Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, John Lennon LP

$

50

Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins is an experimental album released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968. The result of an all-night session of musical experimentation in Lennon's home studio at Kenwood, John and Yoko's debut album is known not only for its avant garde content, but also for its cover. The couple used a time delay camera to take nude photographs of themselves, the front cover displayed them frontally nude, while the rear cover featured them from behind. (The photos were taken not at Kenwood, but at Ringo Starr's basement apartment at Montagu Square, where Lennon and Ono stayed later that year.)

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. Lennon's longtime friend Peter Shotton remembered later in his memoir that many of the loops were made by Lennon and himself, in the days before the recording. Lennon recorded directly to two-track stereo, but much of the source material was monophonic.

The cover provoked an outrage, prompting distributors to sell the album in a plain brown wrapper. Copies of the album were impounded as obscenity in several jurisdictions (including 30,000 copies in New Jersey). Lennon wryly commented that the uproar seemed to have less to do with the explicit nudity, and more to do with the fact that the pair were rather unattractive (and the photo unflattering; Lennon described it later as a picture of "two slightly overweight ex-junkies"). The album was named so because immediately after recording was finished, John and Yoko consummated their relationship for the first time.

Nevertheless, the taboo-breaking album cover was perhaps the first time that a male celebrity of any consequence had exposed himself so thoroughly to the public.

This is an unbelievable find for any Beatles or Lennon fan.  The record still has the original brown wrapper covering the controversial album cover!  The brown wrapper is torn, but otherwise in very good shape.  The album cover shows some yellowing.  The dust jacket is creased, but otherwise in fine shape.  Own this rare treasure today!

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