Mind Games is getting the next album to get a Boxset

[Euan Buchan]

It was announced yesterday on the John Lennon Twitter Page that Mind Games is getting the Boxset treatment in Summer 2024.

[Moogmodule]

That's good. While it wasn't a favourite of mine at first I've grown to like it a lot more over the last few years.

[Euan Buchan]

It's been announced on the John Lennon website that the album will be out in June https://www.johnlennon.com/news/mind-games-the-ultimate-collection-72-tracks-6cds-2blurays-june-2024/

[Euan Buchan]

According to John Lennon's social media Mind Games Boxset will be out July 12th.

[Moogmodule]

Cool. Will be interested to give it a listen.

[Euan Buchan]

Looks like we will get a announcement on Wednesday according to the John Lennon social media's.

[Euan Buchan]

https://youtu.be/PDkE8U_adTE?si=BJFCC2DvoVrGz1Px

[Euan Buchan]

Available today

[Euan Buchan]

My thoughts of the ultimate collection I really like it sounds good some of the element tracks are nice but I wouldn't rush to play them all the time they all sound too very similar I think I enjoyed the out takes disc the most. I will buy the deluxe set eventually or might just wait for my birthday in September.

[Moogmodule]

I haven't really delved too deeply into these huge box sets put out by Paul and John and George's estates. However, since I'm in a job that I can have music on all day I thought it was the opportunity to listen to one of these intently.

This is a big set but not unwieldy. The streaming version has 72 songs under 6 different categories. I understand physical copies come with more bonus tracks.  I've listened to most of it or at least sampled each category.

Mind Games was always a bit of a hole in my John listening. As a huge John fan as a teen I had most of his albums including even Sometime in New York City. But for some reason I never added Mind Games and was only familiar with the title track. When I did finally listen to it I found it a bit underwhelming. The songs didn't quite land. The melodies were just short of memorable in most cases. It didn't grab me like Plastic Ono Band or Imagine had. So I didn't listen to it again for many years. My interest was rekindled when I saw the film Children of Men which used Bring on the Lucie as the outro. I went back to listen to the album and found the songs generally more interesting than I remembered. I still wouldn't rank it at the top of John catalogue but it's got a lot going for it. I think my views on the songs are similar to what I posted under the Microscope (Ten years ago.  )

An attractive feature of this set is that for each category the same songs from the original
album appear in the album order. So you don't get that "all over the shop" feeling that some larger sets give you.

The Ultimate Mixes

This is just a straight remix of the album. It seemingly intends to bring John's voice out more. I honestly can't remember the previous mix so can't compare. This sounds great to me though. Very clean and well balanced.

Elemental

This is an odd idea of mixing out most of the instruments so you're left with John's vocals and a couple of key instruments. It's undoubtedly a novel way of listening to the songs. Mind Games similarity harmonically to Whiter Shade of Pale (which is basically Pachelbels Canon anyway) really stands out for instance. However, it's a bit of a gimmick really. Not sure it's something you'd listen to that often.

Elements

Elements is even odder. It's again taking a couple of key instruments for each song but without John's vocals. So they come across as low key instrumentals. Almost elevator music. Not sure why you'd listen to these much except out of curiosity. Maybe as a study background.

Evolution

These are quite fascinating. They're a collage for each song of John's demos, early takes and working up to the final take including John's instructions to the band. While again it's not something you'd play all the time it's fun to hear the early versions and John's directions as the final take develops.

Raw Mixes

These are Studio mixes of the final takes but without vocal effects and other fancification (I'm sure that's a real sound engineer's term). More to give you the feeling of hearing them play the song live in the studio. These are nice alternative versions that I could imagine being a more frequent listen at least of ones favourite songs.

Out Takes

The usual alternative takes. Whether any of these replace the released versions as your favourite is totally depending on taste. Of some interest is John's version of One Day At a Time sung in his normal register rather than in falsetto.

The out take for the Nutopian National Anthem is not something you'd expect to see given it's a few seconds of silence. Instead you get audio of the press conference John and Yoko did to declare Nutopia. It's of historical interest as a one time listen.

[Loco Mo]

I've been listening to outtakes from Mind Games.  There's something very soothing and pleasant about John's voice that makes it very enjoyable and relaxing to listen to him sing in these stripped-down versions.  He just had a wonderful voice.

I heard a recently released version of the Mind Games single that is termed a Meditation Mix.  It's okay but not quite my vibe.    It's just that he didn't create the mix; someone else did.  I don't know if John would have liked this take/embellishment of his song. 

[Beatlemaniac64]

Looks like Mind Games is in the UK charts - very cool.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2024/10/23/john-lennon-is-back-on-the-charts-with-one-of-his-most-famous-solo-albums/

I tried listening to a couple of the meditation mixes; so far don't like it. Kinda creepy to me actually lol. I think they just need to let some things be. To me this has nothing to do with John.

[Loco Mo]

Thanks for the review, Moog.  I haven't yet tackled the challenge of listening to it all.  I was just thinking:  What if we had compilations like this for all artists?  It's like both seeing an artist working on a song and then singing its final version.  Why do we want all of this?