Critics have been single-minded in their dismissal of this album, but their objections are essentially amount to a basic objection to the premises of the project, mixed in with some factual inaccuracies. The Allmusic Guide, in its 1.5/5 star review, clai
ms that the album "contains no music that would interfere with one's ability to hear the normal sounds of life":"The record is not unlike what you might get if you turned on a tape recorder for a random half-hour in your home — snatches of inaudible conversation far away from the microphone, footsteps, wind, and so on. Conceptual 'music' in the Cage-ian sense, yes, but not popular music of the kind with which John Lennon had been previously associated in any sense at all"
Musichound, in a "woof!" (0 star) review warns that "the early experimental albums with Yoko Ono . . . are avant garde works comprised of static, spoken word, and repetition. They may have some historical interest or collectors' value -- particularly the original nude cover of Two Virgins -- but as collectors know, value goes up if the covers aren't opened. And you won't miss much if you don't open these" (p. 667).
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, in a 1.5/5 review makes almost the identical point: "Rather than the inert 'avant-garde' conceptual sound pieces, the real subjects of these albums [Wedding Album, Two Virgins, and Life with the Lions] are the private art games of John and Yoko. If you are obsessed with the couple, enjoy. Most will settle for a glance at the once-scandalous cover of Two Virgins."
These are clearly written by and intended for fans of traditional pop/rock music with no interest in the experimental movement (you can feel the contempt for non-pop music in Rolling Stone's scare quote around "avant-garde"), but even so, they show a surprising lack of knowledge. To refer to the soundscape on this record, for example, as "the normal sounds of life" is bizarre in the extreme, primarily because - seriously? This is what your normal life sounds like? But more importantly for its complete factual inaccuracy.
Wikipedia gives us some basics of the recording process: "The recording consists largely of tape loops, playing while Lennon tries out different instruments (piano, organ, drums) and sound effects (including reverb, delay and distortion), changes tapes and plays other recordings, and converses with Ono, who vocalises ad-lib in response to the sounds." Clearly not simply a tape machine left on while Lennon and Ono farted around the house. Instead, if we listen with an open mind, we find that Lennon and Ono have very clear ideas about what they are trying to produce.
Context, Context, Context
But let's step back for a minute. Obviously, the reason critics have been unable to stand this album is that they have completely failed to find a context for it. Rather than seeing it as a weirdo side project by one of the Beatles, let's take a look at what else was going on in the art world at the time.
To pick a couple of pertinent examples:
1) John Barth's 1968 story collection Lost in the Funhouse. The first story, "Frame Tale," consists of a set of instructions telling the reader to cut the right half of the page off and tape it together as a mobius strip. The resulting strip reads: 'Once upon a time, there was a story that began, "Once upon a time there was a story that began, '"Once upon a time there was a story that began . . . '""'
2) The 1967 film Wavelength by Michael Snow consists of what appears to be a single 45 minute extremely slow zoom across a room, with various incidents occuring in the background, including the apparent death of a man, and a character listening to "Strawberry Fields Forever."
3) Expanding on the premises of his 1952 piece "4:33" (in which the performer closes the piano for precisely 4 minues and 33 seconds, allowing the "music" to be the ambient sound of the room) in 1967, John Cage completes the last of his "Variations" series. Wikipedia describes Variation III (1962) thus:
"Intended 'for one or any number of people performing any actions', this is the first entry in the series that does not make any references to music, musical instruments or sounds. The score consists of two sheets of transparent plastic: one is blank, the other has 42 identical circles on it. Cage instructs the performers to cut the sheet with circles so that they end up with 42 small sheets, a full circle on each. These should then be dropped on a sheet of paper. Isolated circles are then removed, and the rest are interpreted according to complex rules explained in the score. The information derived includes the number of actions and the number of variables that characterize an action. Cage does not specify the performers' actions, but notes that these can include noticing or responding to 'environmental changes'. He also states that although some of the factors of a performance may be planned in advance, the performers should 'leave room for unforeseen eventualities'; and that 'any other activities are going on at the same time' as the work is performed."
