Review Summary: The best comedy album of 1969, intentional or otherwise.
Remember that frustrated teenager you went to art school with who brought a tampon in a teacup to school and tried to pass it off as high art to a classroom full of chortling aspiring artists? Of all the musicians, at first glance, you wouldn't guess that John Lennon would be that student, but mere research into The Beatles' discography will bring you "Revolution 9", a 9 minute musique-concrete piece that consists of random soundbites. Now, The Beatles have never been a band to shy away from experimentation; their best album,
Revolver, had plenty of it and ended with the deliciously tripadelic "Tomorrow Never Knows", "A Day in the Life" is often seen as their best song (and rightfully so),
The White Album also features "Piggies" and "Wild Honey Pie", and let's not forget that they're the fathers of the "hidden track", with "Her Majesty" scaring the shit out of whoever neglected to remove the needle from the record upon that jarring guitar chord intro ringing out of the speakers. But of all the songs I just mentioned, "Revolution 9" seems to be the best indicator of his and his wife's foray into avant-garde on their solo ventures. Almost nobody will defend "Revolution 9" save for die hard Lennon fans, and almost nobody will defend the very aptly named
Unfinished Music trilogy. And rightfully so; they're 3 records' worth of pure garbage. Had
Two Virgins not had John Lennon's cock and Yoko Ono's tits on its cover, almost nobody would know of its existence (Ringo Starr even acknowledged this in the
Anthology by joking about how he brought up a The Times quote on the cover to John upon first glance "as if his dick wasn't hanging out or something").
However, the third entry of this trilogy,
Wedding Album, is a different beast altogether. It is definitely more substantial than its two predecessors (not by much), and at least it's hilarious. That's right, this album is so fucking funny that it's almost impossible to outright hate. And it's not just me who thinks who thinks this; this album was used on a Japanese game show once where people were challenged not to laugh, and the last one to laugh won (predictably, almost none of them lasted even a minute). So there's an effective use for it, right there. It also thankfully doesn't try to sell itself as music, unlike the previous two albums in the trilogy. However, it's just as bad as the previous two, even if it's in a different way.
The album is divided into two side-length tracks; the first being called "John and Yoko", the second being called "Amsterdam". "John and Yoko" is 22 minutes of John and Yoko doing nothing but repeating each others' names. The track starts off with a heartbeat, and some lips licking and tape recorder noise, before John and Yoko start repeating their names to each other in a normal tone of voice. Almost immediately, I'm reminded of the "mom, mom, mom, mom, mommy, mommy" scene from that one episode of
Family Guy. It doesn't take long for the track to descend into gut-bursting hilarity. Their voices quickly raise, to the point where they are SHOOOOUUTTTIIING each others' names as if they're having some fight. Then they calm down for a bit, almost to a whisper, then suddenly start shouting at each other, then calm down, rinse and repeat. This shit goes on for 22 fucking minutes and it is just hilarious from start to finish. It's hard to tell exactly what is more hilarious; John's inexplicable "YO-KOOOO" random shouts and "Yokoyokoyokoyokoyoko" mumbles at times that make him sound like a sex offender, or Yoko's whiny and nasal "Jaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnn" shouts and moans. There's even kissing at times and exaggerated weird accents. It must be heart to be believed, as it's truly a riot.
Track 2, "Amsterdam" should be something interesting, and it is in the worst possible way. It starts with 2 minutes of Yoko tunelessly moaning into a microphone in high pitch while John whispers "peace" repeatedly in the background. It's an interview with John and Yoko in Amsterdam during their "bed-in", and you'd think that this interview would offer something of substance, but it doesn't. It's basically John and Yoko talking out of their asses about war, destruction, terror and, you guessed it, "peace maaaaan". But even more hilarious, Yoko does most of the talking. John should be the one in charge, but this album is an all too real snapshot of how naive they were in politics. What even is the point of releasing this officially anyway? True, they do make good points like "there isn't one country that hasn't had its Hitler", but anyone could make that point. Worse, when John DOES talk, Yoko pretty much repeats what he said but with different wording, rendering her almost entirely useless.
So with that in mind,
The Wedding Album is worth listening to with one purpose in mind- for laughter, to laugh at pretentious nitwits whose heads are so far up their asses, they're essentially human Klein bottles. Their heads were indeed fried from all the drug use, and the entire "John and Yoko" side, not to mention the "John let's hope for peace" intro and several of their gems from the interview highlight this incredibly well. There are some decent bits, like the acoustic to "Amsterdam", but it's not worth sitting through two whole sides of pretentiousness to hear. But by all means, do buy this album. It's actually impressive how bad it is, and I can't wait to listen to it again.
