The Beatles – Let It Be… Naked Review

Decades of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the Phil Spector-produced Let It Be led Paul McCartney to tackle The Beatles’ final album. The brains behind the Fab Four was well within his right to try and give the Get Back-featuring record a tighter sound, even if the other members were not all that concerned. Shortly after the death of George Harrison, McCartney was given license to remaster and remake Let It Be in the vision he had for the release at the time. While his mixes are not an improvement on the Spector versions, they offer a massively different route through the emotionally charged songs. Somehow, years after Let It Be released, the emotive power and feelings of fraught relationships are still at play. They sound as strong here as they do on the original. McCartney’s few additions and changes are noticeable, offering a fresh perspective to those Abbey Road Studio recordings. 

Those changes are clear; the improvements made to The Long and Winding Road and the track listing are best of all. Don’t Let Me Down is given its rightful place on the album, one of the very best from The Beatles and yet not featured on their studio releases at the time. Each song sounds slimmer than its Let It Be counterpart. Neither better nor worse, simply different. Get Back still has the fundamentals which made it a classic, though the instruments are turned down, almost off in some cases. Much of Let It Be… Naked follows the scrubbed pop production McCartney was a fan of in the 1980s. Softer touches to let the soppier side, the emotional flow, prevail. That is the McCartney formula, and it works for Let It Be… Naked. The Long and Winding Road sounds far more tender here than it does on the original release, and while it is impossible not to compare these remasters with the original, it is worth noting that Let It Be… Naked can last on its contemporary merit.  

Each change, every addition, is made as a counter to the Spector-produced original. A tighter track list can be found here, though it does lean harder into the McCartney-led songs. Each song sounds far softer than the wall of sound style Spector would deploy. Both are suitable for The Beatles, though a preference for the Spector style comes from the harsher background; the fragile relationship between the four is reflected by the overblown mix. One After 909 into Don’t Let Me Down will always win out, though. A stronger mix than the single released in the final months of The Beatles’ lifespan here. It nails what McCartney is going for with Let It Be… Naked. The instrumentals for the Lennon track are much nicer. It is a feeling, rather than a specific moment, which wins out in the end when comparing Let It Be and Let It Be… Naked.  

Both are staggering achievements. One for making the most of a messy break-up of the world’s biggest band, the other a magnificent return to those rough times and making a softer, loving adaptation of the works at hand. Tearjerker moments from Across the Universe are an inevitability when McCartney is turning down the reactionary boom of the Spector versions. What McCartney is keen to do is highlight The Beatles as what they always were, talented musicians. That fundamental is often obscured by the thematic purpose, the political or religious stance of those four performers. Let It Be… Naked is not just stripping the layers of a different mix away, but consolidating The Beatles’ working relationship. McCartney reflects on the band in their final moments, and invites listeners to do the same with a sharp remastering of an incredible album.