At the start of 2003, I heard that there was such words of an album being brought back to life with no studio effects, just a raw cd.. And at the time I had no idea how interesting it would turn out..

I just picked this album out and from start to finish (including fly on the wall disk) was an experience that I first got when I heard their earlier work, even after hearing the first issue of this let it be (Spectorized) The title of this album was perfect.. its a naked, raw, truthful, album thats outstanding.

The clarity of this album is stunning, every sound is in a pop/hiss free enviroment and it sounds beautiful. After one listen to this album, it strikes me that a majority of these tracks are different takes, as The Long And Winding Road sounds as if Pauls vocals are much more on key. The Long and Winding is one of the most stunning tracks on the album. I never thought leaving the strings off would make the sound actually differ, but improve. Vocals are top notch.

Across The Universe is an acoustical piece that gives the memory of the Julia with such beautiful vocals and guitar playing.

Even Let It Be (The Song) is cleaned up very nice and sounds better than any version released.. The background vocals also top notch harmonies.

The tracklisting has changed, making the album have a better feel to it.

It goes as follows.

1.Get Back

2.Dig a Pony

3.For You Blue

4.The Long and Winding Road

5.Two Of Us

6.Ive Got A Feeling

7.One After 909

8.Dont Let Me Down

9.I Me Mine

10.Across The Universe

11.Let It Be
---
Two tracks were removed was Maggie May and Dig It, which were very short tracks to begin with, so they added Dont Let Me Down.. a masterpiece with the whole band singing in harmony.
---

Fly On The Wall Disk- This is one long 21 min track of conversations and brief versions of the beatles playing songs that are unreleased/released. The conversations are very interesting. It consists of nice cuts of music that really give you the feeling of a "fly on the wall" hence the name title.

The booklet also has a lot of pictures and extracts from the Let It Be book.

This is for any beatle fan, It is something to appreciate that it finally got released in the way The Beatles wanted it.




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[This message was edited Mon Nov 17 16:07:46 PST 2003 by Sdldawn]

I heard 'Dont Let Me Down' on one of the many news reports on this record and cannot wait to pick this one up!

Maybe this 30+ year old album will start a new trend in music...just PLAY and SING!

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

I totally agree with you.. I got such a good vibe off of Long and Winding Road.. it finally got to be released in its orig. form.. just beautiful.

I've heard it described as a load of crap Macca ego-trip.

Anyone care to comment?

1p1p1i3 said:

Well, it was his concept for the album, he took charge at the time with circumstances, and if u listen to the fly on the wall disk, the rest of the beatles fly on the wall disk, its pretty obvious this is how the album was supposed to be released.. Last time I checked, Paul was one of the last Beatles to be living, so I think its a great thing that he is releasing this album the way it should have been released.
[This message was edited Mon Nov 17 15:48:54 PST 2003 by Sdldawn]

If you have the complete Twickenham Sessions (8 cd set), you'll find there's no need for this "naked" rubbish.

20 minutes of Fly On The Wall... what about 8 hours?!

Clubkid said:

I own almost everything from this period that was ever bootlegged, the quality on this album is superior to any song, or spector version.. The entire general public isnt gonna pick up the crap bootlegs, with a hope of good quality.. This completes the albums that were planned by the beatles, and as far as im concerned, the songs that were picked for the naked were the best of that era anyway..




.
[This message was edited Mon Nov 17 16:03:31 PST 2003 by Sdldawn]

Sdldawn said:

If "Julia" is a fair comparison, than this acoustic arrangement of "Across The Universe" is reason enough to buy this release! Good lookin' out, Sdldawn!

Sdldawn said:[quote]

Clubkid said:

I own almost everything from this period that was ever bootlegged, the quality on this album is superior to any song, or spector version.. The entire general public isnt gonna pick up the crap bootlegs, with a hope of good quality.. This completes the albums that were planned by the beatles, and as far as im concerned, the songs that were picked for the naked were the best of that era anyway..


The Twickenham sessions are in near perfect quality.
The Glyn Johns tape is in perfect quality.
All true Beatles fans already have all of this. With the amount of good stuff that remains unreleased, this would hardly be my choice for a vault release. But no one asked me. This choice for release sounds like something Prince would do.

Dig it.

