NINE SONGS OF JOHN LENNON

COLLAGE is always COLLAGE. Even when they play Lennon's songs! My favourite Mirek Gil's soloing , Krysz' keyboards and awesome Woitek drumming - all is here!!! Recorded as a test for Robert, new COLLAGE's singer, Songs fall to become a collector's rare item as they are not usual COLLAGE-type recording (despite what I said in the beginning). Anyway there are some nice versions like God (a blues?), Imagine and Give Peace a Chance. CD also has video to SAFE ballad from 1996 album, and it's pleasant bonus! Recommended mostly for collectors , but it's a good record = 3 stars as a whole

Album made up of John Lennon covers. No original material... at least that's what you may think. John Lennon's songs are nearly unrecognisable. They are drenched in Collage's typical sound. I read in another review that this album was made as a test for their new singer. As far as I'm concerned, he failed. Everything is great except the voice unfortunately. They really should've stuck with their first singer. Anyway, I didn't know John Lennon's songs could sound progressive !!! Collage may be the best neo-progressive band after Marillion. Definitely recommended. 3 stars and a half if they hadn't changed the singer.

Nine Songs Of John Lennon is Polish band Collage´s second album. As the title suggests it´s made up of 9 interpretations of John Lennon songs. With albums that solely consists of cover songs two things have to be in place to fully enjoy the experience. First and most importantly you have to like the band who is playing the songs which means in this case Collage. To this I can say Yes. The second thing that has to be in place is that you have to like the original artist at least to some degree. To this I can only say partly and therefore this is a mixed experience for me.

The music is a strange mix of the original vocal lines from John Lennon songs like Imagine, Give Peace a Chance, Cold Turkey and The Beatles tune Tomorrow Never Knows and neo progressive arrangements with lots of melodic guitar leads and solos. I think the neo progressive style is great when it´s played by Collage. They really understand how to play this style but the John Lennon sections are not especially to my liking and that is because I never really liked the originals. Yes they are pop/ rock evergreens and some of them are beautiful, but this is just not my prefered style. Another thing I´m not too impressed with the voice of Robert Amirian which I think is a bit weak.

The instrumental musicianship and the arrangements of the songs are the two reasons for getting this album because as always Wojtek Szadkowski plays his strange anarcistic drumming style, Krzysztof Palczewski lays everything to waste ( this is a positive remark) with his monumental keyboard work and Mirek Gil plays his beautiful guitar leads inspired by such greats as Alex Lifeson, Steve Rothery and David Gilmour.

The production is a bit thin but it´s not useless though.

I´m gonna have to give this 2 stars because there are too many things I don´t like about the album to really call it good. There are parts in every song that deserves at least a 3 star rating but overall the album gets 2.

"Well Well Well" is the title of the fifth track from this homage to John Lennon. That's exactly the comment I made to myself while listening to this cover album.

The art of covering needs a lot of skills, of which the most important is to improve the quality of an original like "America" by Yes, "With A Little Help" from Joe Cocker etc.

I can't say that I find these qualities here even if the band tries to add a prog angle to these "Nine Songs". One of the most achieved is the psychedelic version for "Tomorrow Never Knows". Really good and innovative. If only all of this album would have been of this caliber!

"Woman" is also pleasantly revisited. As poignant as the original, I particularly like the excellent guitar work from Mirek Gil. In this respect, a special mention as well for his sublime intro on "God". A great piece of music indeed. The combination with the spacey keyboards are another fine moment of this album. The best one of the whole.

Most of the songs are introduced with an instrumental part which does not belong to the original, this is an approach similar to "Vanilla Fudge". But more rationale, less crazy. Confirmation of this aspect? "Give Peace A Chance". Weak.

The worse though was the opening "Power to the People" which is unbearable. If ever there was one good reason to record such an album, here is the answer from Wojtek Szadkowski (drummer).

"The reason why we recorded the cover album Nine Songs From John Lennon was to save the band from splitting! If we hadn't entered the studio then, Collage would no longer exist, so thank God that we did it".

Maybe for their upcoming album, because this one is of no interest to prog fans nor to Lennon's ones. Two stars.

I´ve avoided this CD for years. First I´m not really that big fan of John Lennon and to see a prog band doing an entirely album of his songs seems to be totally pointless. Even more so if the record was their second, after the promising but hardly essential Basnie. However, I had the opportunity to finally listening when a friend gave me a copy a few days ago. I was quite surprised of how good it actually was: the songs are mostly a total remake of the original, yet they preserve their essence in many ways and it is a respectful work. Looking back, it was also Collage´s first work with their classic line up of Robert Amirian on vocals, Mirek Gil (guitars), Piotr Mintay Witkowski (bass) and the genius Krzysztof Palczewski on keyboards, plus leader and drummer Wojtek Szadkowski.

Of course it is the classic case of hit and miss, but there is little double that they did a terrific job considering the iconic and legendary status of the author of the material. Imagine and Woman for instance don´t get even close to the beauty and power of the original versions. However, tracks like God (the longest and most progressive of them all), Tomorrow Never Knows, Give Peace A Chance and Cold Turkey are fine examples of how creative, bold and unique Collage was from the very start (and they understood Lennon´s message like so few actually did).

In the end, a nice homage to one of rock´s great songwriters. And they did it giving the songs the full Collage treatment that would emerge in all its power in the form of their next release, the classic Moonshine.

