As every Beatles nut knows, yesterday was John Lennon’s birthday – he would have been 84. So it’s probably an appropriate day for his son, Sean Ono Lennon, to announce a groovy, rather opulent new edition of his 1973 album Mind Games.
Lennon (who shares a birthday with his old man; he turned 49 yesterday) has teamed with the Swedish tech firm Teenage Engineering to launch the Mind Games limited edition OB-4. This is a custom-made bluetooth speaker and radio with a two-hour loop recording function that allows you to rewind, time-stretch and loop live radio. But this edition includes design inspired by the artwork of the Mind Games album – which, as fans know, features a mini Lennon on a beach overshadowed by a Yoko-mountain.
The OB-4 comes loaded with lots of exclusive content for the truly obsessive Lennon fan out there You get no less than six sets of new mixes of the album - the Ultimate mixes, the Elemental mixes, the Elements mixes, the Evolution documentary, the raw studio mixes, and the outtakes. In addition to this, there are nine meditation mixes, a new metronome, and nine mantras.
The ‘meditation’ mixes in this case are nine re-edits of the album’s title track that have been created to help listeners relax and guide them in their, er, meditation.
Sean seems very happy with it with the package. In a statement he said: “I’ve been a massive fan of Teenage Engineering since they first announced the OP-1 at NAMM in 2010.
"I have been thrilled to watch the company evolve into the world’s most fascinating musical design team. It is a dream come true to be able to collaborate with the Mind Games album OB–4 speaker. The idea of gamifying the Mind Games album has manifested as an incredible limited edition speaker and radio that will allow you to modify this classic John Lennon album in ambient mode in a way that’s never been done. I truly can’t wait for people to try it!”
Best look away from the price tag. At $999 (£764) the Mind Games OB-4 doesn’t come cheap.
The original Mind Games album came out in October 1973 during a turbulent time in the ex-Beatle’s life. Hassled by the US immigration authorities and recently separated from Ono, he was also dealing with the backlash from the overtly political material he had released on his previous album Some Time In New York City.
At the time Mind Games wasn’t a huge success, either critically or commercially. The title track, now regarded as one of his classic anthems, could only reach a rather sorry Number 26 in the UK charts.
