However, following Lennon's murder three weeks after its release, it became a worldwide commercial success and went on to win the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

In 2010, Ono and Douglas released a remix of the album, titled Double Fantasy Stripped Down, which featured less lavish production than the original.

In stark contrast to that album, Double Fantasy (subtitled A Heart Play) was a collection of songs wherein husband and wife would conduct a musical dialogue.

The album took its title from a species of freesia, seen in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens, whose name Lennon regarded as a perfect description of his marriage to Ono.

Upon hearing former bandmate Paul McCartney's 1980 single "Coming Up", Lennon deemed the song "a good piece of work."

[9][10] Ono approached producer Jack Douglas, with whom the couple had previously worked, and gave him Lennon's demos to listen to.

[12] They produced dozens of songs, enough to fill Double Fantasy and a large part of a projected second album, Milk and Honey.

[13] While the sessions were underway, Douglas brought Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos of the band Cheap Trick (whom he was also producing)[14] to play on Lennon's "I'm Losing You" and Ono's "I'm Moving On", but these were eventually re-recorded with the studio musicians.

According to Douglas, this was because Lennon was not confident in his work, feeling that he was out of touch with the contemporary music scene and could no longer write or sing up to the standard he set in his heyday, and wanted to be able to discreetly abort the sessions if he felt they were not turning out well; at one point he spoke of giving most of the songs he wrote for the album to his ex-bandmate Ringo Starr.

[19] Not wanting to miss the Christmas release deadline, Geffen used the single sleeve as the front cover, while choosing an outtake from the same photo session for the back.

[25] Released as the final single from the album, "Watching the Wheels", backed with Ono's "Yes, I'm Your Angel", peaked at number 10 and 30 in the US and UK charts respectively.

Kit Rachlis of the Boston Phoenix admitted to being "annoyed" by Lennon and Ono's assumption "that lots of people care deeply" about them.

[40] Charles Shaar Murray, of New Musical Express, wrote that the couple's domestic bliss "sounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record," adding that he wished Lennon had "kept his big happy trap shut until he has something to say that was even vaguely relevant to those of us not married to Yoko Ono.

"[41] Three weeks after the album's release, Lennon was murdered and several negative reviews by prominent critics were withheld from publication,[42] including those by Stephen Holden of The New York Times, Tom Carson of Rolling Stone, and Geoffrey Stokes of The Village Voice (Stokes had found the concept and theme to be "basically misogynist").

[40] Double Fantasy finished 37th in The Village Voice's 1980 Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent music critics.

He felt that the use of alternating Ono's improved vocals with Lennon's "makes the union come alive" better than his outspoken, straightforward lyrics and concluded that the album is not great but "memorable and gratifying" as rare, "connubial rock and roll".

[45] In 2020, Rolling Stone included Double Fantasy in their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list, praising Lennon and Ono for their collaboration as "each song acts as a dialogue between the couple.