Let It Be...Naked [VINYL]

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The tracklisting on this version of Let It Be differs slightly from the original--there's no "Maggie Mae" or "Dig It", while "Don't Let Me Down" has been added. And these mashups sit next to “Two of Us” and “One After 909”, which are the same takes as the original album, just newly remixed – the producers were wildly inconsistent in their philosophy of what they were supposed to be doing with the songs on this release. As much as it bums me out to give a Beatles album a rating of 6, in spite of the presence of some truly amazing songs I can’t in good conscience go any higher for this one.

Irrespective of the source, all of our collectables meet our strict grading and are 100% guaranteed. The Long and Winding Road" – the final take recorded on 31 January 1969, instead of the album take from 26 January. I mean, what is this album supposed to be exactly – a version of the original album just without the Spectorization? Naked consists largely of newly mixed versions of the Let It Be tracks while omitting the excerpts of incidental studio chatter and most of Spector's embellishments. You do get some nice remixes of a couple of songs off the original album – these make the album worth owning.They also changed the mix so that more instruments were heard in that last repeated verse, to try and make it a little more interesting. Now that I have finally got round to listening to the 2003 re-mastered version of LIBN I am pleased with the result. It’s almost like they were taunting us – “here’s a twenty minute glimpse into everything we have on tape, betcha wish you could hear more than a couple of seconds of some of this stuff”. Plus it includes one of the best tracks from that session “Don’t Let Me Down” which was omitted from the original release, subsequent reissues and new remix.

I personally love Spector’s arrangement on the original album, I think it makes a cosmic song sound that much more cosmic, even if it could do with a cleaner mix. After the seemingly numerous renumerations of GB-LIB, Naked is my favorite sounding and playing version of it. Instead we get a mostly forgettable "fly on the wall" bonus disc, containing some rehearsal material and bits of conversation. I assume it’s because there’s nothing else to distract from it, but I find it really stands out here, and it’s simply gorgeous.The other incarnations of it 'sometimes' lean more towards a tongue-in-cheek joke at times, or feels too self-conscious.

And in the film version, Paul also plays a gorgeous relative minor chord under the last word “door”, instead of the home major chord, which for me gives the lyric an extra touch of melancholy, regret and wistfulness. But while the album wasn’t the waste of time I remembered it being, all the same it is a deeply, deeply flawed release. I have a hard time believing that all their talk of LiBN having a dead, lifeless mix is anything more than mere pretentious snobbery – maybe they have nicer sound systems and better ears than me, so I guess I could be wrong, but I actually think the album sounds pretty great, I don’t care what they say. Lennon had defended Spector's work, saying, "He was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit – and with a lousy feeling to it – ever. Naked" -LP was mixed and remastered from the original 1969 recorded master-tapes and comes without "Dig it" and "Maggie Mae," two titles of the 1970 "Let It Be" release but with "Don't Let Me Down" that is not on Phil Spector's reproduced remix from 1970.Like “I’ve Got a Feeling” – mixing the two versions rather than just using the first take makes this something very different than simply a de-Spectorized Let It Be, and wasn’t that the point to begin with?

Includes a 12" x 12" 19-page booklet and an additional 7" disc with 20 song-fragments: "Fly On The Wall": "A Unique Insight Into The Beatles At Work In Rehearsel And In The Studio During January 1969". This new version was mixed and produced by Paul Hicks (son of Hollies' Tony Hicks), Guy Massey and Allan Rouse. But Naked, forgive me please, seems and feels like George Martin took a vacation from orchestration but still had his hands and mind at the controls. but they didn't fit comfortably with the concept of a straight album", according to album remixer Allan Rouse.And doesn’t bringing in a different solo completely violate the “live in the studio” ethos of the original Get Back project that LiBN was supposed to kind of be restoring? Let It Be evolved from an original plan to make a television show featuring the group playing tracks from the recent ‘White Album. Hell, the album was only 35 minutes total, there was a good 45 minutes of space left on the compact disc, the paltry 20 minutes of “Fly on the Wall” gibberish would have fit easily. Our old friend soniclovenoize has a version you can check out here that is way better than what the producers came up with for Let It Be…Naked. The tracklisting on this version of Let It Be differs slightly from the original—there's no "Maggie Mae" or "Dig It", while "Don't Let Me Down" has been added.