John Lennon was the radical Beatle, the political one who would shoot off his mouth at a time when pop stars were supposed to smile and sing. He’s the one who claimed the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, and he’s the one who, with wife Yoko Ono, staged a bed-in for peace. He posed naked on his album covers. He wrote songs with controversial lyrics. And he dismissed his Beatles years with casual cynicism. When the band broke up in 1970, Lennon released his first official album (there were a couple of experimental records before that), ‘John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band,’ a cathartic exercise that confronted his mommy issues and dismantled the Beatles’ myth. For the next five years he released increasingly easier records, until his retirement in 1975 to care for his young son. A few weeks after he released his comeback LP, ‘Double Fantasy,’ in 1980, he was killed by a deranged fan.
- Birthday: Oct. 9, 1940
- Died: Dec. 8, 1980
- Selected Discography: ‘John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band’ (1970), ‘Imagine’ (1971), ‘Double Fantasy’ (1980)
- Related Artists: The Beatles, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr
- Further Reading: Top 10 John Lennon Songs, Top 10 John Lennon Beatles Songs, Top 10 John Lennon Love Songs