Everybody had a hard year, Everybody had a good time (Let It Be... Naked - The Beatles)

Name: hogsflesh

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Let It Be... Naked - The Beatles
Date:	29.12.04 (596 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's nice to hear it, in a new light, and some of, the songs are quite good

Disadvantages: It's their worst album, and a bit of a rip off, with its extra disc

Ah, The Beatles. When they were good they were excellent. The early pop stuff is still very entertaining. Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver are three of my favourite albums. Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour and even the White Album have some great, great songs on them. Abbey Road is also pretty fab. But Let It Be... I dunno. It's always seemed like the runt of the litter, the album that they could easily have not made without it affecting their reputation.

When defending the album, fans will usually point to the fact that a) it was made when the band hated each other, and b) it was produced by Phil Spector, not George Martin. This version, released in 2003, has been stripped of all the Spector orchestras and choirs (hence 'Naked'), allowing us to enjoy the songs as The Beatles intended them to be heard. The surviving Beatles, at any rate. Recorded in 1969 as an attempt to get back to their roots (i.e. no fancy production techniques), the album was released just as the group was splitting up. The general feeling about Let It Be was that it should have been as good as the other albums, but that Phil Spector messed it up for everyone.

Not really true. No matter what Spector did (and I find his over-the-top heavenly choirs and orchestras pretty entertaining), nothing can disguise the fact that the songs aren't really up to much. Like a lot of late Beatles stuff, the album has a weary, listless feel to it. You get the feeling that no one's heart was really in it. Maybe if someone had been able to tell them that frankly this wasn't shaping up, things could have been salvaged, but I guess no one was in a position to say that to The Beatles in 1969. The one thing that would certainly have made it better would have been George Martin, whose creative and sympathetic production effectively made them what they were - without him all the LSD music they pumped out from Revolver onwards would have sounded terrible, and it's no coincidence that he wasn't there when they recorded their worst album.

Anyway, the songs are almost all on the original release of Let It Be, they just sound different. It begins with Get Back, my least favourite Beatles single, and a song that encapsulates everything I dislike about Paul McCartney's music of this period (a hummable but vacuous tune with stupid lyrics - it sort of resembles Lou Reed's much better Walk On The Wild Side - story, chorus, story, chorus etc.) On the plus side, it is shorter than the single version. Dig A Pony isn't bad, a song that Lennon probably thought was really profound when he wrote it, and with a jolly, rocking intro. For You Blue is one of George Harrison's songs - a bold stab at creating a cheerful blues song, or a forgettable bit of whimsy, depending on what mood you're in when you listen to it.

The Long and Winding Road is the first noticeably changed song - gone are the OTT Spectorisms. In their place is a fairly minimalist backing track with the piano very much to the fore. Unfortunately it now sounds suspiciously like Wings could have recorded it. I've never really liked it anyway - fake profundity in ballads is a difficult art to master, and I don't think McCartney ever really got it right (maybe Hey Jude before the football chant bit). Two Of Us is rather nicer, a sweet little song Paul wrote for Linda. (I seem to remember having an absolutely earth-shattering moment of revelation when listening to this song on acid - couldn't remember what it was later, of course.)

I've Got A Feeling is pretty good, if a bit repetitive, with Paul doing his best throaty rock voice and John chucking in some amusing bits just when it starts to get boring. One After 909 is a very early song they dredged up for this album - it's quite fun, although if it wasn't good enough to go on their earlier albums, why on earth was it good enough for this one? Don't Let Me Down is OK, again a bit repetitive, and I think it would have suited Paul's voice better than John's (this is the only track that wasn't on the original release of the album, instead being used as a B-side). I Me Mine is another George song, not a bad one either. A fair bit of woolly-headed vaguely Buddhist stuff, but a good tune. I've always had a soft spot for Across The Universe (although I prefer the version with female backing singers) - McCartney being whimsical tends to drive me up the wall, but when Lennon did it worked a bit better. Probably not a terribly good song, but likeable enough. The album ends with Let It Be, a radically different version to the earlier release. It's a song I have to be in the right mood for, but when I am it's great. Problem is, I actually kind of prefer it with the choirs and so on. Ah well.

There's a second disk, 'Fly on the Wall'. It consists of 20 minutes of The Beatles chatting idly during rehearsal and practising songs (including a few seconds of George's solo song 'All Things Must Pass', and a Lennon song that seems to be 'Jealous Guy' with different words). It's not something I ever plan to listen to again, and is presumably only there for people who believe that every utterance of Saints John-through-Ringo should be noted down and revered. Those people will also love the sleeve notes, which, after a couple of pages explaining the history of Let It Be, contain 20 pages of yet more tiresome Beatle banter. I guess the album is aimed at Beatles completists, which I'm certainly not, so they may genuinely appreciate what is no doubt a unique insight into the Beatles' working methods. I just see trivial words flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup (heh heh), and find myself vaguely resenting everyone involved.

What annoys me is that there's stuff on the original release that isn't on this version, primarily the song Dig It. It's not their best song, although it is quite jolly - but people who really care about these things will have to buy both versions of the album. Wonderful - another opportunity to give money to Sir Paul McCartney. I know botox and hair dye aren't cheap, but surely he doesn't need to keep pimping his 40-year-old legacy so ruthlessly. Ain't nothing greedier than an ageing, knighted hippie.

But whatever else, this is still the least essential Beatles album. It's got some good stuff on it, but no great stuff. The lack of George Martin, and self-indulgence and lack of interest from the band doomed it, rather than inappropriate production by Phil Spector. (Also, why doesn't Ringo get a song? He does on the other albums. Poor Ringo.) John, Paul and George were obviously all too much into their own thing at the time to work together effectively. They still had one last, great album to come (Abbey Road), but on the whole I kind of feel that the world could do without Let It Be, Naked or otherwise.

Summary: