Yoko Ono was born February 18th, 1933 in Tokyo. She is 68 years old, and has been hated longer than many of you have existed. Ono's art, while internationally respected and admired for decades, has been overshadowed by a sect of music fans who believe she was responsible for tearing apart the great white hopes of rock and roll. There are people who say she's still wreaking havoc by manipulating her murdered husband's image to suit her professional obligations and lifestyle of comfort beyond luxury. There are even people who think it was she who should've taken the bullet all those years ago to spare us a lifetime of wondering whether the Four Saviors would come back to cure the world's ills. Yoko Ono is an artist and a wronged woman.

These are roles she has performed increasingly well with age. Currently, the first American retrospective of her work is touring the United States. The exhibition chronicles everything from her foray into the avant-garde conceptual art of the 1960s, to her bed-ins for peace with John Lennon, to her first solo records in the 1970s and 80s, to her concerts and Internet projects in the 1990s and today. It seems that Ono would be able to establish her name without much help from her once-better half, but none of the exhibitions or press releases ever seem to dissuade the legions of grudge holders from her past.

Despite Ono's unfair treatment, she does leave herself open to a lot of valid criticism. Primarily, as long as she makes records, there will always be the charge that she isn't really a singer, or even a musician. Her first records with John Lennon didn't exactly ingratiate her to Beatle fans with their feedback-drenched, primal scream freak-outs. She put out some solo discs in the early 70s (featuring many of the same musicians as were performing with Lennon at the time), but her brand of "pop" was rarely less confrontational than her public persona at the time. The singing was usually closer to spoken word, and the melodies, while sometimes hummable, weren't exactly the kind that would end up in Nike commercials. And of course, the freak-outs never really went away.

Some of the critical weight was lifted after her 1980 collaboration with Lennon, Double Fantasy, and her subsequent solo record Season of Glass, largely due to an emphasis on straightforward pop, though still with that instantly recognizable Ono croon. More recently, she has taken to performing with her son, Sean Lennon. Rising, from 1995, was a pairing of her usual avant-garde musings on angst, pain and fear, and the hard funk and alt-groove of Sean's rock trio, IMA. Bringing her sound and vision up to date was an admirable step, especially for someone who was approaching legal retirement age, and her latest album, Blueprint for a Sunrise, continues in that vein.

Okay, so now you know the story. If only digging the music was the next logical step. Blueprint is something of a memoir for Ono's childhood in Japan, during World War II, and simultaneously a message in a bottle for frustrated women everywhere-- especially those who "still live in fear because of the position they are put in as women in our society." How's that for conceptual art? She goes the extra step by appearing on the cover as disgraced Chinese Empress Tz'u-hsi, a woman whose biggest claims to fame were selling out her country to British colonialists and killing her son. As artistic statements go, this album (and perhaps Ono's career) is either the product of visionary genius, or one giant mixed signal.

"I Want You to Remember Me" (comprising the first two tracks as parts A and B) is rather brutal truth and consequences. Yoko vocalizes both sides of a domestic dispute, channeling what must be some very bitter memories, over a heartbeat pulse. This leads directly to a spacy jam wherein she un-tucks her patented Yoko shrieks and yodels. "Gotta kill, gotta kill, gotta kill," goes the hook, and before you start to check your locks, consider that she might be making some kind of abstract statement about the helplessness of many women. Of course, I couldn't prove that, but I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here.

Next up is Ono's version of the torch song, "Is This What We Do." Leading off with some nice Spanish guitar (?), building to Metallica-style mega-ballad heaviness (??), and featuring Yoko doing her impression of the Asian Leonard Cohen (???), the song almost lets you off the hook unscathed, before she lets loose with more shrieking near the end. That's alright, though, because the next tune, "Wouldnit," is merely awkward. Ono drops lines like "Daddy, you can't touch me/ Mommy, you can't hate me/ I'm a star, get it?" and "Wouldnit, wouldnit, wouldnit, wouldnit, wouldnit, wouldnit, wouldnit," over a cocktail lounge groove destined for Hell's karaoke bars.

And lest you think Ono has forgotten her roots, consider "Rising II" and "Mulberry." Combined, you have about 20 minutes of prime, live freaking. Sean accompanies his mother to unfettered aural catharsis, often sung in many languages at once. Props to this family for pushing ahead when others are sitting down to TV dinners and Pictionary, but sometimes, when artists refuse to compromise, it makes it difficult to meet them halfway. In short, I respect Ono's art; I just can't listen to a lot of it.

Blueprint for a Sunrise isn't completely impregnable. "It's Time for Action" is pretty good avant-funk along the lines of recent Peter Gabriel, and "I Remember Everything," with the calmness of Ono's voice in the opening and some rather pretty guitar from her son, almost fools you into thinking she'd let you up for a moment to breathe. I was sucked in until the Metallica power-balladry reared its head again, raising the question of just what music Sean is playing for his mom these days.

If you've made it this far in the review, I assume you must have at least a passing interest in Yoko Ono (or Metallica). To that, I say, "Congratulations." You've successfully gone against trends and general consensus, and can accept her abstractions as the idiosyncrasies of an artist. Objectively, I'm right there with you, and would add that the days of thinking of her as John Lennon's wife, or as the woman who broke up the Beatles should be forever put to rest. That said, I might need more traditional "rock" than her music is giving me, and though I'll never criticize someone who puts their soul on display for their art, I can't guarantee I'll be able to listen to it very long.

-Dominique Leone, October 26th, 2001