John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band by John Lennon

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Lennon's first solo album since the Beatles came apart, landed on Apple on 11 December 1970, released side by side with a similarly titled record from Yoko Ono. The two albums were cut at the same time at Abbey Road in September and October, and Lennon, Ono and Phil Spector produced his between them. The band is barely a band at all: Lennon on guitar, Ringo Starr on drums, Klaus Voormann on bass, and a lot of empty air.

That bareness is the point. Lennon had just been through primal therapy, and it shows in every raw, unvarnished take: these are songs about his own wounds, about a child left behind by its parents and about psychological pain, with "Mother", "God" and "Love" among them. Reviews were mixed when it came out, but it has since come to be counted among his best solo records, and Rolling Stone later put it at number 23 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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