Artist

Julian Lennon

Liverpool, United Kingdom · b. 1963

Julian Lennon is a musician from Liverpool, United Kingdom, active since 1963. Their discography on Gatefold includes 12 records.

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Albums tracked

In collections

1963

Since

Biography

The Valotte sessions at Muscle Shoals weren't supposed to be a media circus. Phil Ramone dragged the kid down to Alabama to see if he could actually cut it without the circus following him. They lived in a goddamn bubble for weeks, just Julian and some of the finest session cats in the world trying to find a voice that didn't just echo the 1960s. Ramone was the smart play because he knew how to polish a pop hook until it shone like a diamond, which is exactly what a guy with that last name needed to survive 1984. He spent most of the nineties disappearing. The industry wanted a ghost and he wanted to be a photographer or a philanthropist or anything that wasn't a target for tabloid vultures. When he finally crawled back into the studio for Photograph Smile, he did it on his own dime and his own label. It was the first time he sounded like a man who actually liked making music instead of a guy fulfilling a genetic prophecy. It’s the most honest record in the pile.

Bio from The Clerk

The Arc of Julian Lennon

The pivots — what forced Julian Lennon to reinvent.

The Ramone Polish
Phil Ramone took a kid who had never toured and sat him down in Muscle Shoals to see if the songs could stand up. The result was Valotte, a record thick with eighties synth-wash and incredibly tight arrangements that served as a shield against the inevitable comparisons. You can hear the tension between his natural rasp and the high-gloss production designed to make him a Top 40 staple. It worked for a minute, but it felt like a costume he wasn't entirely comfortable wearing.
The Independent Pivot
After the label system tried to turn him into a generic pop idol on records like Mr. Jordan, Julian walked away from the major label machinery entirely. He spent seven years in silence before surfacing with Photograph Smile in 1998, which he released through his own Music from Another Room imprint. This was the shift where he stopped trying to outrun the ghost and started using George Martin-esque string arrangements and classic pop structures on his own terms. The records became slower, more deliberate, and infinitely more confident.

Influences

The Beatles — It is the literal DNA. You hear the melodic phrasing of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' all over his early work, especially in the way he stacks vocal harmonies. He didn't have a choice in this one, but the influence is a foundational structural reality.
Steely Dan — Julian has cited Donald Fagen’s obsession with perfection as a massive North Star for his own studio habits. You hear it in the hyper-clean production of 'The Secret Value of Daydreaming.' He chases that same dry, locked-in session player precision.
David Bowie — He spent time at the Chateau d'Herouville while Bowie was recording 'Low' and witnessed the Thin White Duke's reinvention firsthand. That art-rock detachment shows up on the Mr. Jordan album, where he tries on a deeper, more theatrical vocal register. It was a clear attempt to break the pop-idol mold.
Keith Richards — They shared a stage for 'Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll' and Julian has frequently pointed to the Stones' loose, blues-based grit as the antidote to his own polished sound. You can hear him trying to find that raw edge on the track 'Saltwater.' It’s the sound of a pop songwriter wanting to be a rock and roller.
Pink Floyd — The atmospheric dread and heavy use of soundscapes on his later record 'Jude' directly mirror the cinematic scope of 'Wish You Were Here.' He moved away from three-minute singles to focus on the kind of immersive, moody textures Floyd mastered in the mid-seventies. It’s his most 'headphones-on' era.