Without getting bogged down in an endless discussion of the various terminologies and conflicting theories of art involved (although I recommend at least looking through some wikipedia pages: indeterminate music, aleatoric music, formalism, structural film), what is clear is that all of these pieces of art are engaged in what can be termed a postmodern or meta-art project of examining the tools and methods by which their art is made, and a relative abandonment of narrative.
"Frame tale" is interested in both the physical manifestion of literature on the page, as well as the narrative tools by which a story is created. Wavelength foregrounds the formal techniques of zoom and long take (as well as an array of sound-effects) over any discussion of narrative. "Variations," again, is concerned with the means by which the music is created, rather than the actual sounds which emerge, which will be different each time it is performed.
Lennon and postmodernism
Two Virgins, then, represents an attempt by the man who may have been the most popular person in the world in 1968 to bring avant-garde experimentation to the masses. In the context of these pieces, however, Two Virgins is actually relatively tame. While Lennon and Ono are certainly engaged in the non-narrative project, they do not engage in the same level of overt audience alienation.
Indeed, Two Virgins is different from these pieces in that it continues (in non-narrative terms) Lennon's interest in delving into the personal; where the pieces above demand that their audience engage their works on formalist/intellectual terms, Two Virgins allows access to its art as an examination of the human beings John Lennon and Yoko Ono. This is, of course, most obvious in the cover art of Two Virgins: the two performers naked.
But it is also captured in the inversion of the rules of "4:33." Where Cage finds art from the sounds of the audience, and makes the performer silent, Lennon and Ono allow their own voices and quirks to be folded into the artwork. This is particularly true of the much derided screams and vocal contortions of Ono. By the hugely negative reaction they have received, we can see how deeply courageous it was for her to allow them to be recorded.
None of this is to say that Two Virgins is a superior work to the above pieces. I'll take John Barth over any of them, and Wavelength second. But my point is simply to distinguish what makes Two Virgins unique: Lennon is not completely giving himself over to the postmodern art world. Rather, he is trying to take some of their techniques and merge them with his own concerns and themes.
So what does it sound like?
All of which brings us to the actual encounter with the record. There is no question that it is a challenging listen for a listener brought up on the Beatles and other rock and roll. But perhaps challenging is the wrong word. Yes, it challenges assumptions about what comprises "music" or "art," and I do not doubt that many listeners have felt it impossible to make it through. But this is not Metal Machine Music, with its layers of abrasive feedback and white noise, which literally assaults our eardrums (not that I think that is necessarily a bad thing). Nor is it a Pynchon novel, with its intricate patterning and intellectual challenges.
Instead, the album is surprisingly low-key. Play Two Virgins in the background while you eat lunch or read a book, and it quickly recedes. There are frequently lovely musical passages: on the first side alone there are the guitar chords at 3:33; the piano figure around 7:00; and a neat electronic riff around 13:40. But each time the listener notices one of these phrases, it almost immediately recedes. So perhaps a better term than challenging is frustrating: it frustrates the listener's attempts to pin it down, and to find clear lines of thought.
Put in these terms, this is old territory for Lennon. At least as far back as Beatles for Sale in 1964, Lennon was passionately interested in frustrating his audiences expectations. On Two Virgins he and Ono simply take this to a new level. But these frustrations are not there (primarily) to tease his listeners, but to draw them into the album. Of course, he could have written a bunch of pop songs using the same riffs (after all, the next few months of his life were spent on the White Album), but his interest here is using those riffs as a way of getting his pop listeners interested in his decided non-pop, postmodern project.
Is it worth it? I suppose it depends on whether one thinks postmodernism itself is worth anything, but I think so. Repeated listens reveal new hooks, new quirks, words you hadn't heard, and new appreciations for its varied textures. Play it in the background, listen to it stoned, pay it deep concentration. Most of all, listen to it more than once (more than twice even) and you might find yourself actually enjoying it.
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