I didn't just feel intimidated by the music, but also by Ono herself.
Because the way that certain music comes to hold a central place in our lives isn't just a reflection of how we develop our taste, but how we come to our perspective on the world.
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For 2021, we're digging into our own relationships to the records we love, asking: How do we know as listeners when a piece of music is important to us? How do we break free of institutional pressures on our taste while still taking the lessons of history into account? What does it mean to make a truly personal canon? The essays in this series will excavate our unique relationships with the albums we love, from unimpeachable classics by major stars to subcultural gamechangers and personal revelations. Up until now we have focused on overturning conventional, patriarchal best-of lists and histories of popular music.
NPR Music's Turning the Tables is a project envisioned to challenge sexist and exclusionary conversations about musical greatness. Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr/NPR Getty Images Courtesy of Apple Records Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band is centered on her unique and powerful voice even decades after its release, it still sounds utterly fearless.