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

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

  1. John Buchanan

    John Buchanan I'm just a headphone kind of fellow. Stax Sigma

    LIBN - it could have been great without all the noise reduction and top end roll-off. I mostly prefer the sound of the Spectorized original album.
     
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  2. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    Another example of this phenomenon: A lot of the early Spirit material got slathered over with orchestration, probably against the wishes of the band. I only just recently got to hear the originally released mix of their second album, The Family That Plays Together (which is featured on the It Shall Be set, which everyone should rush out and buy if they haven't already!), and that one was noticeably more flowery on certain tracks than the previous CD release, which was the later remix. Maybe I'm still biased, having cut my teeth on the remix, but for the moment I prefer the more streamlined treatment there.
     
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  3. AnalogJ

    AnalogJ Hearing In Stereo Since 1959

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    The sound of my 3rd press UK smokes the sound of my US and LIBN. The tracks are dynamic and alive.
     
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  4. Lance Hall

    Lance Hall Senior Member

    Location:
    Fort Worth, Texas
    They should crack open the ProTools session and output new mixes with a little less digital scrubbing and restore the intro and outros.
     
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  5. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    They did for Get Back and Don't Let Me Down on 1+

    No (or much less) NR, and no abrupt fade on the former and less complicated editing on the latter.
     
  6. rancher

    rancher Unmade Bed

    Location:
    Ohio
    I really like LIBN , the only version I now listen too
     
  7. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    Well to be fair that was a John written song, so John's call, can't blame or call Paul a hypocrite for that one.

    As for the OP question. I'm OK with LIBN. Don't love it - don't hate it and I even listen to it occasionally. To keep things positive, I'll just mention my favorite thing about it which is the running order. To me it seems they put a lot of thought into the running order/flow of the album when preparing it. I do have some problems with LIBN to be sure, but that most definitely is not one of them.
     
  8. drad dog

    drad dog A Listener

    Location:
    USA
    Didn't they take out the false ending on Get Back? Maybe they felt they had to, but they should have left it. It is part of the song now.
     
  9. A well respected man

    A well respected man Some Mother's Son

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    You seem to be quoting what John Lennon said about it. I always thought it was preposterous to call garbage a set of recordings with songs like Get Back, Let It Be, Across the Universe, Two of Us...

    To me it's the opposite: the worst thing in the record is Spector's (over)production. I prefer Naked, despite NR and all.
    And as someone said, Naked has also the perfect running order. Starting with Get Back and ending with Let It Be, for example, is not only perfect emotionally, it also kind of reflects the nature of the project and how it evolved.
     
  10. Lemon Curry

    Lemon Curry (A) Face In The Crowd

    Location:
    Mahwah, NJ
    I don't get caught up in the politics of LIBN.

    If I have a critique, it's that it's less fun than Spector's version. Lennon is all over side one of the original, on LIBN it's the songs only, thank you very much.
     
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  11. sandmountainslim1

    sandmountainslim1 Vicar Of Fonz

    LIBN is better than the godawful crap of the original but still a very weak album. Whole project should have been trashed. Only Beatles album I never play. Yellow Sub is better in my book.
     
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  12. BeaTleBob5

    BeaTleBob5 John, Paul, George, Ringo & Bob

    The only thing I miss from the Spector production album is the chit chat and comments by Lennon and the little ditties like Maggie Mae. Overall though I prefer LIBN. The mere fact that the Spector choirs & orchestral backgrounds makes LIBN much more enjoyable to my ears. BTW, Lennon's voice fading at the end of Across the Universe is hauntingly beautiful on the LIBN album.
     
  13. Frank

    Frank Senior Member

    Yes, it does seem quite odd that a fan would argue with McCartney that he should actually like that Long and Winding Road became bastardized from what he thought it should be because he didn't also complain about other songs. Is he not allowed to just dislike what became of this song without giving every other comment he ever made about every other song a complete proctology exam?

    He's not making public policy, he's commenting on and reacting to what became of his own creation. He should be afforded the courtesy of comment on it at the very least.

    That said, he went and made it worse in the 80s. But that's also beside the point.

    McCartney knew - probably better than anyone, because he was the band at that point - what the band wanted from the sessions that became Let it Be. If LiBN reflects that, than what could be wrong with it?
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2018
  14. Hoover Factory

    Hoover Factory Old Dude Who Knows Things

    Location:
    Spokane, WA
    I like LIBN quite a bit - it’s my preferred version of these songs.
     
