AntisNews

"I thought long and hard about this," says producer Jack Douglas. "I asked myself, 'Am I selling John out?' " Douglas is talking about his new stripped-down remix of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1980 album, Double Fantasy. The disc is part of the massive rollout of reissued Lennon solo material that EMI has prepared to commemorate what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, on October 9th of this year, and the 30th anniversary of his death on December 8, 1980.

Double Fantasy was the last album Lennon released in his lifetime. It hit the streets about a month before his murder, a grim chronological juxtaposition that has always lent greater poignancy to the album's songs. Double Fantasy was meant to be Lennon's "comeback" album, his return to the music business and public life after five years of retirement during which he had focused on the simple joys of domesticity and raising his son, Sean. Instead, the album became Lennon's farewell to a vast and adoring fan base, many of whom had admired him since the earliest days of Beatlemania...