Rating: 3 stars. Good, but not essential.

Second full-length album by the neo-prog polish legends Collage after their debut Basnie!

And this time they returned with a new front man, Robert Amirian. Who sadly never was a very good singer despite his passionate interpretation of lyrics. And here is sadly no exception. Along with the too noisy and sometimes out of tune solos by Mirek Gil, his singing is the weakest point of this John Lennon's cover album.

Nevertheless, fans of Collage will be pleased with the typical beautiful keyboard's layers of the band, competent drumming and the typical ethereal and airy atmospheres that this band was so good at creating.

Best songs: I especially like the version of Woman and the beautiful melodies of Imagine, part of which were used again by the band in their posterior excellent album Moonshine, specifically in the band's best song called In Your Eyes.

Conclusion: this album is a mere curiosity for Collage (or John Lennon) fans, because it did not bring nothing new or too interesting to the prog world. But like I said, there is enough beautiful melodies included here to be an enjoyable (but also forgettable) experience.

Two years later, Collage released the named Moonshine and they entered directly in the prog-rock history!

My rating: **

As one of the most popular progressive Polish bands to emerge in the last few decades, the Warsaw based COLLAGE was also one of the very first to jump onto the second wave prog revival with its own brand of neo-prog in the vein of classic Marillion, IQ and Pallas. The band underwent many changes during its initial years before settling on a lineup that would include Tomasz Różyckid as the band's first lead vocalist who appeared on an album. While Różycki would only stick around long enough to record the band's debut release "Baśnie," the band would go on to release the internationally popular "Moonshine" as well as making a surprise comeback in 2022 with the band's first album in over two decades with "Over and Out."

After going trying out vocalist Zbigniew Biniak for a couple years and then allowing original vocalist Jarosław Wajk to rejoin, the band wasn't satisfied with the results and eventually settled on Robert Amirian as the permanent vocalist who fit like a glove and has been an essential member of the band ever since he joined in 1993. After a successful debut that not only propelled COLLAGE into national stardom as one of Poland's most successful and radio friendly modern prog bands that surprisingly translated into international success across not only Europe but overseas, COLLAGE's next move was one of the most head-scratching decisions that a band could make for a release of a sophomore album and one that remains a mystery as to why the band thought it was a good idea in the first place.

Of all the possibilities of delivering a second album and showcasing a new vocalist to the band's fanbase, the band chose to release a cover album titled NINE SONGS OF JOHN LENNON which as the title states pretty much sums up what this album is, namely a collection of nine songs written by John Lennon and reinterpreted into the world of COLLAGE's neo-prog lens. A very bizarre move indeed and although everyone was inspired to embrace a musical career based on the music they love from their youth, to crank out an entire album of covers so early in a fledgling band's career seems like a death wish. Despite this rather peculiar decision COLLAGE managed to move on and release their internationally revered third album "Moonshine" the following year but wow. This one really could've ended it all.

Now bad ideas aside i have to admit that the music contained on this album is not nearly as bad as i possibly could've imagined and while i rarely find myself warming up to albums of only cover songs of popular pop artists of yore, amazingly COLLAGE did a decent job of adapting these classic Lennon songs into the context of their spacey neo-prog sound that they had established over their career. Somehow despite all odds the band breathes their own creative forces into the unthinkable act of tarnishing one of the great rock and roll legend's most celebrated tracks ranging from "Power To The People" to the impossible to top classic "Imagine." While the band remains faithful to the overall melodic lyrical structures, where the band takes liberties in the extended jamming extensions that add keyboard-rich neo-prog glory to otherwise straight forward pop rock songs.

This album also found the band shifting from its lyrics sung in its native Polish to becoming an internationally recognized band that used English for its second chapter. Somehow the band pulled it off to a certain extent with an interesting mix of remaining faithful to the original songs while adding its own progressive rock stamp to the mix. I can't even imagine the number of fans who found the entire thing sacrilegious given John Lennon's rock god status across the entire world but i have to give these guys credit for just doing what they wanted with really no consideration for the ramifications of their decision making. Clearly this was fueled by a giddy idealism rather than actually considering the implications of such a move. Overall this is not really a bad album at all and quite pleasant as far as cover albums go. While a far cry from the band's best efforts it's actually listenable and actually quite creative on tracks like "Give Peace A Chance" which also finds a surprise foray into Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" guitar riff as well as a short vocal snippet from Led Zeppelin's "Rock And Roll!"

Sure most everyone loves John Lennon, his music, his passion and his phenomenal legacy in The Beatles and as one of the most beloved solo artists of all time. He is sorely missed for his down to Earth political views and dedication to peace on planet Earth with his relentless stance that continued up to his unfortunate assassination in 1980. COLLAGE may have made a strategic faux pas as far as furthering their career with NINE SONGS OF JOHN LENNON but given the careful dedication paid during the renditions carried out on this album it's easy to give it a pass as nothing more than a bad business move. The tracks are actually more creative covers than 90% of similar albums out there and to my surprise the mix of neo-prog and psychedelic space rock in the vein of Pink Floyd coupled with classic John Lennon songs turns out to be not as horrible as my imagine led me to believe. Not essential by any means but this honestly is a what i'd call a very good album. I'm utterly shocked that i like this to the extent i do!