Ah, the legendary Let It Be album, technically the last Beatles album released while they were still a group. A little backstory here: the original idea was for the Beatles to strip it back down, make a rawer, more "live in the studio" LP. Sessions took place in early January of 1969 at Twickenham Film studios, where the band was filmed for what would be the "Get Back" movie. George quits due to the uncomfortable atmosphere, and sessions are moved to the basement of Apple Corps, and pal Billy Preston is brought in on keys.

Sessions go on, culminating one day in the legendary "rooftop performance," their first concert since retiring from live shows after their Candlestick Park concert in San Francisco in August of 1966. Literally hundreds of hours of rehearsing new songs, jamming on old rock and roll and R&B numbers, country tunes, etc. have been recorded. The album is planned, to be called Get Back, and Glyn Johns takes on the daunting task of preparing two different track orders and mixes from the multitrack masters, while a cover with an updating of their Please Please Me album cover photo is also made. An acetate is even made up, which gets aired on some radio stations, including one in Boston. An enterprising person tapes it and a famous bootleg LP is later made. Much later on, both mixes by Glyn Johns are leaked and boots exist of those as well. Regardless, both mixes are rejected, mainly by John Lennon, and the LP is shelved. The Beatles go on to record Abbey Road with George Martin back at the helm.

In 1970, Phil Spector is brought in to "salvage" the Get Back album, now being called Let It Be. Numerous overdubs of strings and vocal choruses are added to "sweeten" the album, and one new song, "I Me Mine" is recorded sans John Lennon by Harrison, McCartney and Starr. Lennon adds his vocals later, and Spector re-edits the song as well. Let It Be then becomes the last Beatles album.

Now comes Let It Be...Naked, supposedly the back-to-basics LP the band had originally intended, supervised mainly by McCartney, who has never liked what Spector did to the album, especially the overly syrupy strings and choral arrangements added to his song "The Long And Winding Road." The re-release has its pros and cons, though. Unlike those boots of the Get Back LP (and even the original Let It Be), all the pre-song chatter and hi-jinks is gone (so, no "Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats" leading off "Two Of Us") and the track listing is slightly different. No "Teddy Boy," "Rocker," or "Save The Last Dance For Me," three covers slated for inclusion on Get Back, for instance. Also gone from Let It Be are "Maggie May" and "Dig It," now replaced by a Rooftop version of "Don't Let Me Down." With "Dig It" gone, you now don't hear Lennon at the end announcing "...and that was 'Can You Dig It" by Georgie Wood, and now we'd like to do Hark The Angels Come." This version of "Don't Let Me Down" is a little faster and more ragged than the one that was used for the B-side of the "Get Back" single. In fact, the entire track running order is rearranged, with the album beginning with the original title track now, instead of ending with it. Oddly, they cut off the great Lennon comment at the end of "Get Back," ("I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition,") for some inexplicable reason. Okay, technically, the version of "Get Back" on the original album was a different take, and the comment was taken from the live rooftop version that they ended their set with as the police arrived to shut them down, which Spector then tacked on. I always liked that part, so it's kind of weird to hear it now without it. As mentioned, all the extraneous chatter that was actually left on much of the original is gone since they actually went back and remixed the entire thing from scratch.

That said, the sound is really great, much cleaner and more vibrant in many ways than boots I've heard of John's mixes, and definitely the songs that suffered the most from Spector's heavy-handed post-production like "The Long And Winding Road" and "Across The Universe" certainly sound way better. Songs like "Two Of Us," "One After 909," and "I've Got A Feeling" sound incredible, more driving, like you're sitting in the studio while they're recording it. Just listen to those bass fills on "Two Of Us!" The remixing is, I think, quite good, very "organic" sounding and faithful to the original intentions of the album, that is to have a sort of "live feel."

There are a couple of things I did notice, however: "I Me Mine," while sounding more stripped-down than the Spector-ized version, retains the length given by some creative editing - the original take was only 1:45 long; by repeating a chorus Spector extended it to 2:24. You can hear the original shorter version on "Anthology 3." Also, "Let It Be" features a different guitar solo entirely than the 1970 LP or the preceding different 45 version, so it's like an alternate version in many ways.

The initial copies come with a pretty much worthless "bonus disc" called "Fly On The Wall" which consists of 20 minutes of snippets of conversation and rehearsals that even the most die-hard Beatles fan would be hard pressed to find at all worthwhile - though it does include the "Hark the angels come" comment from Lennon. Not to mention that it could have easily fit on the CD along with the rest of the material. So, in the final analysis is it better, is it worse? Neither, really, just different, but sure to spark much debate amongst Beatles fans and musicologists alike.

© 2004 - Alan Wright