1970 proved to be a fruitful year for the solo Beatles, with George Harrison releasing his behemoth ‘All Things Must Pass’, Paul McCartney improvising his astonishing home-made debut and John Lennon expressing his soul in a way never before equaled. A compilation of thirty years of recorded anger, ‘Plastic Ono Band’ proved a compelling album, rekindling Lennon’s taste for the viperine, iconoclastic and lethal in equal measure.

Sparinger than the latter-day Beatles albums, the record showcased Lennon’s guitar work (without the more deft Harrison here, Lennon shows how commendable he was as a guitarist), Ringo Starr’s percussion (Starr rarely sounded so good again) and Klaus Voorman. on bass (there were unsubstantiated rumors that he would take McCartney’s place in The Beatles, although Voorman would record ‘I’m The Greatest’ with Lennon, Harrison and Starr in 1973). Delighted by Phil Spector’s work on ‘Let It Be’ (a ninety-degree contrast to Paul McCartney), Spector was invited to Abbey Road to co-produce Lennon’s debut (although it later emerged that the album was mainly Lennon’s helm). and Yoko Ono), playing a beautiful piano on the album’s only breath-taking song, ‘Love’.

Cut from the same seismic cloth as The Beatles’ ‘Across The Universe’, ‘Love’ was a song steeped in instrumental simplicity, with an emphasis on purity of words, the opening of which Freddie Mercury would transpose for Queen’s ‘Hot Space’. Life is real’.

On the other hand, the album screamed with the only ferocity and rage that thirty years of disappointment could bestow. After leaving The Beatles, Lennon and Ono underwent Primary Scream Therapy under the supervision of Arthur Janov. Realigned with childhood traumas, Lennon gave the album’s opener ‘Mother’ and closing ‘My Mummy’s Dead’ a drag of unbearable vocal manipulation. “Mother, you had me/but, I never had you” continues to be one of the most initial ways to open a record.

A viperous attack on the deceitful nature of Seventies hippie ideals, ‘I Found Out’ had a kick, fiery in its lyrics, troubled in its music, its guitar a guide for Steve Jones and Johnny Ramone to perfect. If ‘Found Out’ preceded punk, ‘Well Well Well’ preceded grunge; one could very easily mistake Lennon’s acid bite for Kurt Cobain’s.

‘Look At Me’, finger ripped off with the same varnish as some of his ‘White Album’ acoustic ballads, Lennon alone on his guitar brings desolation, the adage that composition should be three chords and truth up front. If ‘Look’ seemed a bit close to the bone, it paled in comparison to the sheer despair of ‘Isolation’, Spector’s sparse mix both spacious and claustrophobic (Roger Waters, a longtime Lennon philologist, looked to ‘Plastic Ono Band ‘ as a model for the ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ mix). One of Lennon’s best songs, covers of it ranged from the esoteric pop stars Snow Patrol to balladeer Marianne Faithful’s gracious rendition.

‘God’ turned out to be the most iconoclastic, a four-minute ballad attacking the validity of religion, before exposing the rest of the song to everything else he didn’t believe in; Gita, yoga, Zimmerman and, most alarmingly, the Beatles.

“I just believe in me,” he replies, sighing in relief, the world off his shoulders. “I was the walrus / but now I’m John,” he sings with certainty and faith. And yes it is.

Because no one could mistake it for a Beatles record (it could have been their follow-up ‘Imagine’, with its decidedly fuller sound and commercial verve). Only Lennon’s vulnerability and loquacity could give life to an album like ‘Ono’, one of the purest examples of soul on vinyl.