Released on
John Lennon
's 80th birthday,
Gimme Some Truth: The Ultimate Mixes
is designed as a deluxe celebration of
Lennon
's solo catalog. Housed in a slipcover and bearing a handsome 124-page hardcover book with some nice song-by-song liner notes culled from
interviews,
Gimme Some Truth
covers rather familiar territory in terms of songs -- there are 36 here, starting with "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)" and running through the posthumous hit "Nobody Told Me," hitting nearly all the familiar points along the way (
Some Time in New York City
, which was bypassed on 2010's
Power to the People: The Hits
, is represented here by "Angela," a deep cut making its debut on a hits compilation). The attraction isn't the song selection per se as much as it is the Ultimate Mixes, a new set of clean, clear revisions from the original tapes. These are also available on the box's two CDs and one Blu-Ray, which also features 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos mixes. With the understandable exception of "Grow Old with Me," a recording which can't help but betray its humble roots, everything here does sound brighter than its original, and more expansive, too. This is especially apparent on "Instant Karma!," "Cold Turkey," and the selections from
Mind Games
, all recordings that were quite dense and colorful upon their original release, but here they almost sparkle. Whether this is an improvement is a matter of personal taste, but it's true that the
Ultimate Mixes
do deliver a state-of-the-art aural upgrade, which is a selling point for fans who have purchased this material before. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine