Back In Style For The First Time

Back 1975 John Lennon retired from the music business partly, he claimed, because the public just wasn't ready to accept Yoko Ono as a pop star. Then in 1980 he heard the B-52's Newwave hit Rock Lobster which featured some female caterwauling reminiscent of the kinds of screams Yoko had done and he took that as a sign that the world was ready for Yoko so he recorded the Double Fantasy album and began a comeback. That comeback may have been more successful if the album was simply a John Lennon solo album but half the songs were Yoko songs with her singing lead.

Then in December some little worm decided he must save the world of another attempt by Yoko Ono to become a rock star and to "kill the dog you don't chop off the tail, you cut off the head", the mob philosophy of how to stop Robert Kennedy's mob investigations (kill JFK), so he shot John to death.

My point is that sometimes an artist has a sound that just isn't acceptable at the time but given enough time that sound once considered unlistenable becomes hip. Riding in my car the other day I heard a song come on the radio that I at first thought was from an old band mate and local legend who, as a solo artist, went by the name Janicott Canada. What I was actually listening to was a song called Next Girl by the new, young band, The Black Keys.



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