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AllMusic
Robert Christgau	B–
Mojo
The Music Box
MusicHound	4/5
Paste
Pitchfork Media	7.1/10
Rolling Stone	(unfavourable)
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
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Rock 'n' Roll is the sixth studio album by John Lennon. Released in 1975, it is an album of late 1950s and early 1960s songs as covered by Lennon. Recording the album was problematic and spanned an entire year: Phil Spector produced sessions in October 1973 at A&M Studios, and Lennon produced sessions in October 1974 at Record Plant Studios (East). Lennon was being sued by Morris Levy over copyright infringement of one line in his song "Come Together". As part of an agreement, Lennon had to include three Levy-owned songs on Rock 'n' Roll. Spector ran away with the session recordings, later being involved in a motor accident, which left the album's tracks unrecoverable until the beginning of the Walls and Bridges sessions. With Walls and Bridges coming out first, featuring one Levy-owned song, Levy sued Lennon expecting to see Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album.

The album was released in February 1975, reaching number 6 in both the United Kingdom and the United States, later being certified gold in both countries. It was supported by the single "Stand by Me", which peaked at number 20 in the US, and 30 in the UK. The cover was taken by Jürgen Vollmer during the Beatles' stay in Hamburg. It was Lennon's last album until 1980: With no recording contract obligation, he took a hiatus from recording to raise his son Sean.

In 1969, Lennon composed the song "Come Together" for the Beatles' album Abbey Road. Inspired by the Chuck Berry tune "You Can't Catch Me", it bore too much of a melodic resemblance to the original—and Lennon took the third line of the second verse ("Here come old flat-top") for the new lyric. Publisher Morris Levy brought a lawsuit for infringement, and the case was due to be heard in a New York court in December 1973. It was later settled out of court, with the agreement that, according to an announcement by Levy, Lennon had to "record three songs by Big Seven publishers on his next album. The songs [he] intends to record at this time are "You Can't Catch Me", "Angel Baby" and "Ya Ya"." Lennon had the right to change the last two songs to any other songs that were published by Big Seven. In the meanwhile, Lennon had split with Yoko Ono and was living in Los Angeles with his personal assistant, May Pang. Nostalgia was a popular trend on film with American Graffiti, and television was readying the series Happy Days (Lennon and Pang had even visited the set). Lennon, rather than writing his own songs, and partly inspired by his arrangement to include at least three songs from Levy's publishing company catalogue, Big Seven Music, decided to record an album of oldies as his next release, following on from Mind Games.

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