Help Yourself to your career Mr. Lennon

The first thing about this album is that Julian Lennon isn’t on the cover. His eye is near the corner. He sat on a stool in the center of the picture for the cover of “Valotte.” For “Secret Value of Daydreaming,” he is featured bigger on the cover. Now he only showed his eye.

Did he think he couldn’t sell the album? Did he think he didn’t need to be on the cover art? I’m not a psychiatrist, but he never did a cover photo on his albums. He never took up the whole cover. After the hype of his first release, he retreats from the attention and says “let’s the art do the talking and get the attention.”

He evolves as an artist with each album. “Valotte” was a 1980s pop album. “Secret” was written to be played live. On “Mr. Jordan” he changed his sound. He mixed his influences throughout each song. Some said he sounded like David Bowie. Some heard some rockabilly.

This time Lennon plays several genres, but he changed what he sang about. He sang songs about loneliness or struggling relationships on past albums. On “Help Yourself” he does songs about conformity killing inspiration. Listen to “Rebel King.” He uses samples of riots to accentuate his point of this rebel facing the world.

He is one with nature, “Would You.”

Pay attention to the world around you. “New Physics Rant.”

War and the people that get rich off war, “Keep the People Working.”

The environment “Saltwater.”

Lennon had some famous session players on the album like Matt Bissonette (played with Jeff Lynne, David Lee Roth, Rick Springfield) famous producer Bob Ezrin, actress Olivia D’Abo does background vocals.

The album didn’t sell well in the United States. I read it was under promoted. At this point was Lennon’s career promoted well at all? He enjoyed some airplay on college radio. The album charted in England. He found real success in Australia with a gold record.