Sean Lennon "Into the Sun" Grand Royal CDP 7243 4 94551 2 2 1998 (49:18)
Mystery Juice (5:26)
Into the Sun (3:23)
Home (3:05)
Bathtub (4:01)
One Night (2:06)
Spaceship (4:18)
Photosynthesis (6:47)
Queue (3:45)
Two Fine Lovers (3:17)
Part One of the Cowboy Trilogy (1:48)
Wasted (1:31)
Breeze (3:58)
Sean's Theme (5:52)
Music by Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, Timo Ellis, John Medeski, Dave Douglas, Josh Roseman, Greg Ribot, Brad Jones, Kenny Wolleson, Little Eric Wood, Chaki, Walter Sear and Fred Kevorkian.
Overall impression: good. I don't know if the young Mr. Lennon is trying to avoid the shadow of his famous father John, but I do know this: Sean looks and sounds *a lot* like him. It's eerie. Most of this album, Sean's first, is very mellow. There are a few songs with parts that are harder edged, but overall the album is a quiet and laid back emotion packed journey. There's a lot of styles covered though: rock, pop, acoustic, bossanova, jazz, country, etc. Also, the instrumentation is quite varied: guitars, bass, all sorts of keyboards and organs, harp, harmonica, flute, percussion, drums, various drum machines, etc ... and Yuka of Cibo Matto (Sean's girlfriend and inspiration) contributes quite a bit. A very good debut, the Beastie Boys knew what they were doing when they signed Sean. It will be awhile before Sean is writing songs of the same caliber as many of his father's, but I'm looking forward to checking out the next (hopefully) 20 or so years worth of albums. Check out the first single, "Home" too ...