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JOHN LENNON Working Class Hero - The Definitive Collection Parlophone ****

PJohn Lennon would have been 65 this year and, in lieu of a bus pass, here's yet another collection of his best-known tunes to add to all the other anthologies and compilations you already own. A rubbish Lennon musical and a hatchet job by John's first wife Cynthia haven't left Yoko smelling of strawberry fields, but here she doesn't mess too much with the man's legacy, pulling together all the disparate parts of his patchy solo career. If it's cheesy classic hits you want, there's Imagine, Jealous Guy and Happy Xmas (War Is Over); if it's biting political pop you prefer, there's Gimme Some Truth, Working Class Hero and Woman Is the Nigger of the World; and if you just want your mammy, there's the seething, oedipal Mother. Should keep the wheels turning till the 30th anniversary in 2010.

Kevin Courtney