Why disdain for "Let It Be... Naked?"

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Strat-Mangler, Jul 11, 2014.

  1. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    IMHO, the original was a dreadful affair. Poor sound quality and a bunch of nonsensical stupidities between tracks. Other items that were annoying was Across The Universe being in the wrong key and Don't Let Me Down being absent.

    LIBN solved *all* of these issues, the result of which makes the group's final album go from dead last to now one of my favorites.

    The modernized mix is absolutely fantastic and makes me tap my feet. Things are much clearer and even songs that I had dismissed like The Long & Winding Road are now gorgeous and feel intimate.

    I know that the typical human behavior is to dismiss or look down upon any revision to a previous work (e.g. "The original is always better!"), but this is one of those cases where I can't see (or hear) a single thing that I find superior in the original LIB to "Naked."

    Objectively, I seriously wonder why people despise LIBN so much. Is it because people are so stubborn? Trying to sound cool online by being pretentious? Is it rooted in nostalgia?
     
  2. Joel1963

    Joel1963 Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal
    My objection is the rooftop songs are so scrubbed clean that they don't sound live anymore. Also, not a knock on LIBN, but I personally prefer the Spectorized Long and Winding Road, at least the string arrangement. The overbearing choral vocals, not so much.
     
  3. LavidDange

    LavidDange Forum Resident

    No hate from me. Let It Be...Naked is much sexier without the loud clothing of the original.
     
  4. danner

    danner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham, AL
    I never understood all the anger over it either. I always assumed it had more to do with people's attitudes toward Paul than the actual content of the CD.
     
  5. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    I like it.
     
  6. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US
    Totally agree. LIB Naked is clearly the far better album. My evidence:

    1. It's got a far better track order. Starting with Get Back and ending with Let it Be makes sense thematically.
    2. It's got far better versions of Across the Universe and Long and Winding Road.
    3. It's got Don't Let Me Down.
    4. It's got the incredible trio of Lennon-McCartney vocals -- the 1-2-3 punch of Two of Us, I've Got a Feeling and One After 909. Every time I hear those 3 in a row on LIB Naked I understand the power and charisma of their partnership.
    5. And it gets rid of all those snotty asides of Lennon's that add nothing to the album.

    LIB Naked rules. :righton:
     
  7. Hot Ptah

    Hot Ptah Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    I wish it had more attractive cover art. I think that there may be a barely conscious, vaguely negative feeling created in some people because the cover art is so unattractive, and not up to the standard of Beatles album cover art.
     
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  8. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    That's surprising to hear because I listen to it often on my system and songs like One After 909 or Dig A Pony sound quite live.

    I wouldn't listen to this album without a musical subwoofer. In the case of this album, the extra kick makes a world of a difference! The only thing I could say to your point is that there is no applause of any kind that can be heard and maybe that robs the performance of that little bit of atmosphere that (for you) is more of a make or break thing?
     
  9. Daniel Plainview

    Daniel Plainview God's Lonely Man

    I wish they had used the real "Don't Let Me Down" instead of an alternate take.
     
  10. Chuckee

    Chuckee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Upstate, NY, USA
    I prefer Let It Be, LIBN sounds lifeless & without personality to me. I would have preferred a release of
    1 of the Get Backs with bonus tracks.
     
  11. ralph7109

    ralph7109 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Franklin, TN
    Because it could have and should have been so much better....including the awful cover.

    Another missed opportunity.
     
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  12. Lownote30

    Lownote30 Bass Clef Addict

    Location:
    Nashville, TN, USA
    It's bad to me for one reason: Noise reduction on the individual tracks. That makes it sound a little lifeless to me. Otherwise, I like the edits they chose to make, and the lack of Spectorized sound. I just wish they had left the tape hiss alone.
     
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  13. Tone_Boss

    Tone_Boss Forum Resident

    I dig it, I actually pretty much only listen to naked now.
     
  14. JeffMo

    JeffMo Format Agnostic

    Location:
    New England
    Because Beatles music is a sacred cow to many, which is also why LOVE gets panned big time. I happen to like both releases, and the originals too!
     
  15. Helmut

    Helmut Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Germany
    I basically liked the production and idea of "Let it be naked", but in the end it made even more obvious, that apart from the singles it wasn't their best material.
    Probably that is the unspoken reason, why many people don't like it. The album made clear, that you can't "polish a turd"
     
  16. Slokes

    Slokes Cruel But Fair

    Location:
    Greenwich, CT USA
    Not sure how "snotty" Lennon was being in his asides, piece of work that he could be accepted. Did John intend for his remark about performing "All The Angels Come" be placed just before "Let It Be" starts? Or was it Phil Spector taking liberties?

    I think ...Naked annoys more because of a sense of lost opportunities than anything else, as it's not an album of wide variations from what was known before, with the exception (to my ears anyway) of "The Long And Winding Road." Also, I suspect there are some (like me) who have become attached to the warts-and-all original and vaguely resent tampering, however imperfect the original admittedly is.
     
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  17. Hot Ptah

    Hot Ptah Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    Thanks for not aiming your comment at me in any way. It might have emotionally devastated me if you had.
     
  18. ralph7109

    ralph7109 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Franklin, TN
    I disagree:

    Almost the entire Beatles catalogue is filled with iconic album covers - then they give us this awful dreck.

    It's that same lack of attention (or caring) to detail that results in a subpar product which included the music.
     
  19. danner

    danner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham, AL
    I don't understand "it's not as good as the original" as an argument against LIBN. It didn't replace the original. It's just out there as an alternative.
     
  20. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US
    I totally disagree. The more the years pass, the better that Let It Be -- or in this case Let it Be Naked -- seems to me. Great songs, well played, with little of the psychedelic stuff to get in the way. It's a very personal, confessional album. Much more personal and heartfelt than most Beatles albums.
     
  21. bhazen

    bhazen ANNOYING BEATLES FAN

    Location:
    Deepest suburbia
    My only issue with it is, sonically it seems a little 'dead' and airless. Could be my system.

    On the upside, it has "Don't Let Me Down", which I'd already been inserting on my own "alternate" Let it Bes for yonks. Guess it was even obvious to Apple.
     
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  22. goombay

    goombay Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    agree, and, i always thought the Spector Let it Be was their best album. certainly the only one that i could listen to from start to finish. the naked one i cant listen to.
     
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  23. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker Thread Starter

    Location:
    Toronto
    I'll highly disagree.

    If I take a look at LIBN, there are few songs that I dislike. "For You Blue" is, to me, the weak point on the album. But if I look at Please Please Me or With The Beatles, that number increases quite a bit.

    Perhaps I'm in the minority, but if so, so be it.
     
  24. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    A little lifeless? They sucked it dry. Should have named it "Let It Be...Blackhole".
     
  25. Yannick

    Yannick Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cologne, Germany
    I haven't bothered to listen to it. "Let It Be" was a statement as an album. Unplugging it decades later is just revisionist history, in spite of the obvious popular demand which asked for exactly that.

    I guess it's a release that is as similarly legitimate as "Love" and the "Grey Album".
     
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