1p1p1i3 said:

I agree. The Beatles should have Let It Be.

CinisterCee said:

Acoustical comparison.. the guitars are simular in playing style and the way it flows..

Clubkid said:[quote]

Sdldawn said:

Althought I agree with the Prince comment, these versions were never released. To a bootlegger its stuff that has been surfaced, but it really is a lot of crap and stuff to weed through in that period, for me at least.. dozens of takes, its nice to have these cuts released in perfect quality. its a difference, Prince releases the same tracks that were released years before.. at least these are different.

Sdldawn said:[quote]

Clubkid said:

ok... I'll agree with u on that.

I'm just annoyed that they aren't officially releasing the "rooftop concert" as disc 2... it would have flowed more with the "original concept" of the album... rehearse a bunch of songs and then give a concert. The rooftop concert was a perfect example of a superpower unraveling. There was a rumour that they were going to release the "Let It Be" film for the first time in at least 20 yrs., but it doesn't look like that's gonna happen. Talk about DRAMA!!!

Clubkid said:[quote]

Sdldawn said:

co-sign, Very correct, a rooftop cocnert release would be important for this time period, and I think it would made an excellent disk two..

I think their idea behind that "fly on the wall" is like a brief timeline sequence that shows u what went on in the studio.. very briefly, like cuts of the song Child of Nature, All Things must pass.. its more of a collage than anything, You even hear where they are tired of everything, because of the lack of positivity in the band, and their also some funny parts.. but I would have loved the rooftop, I never thought of them releasing that.. good point to be brought up.
[This message was edited Mon Nov 17 18:10:40 PST 2003 by Sdldawn]

3 star review from AMG (www.allmusic.com)