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  15. raphph

    raphph Taking a trip on an ocean liner…

    Location:
    London
    Having a released version of Don’t Let Me Down from the roof was the most excited I’ve ever felt as a Beatles fan to this day. I take it for granted now.
     
  16. MHP

    MHP Lover of Rock ‘n Roll

    Location:
    DK
    I really don’t get why you can’t discriminate here. Yes, there are noise-reduction and whatever, so it is going to sound different, which was the whole purpose to begin with. You are forgetting that the original, like any other album at that time, was also using noisegates etc. If they hadn’t, it would have sounded different. All albums, since noisegating was created, has used it in album production.
     
  17. muffmasterh

    muffmasterh Forum Resident

    Location:
    East London U.K
    i agree however i plough a middle ground, i do believe Spector saved let it be by seeming to find better cuts that Glyn Johns seemed unable to find, however he then promptly shat all over half of it by adding the production and strings which as you say totally negates the whole point of the project.

    However Naked imho misses a trick in that it should have kept a lot of the spector outtakes/chatter and had side two as a quasi live set from the Rooftop, even if it meant some of the rooftop tracks had to be replaced from the " live " in the studio recordings. That's what annoys me about naked it was a chance missed.

    I agree with the Beatles the Glyn Johns attempts were simply not releasable at the time, however with the passage of time now they are and i'd love to see a 50th anniversary issue of his attempts in its original artwork.
     
  18. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    True to a point, but DAW plug-ins are more aggressive than their analogue hardware equivalents (same goes for compressors/limiters etc.). It's like they went so far down the road of wanting to eliminate noise that some of the natural ambience was lost. It was the era (early 90s to mid 2000s) of excessive noise reduction, and not preserving recordings as they originally were unfortunately. They should have remixed it on analogue equipment, or used the DAW more sparingly IMO.
     
  19. Lyedecker

    Lyedecker Forum Resident

    Location:
    somewhere
    There's a good reason these songs weren't revived for the Abbey Road sessions. Well, some of them were pretty good, but some were garbage.
     
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  20. 500Homeruns

    500Homeruns Peaceful Punk

    Location:
    Lehigh Valley, PA
    I'm not the biggest Beatles fan. Certainly not compared to many members on here. And I also know they are a band that doesn't need any accreditation from me, but.....

    Let It Be was actually the first Beatles album I owned and listened to completely and repeatedly. I think it's great. It made me a fan and piqued my interest to explore more Beatles albums. If Let It Be is one of the least favorite Beatles albums, other bands should be so lucky to have throw away songs this good.
    P.S. - I like LIBN as much (if not better than) LIB.
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2018
  21. Pizza

    Pizza With extra pepperoni

    Location:
    USA
    As for the songs, I may not prefer the versions found on Naked individually, but for me collectively it works better than the original album. I could never connect with the original like I do with all their other albums. I enjoy listening to the updated version.
     
  22. A well respected man

    A well respected man Some Mother's Son

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    Precisely one of the problems in the Spector version is that lack of cohesion in the idea, it's a schizophrenic album. The chatter and ditties seem to point in the direction of a soundtrack to the documentary, an "honest" and rough record with live takes. But then it has these orchestras and choirs... It doesn't work for me. It wants to be two different things at the same time.


    I think Naked tried to do a different thing: create a conventional Beatles album from the session tapes. I don't miss the chatter and ditties because the album is no longer trying to have a documentary feel to it, it just tries to give us a cohesive album. I think they used too much NR, but as an album it works very well, much better than the Spector version IMO. And let's face it, both were made without the consent of part of the group, and both were finished without the Beatles' involvement, so to me both are legitimate versions.


    That reason being, they were going to be released eventually along with the documentary. It has nothing to do with the quality.
     
  23. jerseyboydavid

    jerseyboydavid Forum Resident

    Location:
    Crestline Oh
    I like the album, but I was expecting the "Get Back" album... not what was released. But it's still a good alternate to the Spector produced record...
     
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  24. Lyedecker

    Lyedecker Forum Resident

    Location:
    somewhere
    I don't mean to be hard on this album. It's just not up to the standards of most Beatles albums. But the good songs are still really good, among the band's best. I think the highlights are "I Me Mine", "Let It Be", "Two of Us", "Dig A Pony", and "Across The Universe". Perhaps it would have worked better as an EP.

    Don't mind me, I'm one of those people who thing Sgt. Pepper and the White Album are overrated. Not exactly popular stances.
     
  25. Lyedecker

    Lyedecker Forum Resident

    Location:
    somewhere
    The best thing about this set is the inclusion of "Don't Let Me Down"
     
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