Icon vs. Icon

John Lennon

John Lennon‘s albums have been digitally remastered and are set to be released to celebrate the iconic singer’s 70th birthday.

The reissues include eight of Lennon’s solo records, plus a greatest hits collection and a four-disc anthology titled Gimme Some Truth. The reissues and compilations, each digitally remastered from the original mixes, will hit stores on October 5th (four days before Lennon’s 70th birthday) and will also be available for download through all major digital retailers.

In addition to the reissue of the eight albums — John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Some Time In New York City, Mind Games, Walls and Bridges, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Double Fantasy Stripped Down/Double Fantasy and the posthumous release Milk and Honey — an 11-disc collection called John Lennon Signature Box will feature all of the solo albums plus an EP of Lennon’s non-album singles and a bonus disc of rare and previously unreleased recordings. The set will come with a collectible limited edition art print and a hardbound book with rare photos, poetry, artwork and new liner notes, which were written by Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis. Like the recent Beatles’ reissues, each album will be housed in a digi-sleeve that mirrors its original packaging.

Ono is also planning commemorative events to coincide with Lennon’s 70th birthday; details will be announced soon at John Lennon’s official website.

Yoko Ono said of the project, “By remastering 121 tracks spanning his solo career, I hope also that those who are already familiar with John’s work will find renewed inspiration from his incredible gifts as a songwriter, musician and vocalist and from his power as a commentator on the human condition.”

Lennon would have turned 70 on October 9. He was shot dead in New York in December 1980.

A new poster for ‘Nowhere Boy’ has hit the web. The directorial debut of Sam Taylor-Wood, ‘Nowhere Boy’ is based on the book ‘Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon’ by Julia Baird about her half-brother’s pre-Beatles life including when he first met Paul McCartney.

The film focuses on the years in which John Lennon was raised by his aunt, Mimi Smith, and later reacquainted with his biological mother, Julia. Lennon’s mother was tragically killed in an auto accident when John was just starting to get to know her in his late teens. The film is currently slated for a limited release on October 8th, 2010.

Synopsis: Imagine… John Lennon’s childhood. Liverpool 1955: a smart and troubled fifteen year-old is hungry for experience. In a family full of secrets, two incredible women clash over John: Mimi, the buttoned-up Aunt who raised him, and Julia, the prodigal mother. Yearning for a normal family, John escapes into the new and exciting world of rock n’ roll where his fledgling genius finds a kindred spirit in the teenage Paul McCartney. Just as John begins his new life, tragedy strikes. But a resilient young man finds his voice – and an icon explodes into the world.

BBC Four is prepping an new John Lennon biopic titled Naked Lennon.The film will highlight the music legend’s life from 1967 to 1971 when Lennon was ending his first marriage as Yoko Ono entered his life, coping with the death of manager Brian Epstein and the group’s eventual disintegration.

Christopher Eccleston, who is well known for having played the ninth incarnation of ‘Doctor Who’. Christopher Fairbank, Naoko Mori, Claudie Blakley, Rory Kinnear, Michael Colgan, Andrew Scott and Allan Corduner have also signed up to take part in the project.

BC4 has established a reputation in the U.K. for backing low-budget, high-quality biopics such as recent film portraying children’s writer Enid Blyton, “Enid,” starring Helena Bonham-Carter.

“Lennon Naked” was written by Robert Jones, the co-creator of BBC TV drama “Party Animals”.

You say you want theRevolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the music world… Tapping the reach of the Internet and a power-shifting business model, musician Julian Lennon and digital pioneers Michael Birch and Todd Meagher today officially announced the launch of theRevolution LLC, a full-service, artist-focused, music services company.

In the vanguard of theRevolution is the single “Lucy,” co-written by Lennon and James Scott Cook, to be released on a four-track EP on December 15. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to two charities focused on lupus, an autoimmune disease afflicting Cook’s Grandmother Lucy, as well as Lennon’s late childhood friend Lucy Vodden, a watercolor painting of whom led John Lennon to write “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

With the mission of “Turning the music business into the musician’s business,” theRevolution (www.theRevolution.com) serves as the funding vehicle which endeavors to partner with both emerging and established artists to give them control as well as ownership of their creative output and to help build their fan bases and, ultimately, their brands. Under its singularly structured, transparent 50/50 “artist partnership” model, the artist forms a company and theRevolution funds it, with musical artists owning equity in their own companies.

Through its subsidiary the Artists Alliance and its affiliates, theRevolution provides artists an a la carte menu of integrated services, among them: business/legal affairs; product design, manufacturing and retail/direct distribution; online transactional management; tour/event logistics, sponsor outreach; marketing, promotions and branding; and music publishing/licensing.

“Julian and I have been friends for over 20 years and have partnered on several businesses together, as I have with Michael. Our combined understanding of technology and the music industry, our love of innovation, and our ability to capitalize our own company make this new partnership ideal,” explains Texas-based Todd Meagher, a former songwriter for Warner Chappell Music who, as an internet entrepreneur, successfully founded and sold such entities as Credit.com. In 2002 Meagher created the industry’s first 50/50, artist-owned model, going on to launch MyStore.com with Michael Birch and Lennon in 2006, in the early days when MySpace did not allow direct sales. As an outgrowth of both businesses, Meagher approached Lennon with the idea of a full-service, artist-focused music services company, and Lennon agreed not only to be a partner, but to be its first artist after a nearly ten-year hiatus from the music industry.