Of all the Beatles albums, none has garned as much controversy and speculation as Let It Be. Released as their final album in May 1970, the record began its life as a back-to-basics affair called Get Back, which was intended to show the Beatles as a stripped-down rock & roll band after the excesses of Sgt. Pepper and the White Album. They weren't just going to record an album — they were going to tape a documentary of the rehearsal and recording of the album, which would conclude with their first live performance since 1966. To facilitate filming, the band abandoned the home turf of Abbey Road Studios and hunkered down at Twickenham Film Studios, where Michael Lindsay Hogg filmed endless hours of the band jamming, bickering, recording and fighting. Throughout it all, the Beatles recorded so much material — with much of it being no more than sloppy rehearsals and unfinished takes — that neither the group nor their longtime producer George Martin had any desire to cobble together a releasable album, so the task was handed over to engineer Glyn Johns. As the group was recording Abbey Road, Johns crafted a Get Back sequence that captured the raw, unfocused nature of the sessions by splicing conversational asides between new songs, revived songs, covers, and brief, jokey tunes. This pretty much mirrored the feel of the Get Back sessions, and the record got fairly close to release — including an airing of an acetate on a Boston radio station — before it was scrapped at the last minute. Soon, the Get Back project mutated into Let It Be, Phil Spector, who had been working with John Lennon on solo projects, was brought in to finalize the project. By and large, he retained the original spirit behind the project, right down to the inclusion of dialogue and jokes, but he did overhaul three songs signficantly, most notoriously Paul McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road," which now wrapped in syrupy strings and choirs. This is the version of Let It Be that was released as the Beatles' final album, and McCartney made his displeasure with the final product, particularly "The Long and Winding Road," known. Over the years, fans pined for an official release of Get Back while McCartney rumbled about revising Let it Be (even after a string-less "The Long and Winding Road" appeared on 1996's Anthology 3), and when the Beatles announced the release of Let It Be... Naked it seemed that the desires of both camps would finally be satiated. Unfortunately, that's not quite the case.As the title should make clear, Let It Be... Naked is not Get Back. Where Get Back was designed to be deliberately loose, complete with ragged performances and spoken asides, Naked is a deliberately professional piece of work, with all of the rough edges smoothed down. Consequently, it's not so much an archival release, but more like the audio equivalent of George Lucas' Star Wars special editions, complete with controversies along the lines of Han Solo not shooting Greedo first. Let It Be is recognizable in its Naked form, but it's been cleaned up, mixed up and altered, gaining the superb "Don't Let Me Down" at the expense of "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae," as the song sequence has been shuffled and the dialogue has cut out completely (perhaps Paul wasn't too keen on John's mock "and now here's Hark The Herald Angels come" preceding "Let it Be"). Those are merely the obvious changes, too. Throughout the record, there have been edits, splices and polishes, some of which are a little disarming, such as the lack of the coda on "Get Back" (including no "Hope We Passed the Audition" from John) and a different guitar solo on "Let It Be" (a solo different than either the single or album version). Most of the changes are subtle — a correction there, an added lick here — but they usually can be felt, even if the overall sound of most of the tracks hasn't changed all that much. The exception, of course, are the three songs Spector overhauled: McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road," Lennon's "Across the Universe" and Harrison's "I Me Mine." Paul's song does indeed sound better and less saccherine in this arrangement, and it is a marked improvement. John's tune — now in its third distinct incarnation, the most of any Beatles song — is also different and an improvement, benefitting from the simpler arrangement, but it isn't a revelation along the lines of "Road." George's song is fine in this version, but in Spector's hands, it felt like a harbinger for All Things Must Pass, and is arguably just as good on the original album as it is here. The rest pretty much sounds very close to it did on the original album, only with much better fidelity — so much better, it raises the questions why their entire catalog hasn't been remastered yet (ideally, it would be released as hybrid SACDs mastered with DSD, much like how the catalogs of the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan's were).So, the big question is: was the whole Let It Be... Naked endeavor worth it? The answer is, yes...kind of. There's little question that this was an avenue worth pursuing, since neither Get Back and Let It Be never really were finished, and both fans and the band desired to set the record straight. But Naked doesn't set the record straight, it murkys the waters by presenting a third version of the sessions, one that is no more accurate than the original album. It could be argued, in fact, that without Lennon's wiseass remarks and larks like "Dig It," it feels less like the sessions, which were ramshackle (in fact, they were directionless, as the bonus "Fly on the Wall" disc reveals). But it is also true that Naked is a finished album, with polished intros and outros and is overall slightly stronger on a track-by-track basis. These changes make it a sleeker, slicker album, but it's hard not to miss the off-the-cuff aura of Let It Be, which contained more character and revelations than this revised version. After all, even with the changes and edits, the biggest differences boils down to the resequencing, the lack of joviality and the de-Spectorized three. And since Let It Be was initially an unfinished album, cobbled together by associates of the Beatles, not the band themselves or their producer, it doesn't make a great deal of difference if the order is changed, especially since this was also mixed and produced by associates of the band, not Paul himself, and the main takes are those on the original album, which themselves weren't all that different than what was on Get Back. It all boils down to interpretations of an unweildy session that was abandoned out of frustration at the end. This is a valid, entertaining interpretation of the Let It Be sessions. But, contrary to the sticker selling the album, this is not necessarily "LET|IT|BE...AS|IT|WASLet It Be...As it was meant to be. The band's cut from the original sessions." The dogged seriousness of |CONTRADICTSNaked contradicts the let-it-all-hang out intent of the sessions or the warts-and-all |FILM.|TLet It Be film. Though it is still faithful to much of the feel of ,|THE|PRLet It Be, the presentation of ,|INCLUDING|Naked, including the slight bits of modern-day editing, reveals that it is revisionist history, not the final word. Which doesn't hurt it as a record — these are great songs, after all — but it is a bit disappointing that this long-awaited project wasn't executed with a little more care and respect for the historical record. [The bonus disc, "Fly on the Wall," contains 20-plus minutes of excerpts from the countless hours of tapes from the Get Back Sessions. No song is heard in its entirity — most are heard in shambolic snippets of 30 seconds or less — and even if the fidelity is considerably cleaner than that on the monumental (and monumentally boring) nine-disc Get Back Journals, it's still hard to make out the conversations on this disc, and even hardcore Beatles fans will likely tune out this disc after a few minutes. It would have been better if this set was released with a disc devoted to Let It Be... Naked and a disc devoted to the original ^Get Back, but that's a pipe dream.]

I believe this release should "cap" the releases of anymore let it be stuff, aside from the Rooftop concert.. its a nice album, and its the best stuff out of that period, I think She Came Into The Bathroom Window would have fit perfectly in this disk, but one of the best versions was released on the anthology..

