John Lennon – Mind Games Review

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All roads lead to the ultimate mix. When you have expired all remasters and options and the well of backlog bootlegs has dried up, the natural next step is re-evaluation. John Lennon singles and extra bits on the Record Store Day exclusive, Mind Games, make for a taster session of wider releases. Whatever difference there is between this and the 1973 release of the same name is clear from the length. This is to whet the whistle. For those on the fence about spending their cash on a six-disc set of cuts and bruised numbers, this is a nice place to start. A track he passed over to Starr and three tracks you can hear elsewhere, the milking of a man who was shot in 1980 continues. Mind Games feels like a rough bit of static for songs already out there. 

What do these mixes offer? Nothing much, really. Revised little pockets for the hardened Lennon fan who has spent their years listening to the original release of Mind Games and thought it needed a little more fine-tuning. It did not, but any excuse to listen to something as good as Mind Games is always welcome on a lazy summer afternoon. Percussion skills take centre stage on this one, a subtle addition but essential and well laid down. Lennon lays down the psychological one-upmanship of this track with great lyrical flavour. His performative flourish never left him and these moments, despite being snagged or stopped in the middle of a flow by interruptions or difficulties in the studio are still revolutionary. His instrumental purpose at this time was not to excel against what he had done through the 1960s but to explore new options. His traditional pop roots start to surface with Mind Games. 

Wistful yet explosive instrumentals make for a nice breach of quality on Aisumsaen. Skip over I’m the Greatest. It does very little even now. But the latter half of Mind Games is a strong alternative to the original records. Neat little touch-ups do not shake the hangover of rinsing the Lennon backlog dry but do well to amplify all the right spots. Care has been taken but without purpose. Like any good taster session, this leaves you wanting more. Thankfully there is more, a plentiful amount to go around for those desperately wanting cut after cut of the same song. Something like You Are Here is a deserving closer and while Outtake 5 is not truly any different from the finalised version, it does go a long way in satisfying the need to hear those final flourishes. 

Such is the point of Mind Games. Extra bits and pieces which note the well of sourced materials from the Lennon vault is running dry. Still, we milk it while we can and listen in to what is offered out of duty to contemporary releases from artists dead before the popular release of CDs. It is fine enough and makes for a short, sweet listen. Decent stuff but peddling it for a pricey lump of cash and feigning its exclusivity is always a weaker side to Record Store Day. Breed the elusive appeal of a release and people flock to it. That is the only way to keep the Lennon backlog whirring, making it harder to access the lesser-known or unnecessary releases.