The 50th anniversary of John Lennon's first post-Beatles solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band will be commemorated by a new book set for publication on October 8th — one day before what would've been Lennon's 80th birthday. The new tome, published by Thames and Hudson Ltd, is titled John & Yoko Plastic Ono Band, and as of now, only has a UK release date. John & Yoko Plastic Ono Band will run about $45.
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was an admittedly heavy listen, having been composed after Lennon underwent Primal Scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov as a way to exorcize his childhood demons.
Not much is known about the 288-page officially sanctioned book, but its table of contents were posted on Amazon's UK site, reading, “Preface by Yoko Ono; I Sat Belonely; Who are the Plastic Ono Band?; Mother; Collaboration; Hold On; Live Performance; I Found Out; Working Class Hero; Catharsis; Isolation; Remember; Love; Well Well Well; Recording; Album Artwork; Look At Me; God; My Mummy's Dead; and Emancipation.”
During his groundbreaking December 1970 interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone, John Lennon was unsure how the public at large would accept the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album: “I don't really know where it'll sink in, where it'll lie, y'know, in the spectrum of rock n' roll, and the generation and all the rest of it. In one way, it's terribly uncommercial. Y'know, it's so miserable in a way and heavy, y'know? But it's reality. And I'm not going to veer away from it for anything.”
The album was released on December 11th, 1970 and peaked at Number Six on the Billboard 200 albums chart, spending only four weeks in the Top 10. The album fared better on the Cashbox chart, hitting Number Four — and peaking at Number Two in Record World.