I would love to see more White Album/Magical Mystery/Revolver outtakes, acoustic demos surface.
[This message was edited Mon Nov 17 18:59:06 PST 2003 by Sdldawn]

Clubkid said:

I heard this was originally going to be called "Let It B In2 the Joy Fantastic"

This may actually be my first Beatles purchase. I've always considered getting into them, but didn't know enough about them to make the plunge. This seems to be a logical start, especially if it means future remasters.

TRON said:

Wow, U really need to check out The White Album. AMAZING set.. amazing

I really love the stripped down
version of The long & winding road
on this new release.
/peace Manki

http://www.rollingstone.c...?nid=18979

The Beatles Let It Be . . . Naked (Capitol)

It's difficult to review Let It Be . . . Naked without drowning in the welter of vexed issues that shattered the Beatles. For a start, Naked is being hyped (in a musical nod to the "director's cut") as the "band's take" -- that is, the stripped-down version of the album the Beatles intended to make as they embarked on what was then thought of as Get Back in 1969.

This notion, of course, is ridiculous. The unfortunate truth is that John Lennon and George Harrison are dead, and, whatever its merits, Naked exists essentially as an excuse for Paul McCartney, after decades of complaining, to finally remove Phil Spector's production effects from "The Long and Winding Road." As a result, the song -- a technologically souped-up version of the take in the Let It Be film -- now sounds like a vaguely interesting demo, rather than the lavish (and frankly emotional) epitaph for the Beatles that Spector turned it into.

Does an artist of McCartney's stature deserve to have his songs sound exactly as he wants them to? Absolutely. But here, on the other hand, is Lennon's assessment of Spector's work on Let It Be: "He was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something out of it. He did a great job." Both Lennon and Harrison went on to work closely with Spector, who produced Plastic Ono Band, Imagine and All Things Must Pass -- arguably the three best albums of the Beatles' solo years.

So, put simply, Naked is McCartney getting his own back. That said, it's nice to have the sparer rendition of "Across the Universe" that Lennon recorded, and the sonic improvements to the album as a whole are undeniable. Casual fans, however, will wonder what all the fuss was about; novices should still get the original. And Beatles fanatics will likely be disappointed that Naked has little to do with the early bootlegged versions of Get Back -- which, for better or worse, really are naked -- and is just as much an interpretation of what the album was supposed to be as Spector's effort was. Let it be? Not a chance. (ANTHONY DECURTIS)

yeah, um... since there were to versions of the Get Back LP mixed and mastered back in 1969, why didn't they just release one of those instead of this?

AaronUniversal said:

I disagree with some of this article, While, yes, both George and John are dead, I dont think this constitutes that McCartney did this for his own sole purposes.. Its been stated that McCartney was never even involved in the "Spectorized" version and never gave consent, The other beatles (John in paticular) waved the flag to "spectorize"... And while im not 100% sure why he wasnt involved in this descision, It should give him every right to release how he felt it should be.. Since the prodject lies in his hands.. He WAS a Beatle, its not like this guy wasnt a major part. If it was any other Beatle doing this, the spouting of the mouth would cease. This is coming from a person who enjoyed the last release of this album, I just know when the credit is due.

TRON said:

TRON, I started with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, then Magical Mystery Tour, then White Album...

from there you can decide whether to go backward (Revolver, Rubber Soul) or onto later stuff (Abbey Road, Let It Be).

Don't really care about the Beatles before Rubber Soul.

Sdldawn said:

you have to admit, that it is a bit suspect that it's only after John and George are both dead that McCartney went ahead with this.

AaronUniversal said:

Well, yes, of course its a bit to suspect, but I think if it didnt suit John, You would be hearin Yoko complaining..

Sdldawn said:

doubtful. it's a known fact that Yoko will pimp out John's work for anything (Nike commercials, anyone?) to cash those checks.

AaronUniversal said:

Right, but if it didnt equally display johns work correctly, I think she would still have words.. Considering she was in all those recording studio when these actual songs were created.

AaronUniversal said:

I thought MJ licensed all those tunes for jingles ie. Revolution

This release sounds interesting! "The Long and Winding Road" is my favorite Beatles song,and I can't wait to hear the alternate version.