Singers of All Time list (although admittedly he dipped to 12 when the list was revised in 2023). Top of my head I would place only Aretha, Sinatra, and maybe George Jones in Lennon’s class, with his rasp, his primal scream, his sincerity, his old-school flourishes, and always, that brain. But really, I have no further desire to play this game. I just want to report that as long as my brain is still working, which no 83-year-old assumes will be forever, I will remember Rock ‘n’ Roll dimly no more. To an extent this could simply reflect the idiosyncratic emotional and physical range of a vocal instrument no one would call powerful or delicate even though it was plenty strong and infinitely albeit unassumingly subtle. But the other reason is that although my contemporaries seldom if ever think of such teen and post-teen classics as “Stand by Me,” “Peggy Sue,” and the bonus-cut “To Know Her Is to Love Her” as monuments of popular songwriting, they are in their own distinct ways works of art on a par with the very different creations of Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Plus John Lennon produced 11 of the 17 simplistic rock and roll tunes on the 2004 reissue I pulled off the shelf, so that it turns out that it’s not defined by Phil Spector and the grandiose wall of sound he’s revered for. In short, great singer, great songs, great album.

So I’m obliged to report that at the time I apparently didn’t get it (and I wasn’t the only one—Greil Marcus in the Voice and Jon Landau in Rolling Stone both panned it). No doubt in part because I’ve never been a Spector nut—“Too often,” I wrote in 2011, his “wall of sound is a miasma”—it turns out, somewhat to my shock, that I didn't hear it that way. Whoops—I gave the thing a B minus. So now make that an A and if it’s the kind of thing you like give it a shot. My bet is that you’ll play it more than once. This is John Lennon, after all. A collectible for sure.