Warzone

An inventive way of uniting her body of work, Warzone furthers her legacy as a promoter of peace and understanding.

The production is minimal throughout, often foregrounding Ono’s one take vocals against naive sounding guitar and piano backdrops. Side Two showcases Ono’s childlike side and is much more fun.

These are songs with some of her most simple, basic, elementary and repetitive musical structures and perhaps that makes them good vehicles for the message they convey. And her impish humour means that, unlike other multi-millionaires given to issuing instructions and political messages from on high, Ono doesn't come across as insufferable, grand or out of touch.

That whimsical spirit is perhaps Warzone‘s defining characteristic, despite a tracklist that leans heavily on songs about war and other forms of violence. .... Also fully intact is Ono’s trademark shriek, which has, if anything, grown richer and more resonant with age.

The sound of Ono gravely warbling "Imagine" at the close of Warzone may invite more ridicule from longtime haters. But believers in her musical vision will deem it very much of a piece with the boldness that marks these new renditions of many of her most furious songs. [Nov 2018, p.34]

While some may not see these recordings displacing the originals as their go-to version, "I Love All of Me" is an example of Ono's new take being a compelling update.

Because its overt politics now feel so inadequate, Warzone works best as a melancholy gesture, a long look back at a time when dreaming of a better world felt invigorating rather than exhausting.

If by representing these protest songs Ono intended to convey how little has changed since she first recorded them in the spirit of social activism then she has succeeded, but Warzone also highlights how the conversation has evolved.

Maybe Warzone is better understood as a deep-cut career retrospective than a singular album. Despite its stylistic consistency, the record is uneven and only its closing track, a reworking of “Imagine,” will ring any bells to those casually familiar with Ono’s work.

Ono’s continued Flower Power philosophy--“People of America, when will we see?” goes “Now or Never”--feels simplistic at a time when artists are so used to deconstructing the social and political systems that Ono rails against. And so Warzone falls into a strange dichotomy: as the album closes with a version of “Imagine” that is hymn-like enough to sound like the heralding of a new dawn, the relevance of Ono’s protests feels as if it’s faded.

Left to her own devices, she radically strips back her earlier material and it works. [Nov 2018, p.111]