The Beatles - Let it Be Naked

aNiMaL

What a terrific new way of listening to this magnificent album.

Who else is a fan of "Let it Be Naked?"

DriftingByTheStorm

agreed.
If only part of making it naked was taking off "The Long And Boring Song" ... zzz ... zzz ... zzz ...

BTW, I'm currently reading Here There and Everywhere, the book, by Geoffery Emmerick ... the recording engineer for the beatles on most everything past Sgt. Peppers, and the assistant engineer for a good few of their early sessions ...

it is a fascinating book ...
i wish it were a smidge more technical, but just his recounts of those sessions is wonderful reading!

VitalDissidence

I agree about "The Long and Winding Road". It may be my least favorite Beatles song. The song just oozes cheese, much like a lot of Paul's songs.

As for the album, I actually haven't heard it but have heard good things.

1STmammal2wearPants

I like it the way it was. This was a project to make a few bucks for Paul McCartney. Plus, they chopped off an entire great part of Get Back.

DriftingByTheStorm

VitalDissidence wrote:

I agree about "The Long and Winding Road". It may be my least favorite Beatles song. The song just oozes cheese, much like a lot of Paul's songs.

As for the album, I actually haven't heard it but have heard good things.

I agree.
MANY of Paul's songs irritate the crap out of me, but after reading much of the "Here There & Everywhere" book it becomes apparent that there would be no Beatles without him.

Paul was the ONLY Beatle that had any REAL musical sense ... and i mean that as in the senses of a MUSICIAN ... Sure Lennon was the best at getting his feeling in to his voice, and often writing crazy introspective bits ... but the book makes it clear that when it came to any sort of decision involving instrumentation, or technical elements, or composition, Paul was THE sole force ... also, he was the MOTIVIATIONAL force ... Geoff puts emphasis on that ... saying that it was always Paul who would rally the boys for another take at a song, or encourage them to think of something better ...

he was also a better guitar player than george, at least, according to Geoff (their engineer) ... he mentions several times in the book that it would take George an inordinate (several hours) amount of time to come up with some solo, often subpar (see the "solo" in Here Comes the Sun ... all of 8 notes, the melody verbatim) and that on several occasions, Paul would be directed by George Martin to give the solo a try (much to Harrison's discontent) and would simply SCORCH IT UP ...

Geoffe goes so far as to say that Harrison's guitar playing never held a candle to the sheer emotion and intensity of Paul's guitar work.

Just that bit alone was enough to give me some major respect for Paul ... whom i had previously disliked quite strongly (as much as one can dislike a beatle) on account of his cheesy and show-tune un-rock like song choices ...



But he did have some great songs too!


Some that i can find quickly (thank you, wikipedia!)

Blackbird
Mother Nature's Son
Helter Skelter ('68 apparently a great year for paul!)


But the world will probably never know just exactly who wrote what thanks to the nifty little "Lennon\McCartney" contrivance.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I prefer the boot of the Glyn Johns Get Back sessions - including Teddy Boy - which has been doing the rounds for a while.

http://www.jpgr.co.uk/vt182.html

Evacuation Rules

Oh, I hate the Glyn Johns version. It's awful. Had it been released it would have been a complete disaster, and I think the Beatles were wise to shelve it. The Spector album, while still no great shakes, is a vast improvement in terms of the versions he chose. Let It Be Naked is great in the sense that it is naked like Glyn's version (MORE naked, actually), but has the quality take selection of Spector's. My only complaint about Naked is that they lopped off the outro of "Get Back". (Actually, they just left the master take as is, as the coda was edited onto the original version from a different take.)

Ledbetterman10

I think Spector did a great job on Let It Be EXCEPT for his patented "Wall of Sound" stuff. the between song chatter is fun stuff and the songs that were recorded live from the rooftop gig (I've Got a Feeling, One After 909, and Dig A Poney) are performed as well as a studio recording with Spector really getting the "live" feel that was the initial concept for the album. but he totally fucks up Long and Winding Road and Across the Universe. just so terrible to see the master recordings of such great songs sound so bad. as bad as Long and Winding is, Across the Universe sounds even worse. that's why about 8 years ago I burned a copy of Let It Be for myself and included the Anthology versions of those two songs. and this has been my standard Let It Be disc ever since.

so yeah Spector is often the target of Beatles fans' distain for his lame, non-George Martinesque orchestrations (though I have to admit I think he enhances I Me Mine) but I think he otherwise did a good job

oktacoma

Great album! I love Dig a Pony.