Today, praise and respect is lavished on music's second-generation darlings--Jakob Dylan, Rufus Wainwright, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Emma Townshend, Chris Stills, Adam Cohen, Sean Lennon--but Sean's half-brother Julian, the elder son of the late Beatle John Lennon, didn't have it quite so easy. When he debuted at age 20 with the slick, commercial pop album Valotte in 1985--just five years after his father's death--critics slagged him mercilessly, unfairly comparing him to dear old Dad. When Julian attempted to go a more eclectic and adventurous route with his third album, Mr. Jordan, he was not only again lambasted (this time for "trying too hard"), he also alienated much of his Beatle-obsessed fanbase. After his fourth release, Help Yourself, failed to make a dent in America (though it charted in other countries), a frustrated Julian heeded the advice of that album's title and took a much-needed seven-year sabbatical from music; when he eventually returned in 1998, it was a delightful surprise. His beautifully crafted, singer-songwriter-esque fifth album, 1998's Photograph Smile--full of lush ballads and smart, snappy pop tunes--finally established the 35-year-old Julian as a true talent in his own right, and garnered him the most favorable reviews of his career.
Although Julian Lennon bears his father's famous name and face--his resemblance to John is uncanny--he actually had very little contact with his father while growing up. Julian was born just as extreme Beatlemania was sweeping the globe, so John was often away from home. Furthermore, for a while Julian and his mother, Cynthia, were kept secret from the public, because Beatles manager Brian Epstein felt John would be more appealing to (female) fans if he was believed to be single and available. Julian was only a small boy when John and Cynthia divorced, after which John was busy living in the U.S. with new wife Yoko Ono and new son Sean, so Julian only saw his father a handful of times between the ages of six and 16. (Julian has been vocal about his resentment of his father's absence, and of Yoko for coming between them, but has also said that he and John were growing closer towards the end of John's life.)
But still, music was in Julian blood, and so, with little guidance from his father, he started playing guitar and writing songs on his own; by age 19 he had a record deal with Atlantic. But shady, opportunistic music business types, eager to take advantage of the marketing possibilities of Julian's famous family connections, manhandled his career from the very beginning, entangling him in dubious contracts and dictating the type of widely accessible pop music he should record. Julian, having not grown up in the music business due to his lack of contact with his father, was as naïve as any 19-year-old developing artist, and as a result, never really had control of his career.
Although Valotte was a commercial, if not critical, success--yielding the hit singles "Valotte" and "Too Late For Goodbyes"--the sophomore jinx hit with the sales disappointment The Secret Value Of Daydreaming, and the two albums that followed (Mr. Jordan and Help Yourself) were even less successful, thus seemingly cementing Julian's reputation as a second-rate Lennon knockoff. This reputation still dogged him years later, as his own record label Music From Another Room released Photograph Smile in Europe, because Sean Lennon's much-anticipated debut, Into The Sun, came out on the same day; the two albums were often compared in the English press via a petty, mocking "which Lennon is better?" debate.
But Julian had the last laugh, as Photograph Smile received high praise from critics. This time he was creating music and doing business on his own terms, and truly proving himself as an artist. It took 15 years and a close brush with permanent retirement for it to happen, but finally, Julian Lennon had arrived.
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