“I think the digital age of music has allowed independent artists to be heard, where maybe they would have not been before due to record labels’ pigeonholing of music, musicians and style,” explains Lennon. “theRevolution puts artists into business for themselves. It came about because I personally couldn’t see a way forward, given the state of the music industry, and wanted to start something new – a new model – which will hopefully continue to grow and be accepted, appreciated and become successful.”

That hopefulness is shared by Birch, the media community/Internet marketing guru who co-founded BirthdayAlarm.com, Ringo.com and the social networking site Bebo, which AOL bought for $850 million. An advisor to myriad companies, this past summer Birch helped launch PROfounders Capital, a UK investment fund for entrepreneurs. “Many artists are quite good at promoting themselves, but you need other elements to build a proper business and brand,” says Birch. The model of theRevolution is to fully align its interests with those of artists (i.e., one party doesn’t make money unless the other does) and, for artists used to turning over the lion share of the revenues from their music to traditional labels, says Birch, the key is education. “We need to build our reputation as a true partner and prove our dedication to building long-term careers.”

On December 15, the company will mark its first release with the four-song EP Lucy, featuring the same-named title track written by James Scott Cook and Julian Lennon. Produced by Todd Meagher, the lead single “Lucy” is Lennon’s first single in close to a decade.

Lennon initially planned only to sing background vocals on the song, but before its completion he learned that his childhood friend Lucy Vodden had passed away after a long battle with lupus. With some lyric changes the decision was made for the song to be a duet between Lennon and Cook. By remarkable coincidence, Cook told Lennon that Lucy was also the name of his 92-year-old grandmother who has been living with lupus for years. Seeking to honor the memory of both women, a portion of the proceeds from the single will be donated to two charities, St. Thomas’ Lupus Trust (www.lupus.org.uk) and the Lupus Foundation of America (www.lupus.org).

The EP – inside of which buyers will discover a fold-out copy of Julian Lennon’s original watercolor drawing of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – features two versions of “Lucy,” the studio track and an acoustic version. There’s also Lennon’s slow and sentimental song “Beautiful,” which will appear on his full-length album Everything Changes, to be released in 2010, and Cook’s song “Sober,” which will be on his own eponymous album next year. RED Distribution (a division of Sony Music Entertainment) is providing manufacturing, retail distribution and radio promotion for the EP, and the title track will initially be available for download online exclusively at iTunes until the first of the year, which will also make a donation to the lupus charities. VH1, YouTube, MySpace Music and Yahoo Music have all agreed to support the video release.

Julian Lennon first came to the public’s attention as a musical artist with his 1984 debut album Valotte, which produced two Top Ten singles, “Valotte” and “Too Late for Goodbyes.” The album led to a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Along with his sophomore effort, The Secret Value of Daydreaming (Atlantic),” his subsequent albums include Mr. Jordan, Help Yourself and the independently produced Photograph Smile— his most critically acclaimed album to date. In recent years, Lennon has focused on photography and other endeavors, also producing the eight-time internationally award-winning documentary WhaleDreamers. For more information on WhaleDreamers, visit this location >

The official trailer for ‘Nowhere Boy’ has hit the web. The directorial debut of Sam Taylor-Wood, ‘Nowhere Boy’ is based on the book ‘Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon’ by Julia Baird about her half-brother’s pre-Beatles life including when he first met Paul McCartney.

The film focuses on the years in which John Lennon was raised by his aunt, Mimi Smith, and later reacquainted with his biological mother, Julia. Lennon’s mother was tragically killed in an auto accident when John was just starting to get to know her in his late teens.

Goldfrapp have written the score for the film. Lead singer Alison Goldfrapp said that the group has written a traditional score for the movie, which is based around “very orchestral” music in a recent interview.

Producers are currently in negotiation with Yoko Ono to include original John Lennon songs in the film.

The official one sheet poster for ‘Nowhere Boy’ has been revealed. The directorial debut of Sam Taylor-Wood, ‘Nowhere Boy’ is based on the book ‘Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon’ by Julia Baird about her half-brother’s pre-Beatles life including when he first met Paul McCartney. The film focuses on the years in which John Lennon was raised by his aunt, Mimi Smith, and later reacquainted with his biological mother, Julia. Lennon’s mother was tragically killed in an auto accident when John was just starting to get to know her in his late teens.

Goldfrapp have written the score for the film. Lead singer Alison Goldfrapp said that the group has written a traditional score for the movie, which is based around “very orchestral” music in a recent interview.

Producers are currently in negotiation with Yoko Ono to include original John Lennon songs in the film.

A new John Lennon exhibition, John Lennon: The New York Years, will feature a paper bag containing the bloody clothes from the night he was shot dead. The paper bag of garments will be just one of the attractions in John Lennon collection, a new exhibit that launched Monday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC.

His widow Yoko Ono, who has created the display, said the clothes were “hard to include” and she feared she “might be criticised as well” for including them. Speaking about hosting the display in New York, Ono said: “I know it’s a kind of a sad and very poignant kind of paradox, I think, that he loved this place so much and this where he was killed.”

John Lennon: The New York Years, will also features such items as the New York City t-shirt worn in a famous photograph of the former Beatle, a pair of his trademark wire-rimmed glasses, handwritten lyrics, letters about Lennons possible deportation from America in the early 70s and several musical instruments including a piano and guitars.

Lennon, who died at the age of 40, lived in New York for much of the 1970s. In homage to the city that never sleeps, the annex will extend its hours while showing John Lennon: The New York City Years, which as yet has no official end date.

The exhibit will be open Sundays through Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.