The most maligned woman in rock history, Evelyn McDonnell called her, and it’s not hyperbole. Yet for studiocraft, Fly, Feeling the Space, and especially Approximately Infinite Universe deserve the scrutiny that her husband’s desultory Nixon-era albums get from Beatlephiles (she pushes her husband to new heights as a lead guitarist, too). Toss in Season of Glass and Rising and I had to stop noting the number of excellent songs written by Yoko Ono. Her influence is profound: from Alex Chilton’s pilfering the melody of “Mrs. Lennon” for “Holocaust” to the B-52’s and Sleater-Kinney. Walking on Thin Ice, a distillation of the Rykodisc Onobox, is one of the great accidental purchases of my life — at a Best Buy in summer ’96!Eight years younger than my grandmother, Yoko is still recording: I wish I’d heard Take Me to the Land of Hell, and she enjoys a thriving second life as the object of okay to excellent remixes of older material that have taken her to the top of the American dance charts.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.
