Wikipedia:
Imagine is the second album by John Lennon. Recorded and released in 1971, it tended towards songs that were gentler, more commercial and less primal rock than those on his previous album, the critically acclaimed John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The album is considered the most popular of his works. In 2012, Imagine was voted 80th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time"
Review:
The first songs, "It's So Hard" and "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier, Mama, I Don't Want to Die", were recorded in February 1971 at Abbey Road Studios, during sessions for Lennon's single "Power to the People". (Other sources give the location as Ascot, however.) Musicians at these sessions included drummer Jim Gordon. A cover of The Olympics' 1958 song "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)", later released on John Lennon Anthology, was recorded in June 1971, during the recording of this album. Lennon would choose to remake "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier", however, once the main album sessions were under way.
Lennon enlisted help from Nicky Hopkins, members of the Apple bandAlan White and Jim Keltner. George Harrison would also drop by to contribute lead guitar parts on various songs. Recording for the album started on 23 June 1971, at Ascot Sound Studios. Lennon showed the musicians a song that he had recently written, the album's title track "Imagine". Besides recording the tracks that would end up on the album, also recorded during the sessions was the unreleased song "San Francisco Bay Blues", a demo for a track that would later turn up in complete form on Lennon's Mind Games album, "Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)", and another demo of "I'm the Greatest".
Lennon and Ono flew to New York on 3 July 1971, to continue sessions for the album the next day, at Record Plant.[3] Although the basic tracks for Imagine were initially recorded at his home studio, Ascot Sound Studios in Tittenhurst Park, many of the instruments were re-recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, where strings and saxophone by King Curtis were also added. The tracks that were finished at Record Plant are: "It's So Hard", "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" and "How Do You Sleep?". As on his last album, Phil Spector joined Lennon and Yoko Ono as co-producer on Imagine. Extensive footage of the sessions, showing the evolution of some of the songs, was originally filmed and titled, Working Class Hero before being shelved. Footage of "Gimme Some Truth" aired as part of the BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test, on 12 December 1972. Later on, bits of footage was released as part of the documentary, Imagine: John Lennon, and there is another documentary featuring footage from the sessions, released as Gimme Some Truth: The Making of John Lennon's Imagine.
Tracklist:
Imagine
Crippled Inside
Jealous Guy
It's So Hard
I Don't Want To Be A Soldier
Give Me Some Truth
Oh My Love
How Do You Sleep
How?
Oh Yoko!
General:
Country: UK
Genre: Rock
Source: LP
Format : FLAC/tracks+.cue
Audio Side A
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* * * ©2012 by Diego Massanti
* * * MediaInfo Lib by Jerome Martinez
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Audio Side B
* * * MediaInspector for Mac - Version 2.0.1, build 900
* * * ©2012 by Diego Massanti
* * * MediaInfo Lib by Jerome Martinez
* * * Raw File Report for Imagine B.flac
General
Complete name : /Volumes/Flac/(1971) John Lennon (LP) - Imagine [VinylRip FLAC+.cue]/Imagine B.flac
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
File size : 697 MiB
Duration : 19mn 57s
Overall bit rate : 4 883 Kbps
Audio
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Duration : 19mn 57s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 4 883 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 192 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 697 MiB (100%)
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)