Yoko Ono- Plastic Ono Band

Yoko Ono- Plastic Ono Band

Universally, Yoko's P.O.B. album was seen as an extreme affront against propriety and possibly civilization! Something so revolutionary should have been applauded by the free-thinking radicals, but they were not as free as they pretended to be. There is a cultural context to Yoko's vocal style on songs like "Why" and "Why Not," that was derived from the operas of Alban Berg as well as from hetai, a style of straining your voice for a Kabuki performance, and just plain anguish. Her use of composing songs through improvisation was picked up from her jazz friends, Ornette Coleman and others. Originally released to almost universal disdain in 1970, critics now declare this album as laying the groundwork for the punk revolution of 1976. David Browne, Entertainment Weekly, has credited Yoko with "launching a hundred or more female alternative rockers, like Kate Pierson of the B-52s to current thrashers like L7 and Courtney Love of Hole."