#John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band Gets Huge Ultimate Collection Box Set

John Lennon’s iconic debut solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band from 1970 is getting a huge Ultimate Collection box set. The set is out April 16 (via Capitol/UMe) and it includes outtakes, demos, impromptu jam sessions, the full live recording session of Yoko Ono’s companion album Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, and much more across eight discs. The collection includes six CDs, two Blu-ray audio discs, a 132-page book, a “War Is Over!” poster, and two postcards. Its massive tracklist features 87 previously unreleased recordings. Find an unboxing video, and listen to the new mix of “Mother,” below.

Ono oversaw the reissue’s production and creative direction. It was helmed by the same audio team that worked on 2018’s Imagine reissue, including engineer Paul Hicks and mixers/engineers Rob Stevens and Sam Gannon.

Plastic Ono Band was Lennon’s first album after the Beatles’ breakup. Produced by Phil Spector, it was a minimal recording featuring Ringo Starr on drums and Klaus Voorman on bass. The album features “Isolation,” “Working Class Hero,” “God,” “Hold On,” and “Well Well Well.”

“With the Plastic Ono Band albums, John and I liked the idea of this really raw, basic, truthful reality that we were going to be giving to the world,” Yoko Ono wrote in the book’s preface. “We were influencing other artists, giving them courage, giving dignity to a certain style of vulnerability and strength that was not accepted in society at the time. It was a revolution for a Beatle to say, ‘Listen: I’m human, I’m real.’ It took a lot of courage for him to do it.”