A remixed version of the Beatles last album ( now called Let it Be … Naked ) is released here on November 17. Paul and Ringo have stripped out all Phil Spector’s strings and over production, two tracks ( Maggie Mae and Dig It ) have been dropped ,Don’t Let me Down has been bought in and the running order has been changed. I have read two reviews of this album. One person says it does not sound any different , the other gives it five stars. I have ordered my copy and am looking forward to hearing this stripped down version. Are any other Dopers planning to buy this album?.
I’d like to hear this album, but I also have a question for Paul McCartney: since you’re going back and removing all of Phil Spector’s strings from Beatles’ albums, could you also go back and erase Linda’s background vocals from your solo stuff? So many good (potentially great) songs utterly ruined by her background singing.
Paul is alive?
Paul is dead.
Paul is in a vacillating quantum state.
—CoffeeGuy
They played the album on the Oldies station the other night, and the biggest difference was on Let it Be and Long and Winding Road. The rest sounded the same to me…though I didn’t even notice Dig It had been dropped. In retrospect, that was a good idea.
I heard the song “Let It Be” earlier this week. Definitely a different mix, but hard to tell if it’s any real improvement. And I doubt anything could improve “Long and Winding Road.”
I can’t believe they’re actually releasing it under that name. They should’ve called it Get Back.
In any case, I’m most interested in hearing “The Long and Winding Road” and “Across the Universe,” since they were the two songs affected (harmed?) most by Phil Spector’s production. But to be honest, I can’t imagine a whole lot else sounding different because, aside from those two songs, Phil Spector’s influence on the album has been severely overstated. Would “For You, Blue” sound any different with George Martin? Was this release really necessary?
I’m glad “Don’t Let Me Down” is on there, though. I’m curious if it’s the same version that made the flip side of “Get Back” or a new version made from the numerous outtakes they have available. I wish “Old Brown Shoe” had made it on as well (with a better mix that doesn’t completely bury Harrison’s vocals), but I guess I’m being cranky now.
Nonetheless, it’s a new Beatles release, so of course, I’ll dutifully drop the cash for it come Monday.
Is the “Across the Universe” version the same one that appeared on the “Past Masters” compilation? I’m thinking of the original World Wildlife Fund version, much more stripped down than the Spector version, with different backing vocals and some bird sound efx at the beginning.
Glad they dumped “Maggie May” and “Dig It.” Only bands of the Beatles caliber could dedicate vinyl to crap like that.
I’m listening to the leaked release right now. Yes, I’m going to buy it when it comes out.
The new “Across the Universe” is beautiful. It’s a different version from the two that have been released already. It doesn’t have the overdone strings and choirs of the Let It Be version. It doesn’t have the completely out-of-place birds or the silly falsetto background vocals on the refrain that the WWF version has. We finally have this song as it was meant to be heard. I love it.
“The Long and Winding Road” sounds very good without the overdone orchestration. It sounds similar to the demo that was on the third Anthology volume, only more complete. I don’t know how many takes they had of this; my understanding is that Spector had to cover it up in production because all the takes he had of it were so bad, but this one sounds perfect. I don’t know if any parts were re-recorded (I hope not).
The tempo of “I Me Mine” is noticably slower. The strings and choirs are likewise gone, placing the emphasis on the guitars (which are pretty interesting, now that I can hear them). It repeats Spector’s trick of doubling the track length by repeating the first part.
“Don’t Let Me Down” is a different take from the previously released version. The refrain is sung more than screamed now, and the harmonizing during it is higher in the mix. It’s not an incredibly different take, but it’s nice to have.
The rest of the songs are subtly different in their mix. No serious real revisionism going on here. They sound like all the same takes as the album versions. “For You, Blue,” which I mentioned earlier, sounds nearly the same, except with much better clarity (a cleaner and more prominent lead vocal, more audible strumming from the acoustic rhythm guitar). Stuff like the talking before and after tracks such as “Get Back” and “Dig A Pony” are gone, which brings the songs back into the Beatles canon instead of feeling like a collection of unfinished demos. A lot of the improvement simply has to do with the fact that it’s been remastered (the version I’m comparing it to was the 1987 CD remaster).
Songs such as “I’ve Got A Feeling” and “One After 909” sound pretty much the same, except for a “new” background vocal or two here and there. I’d be surprised if most people notice a difference at all.
There’s a second disc which consists of one track, “Fly On the Wall,” a sort of aural collage of the sessions (apologies to anyone who was reminded of “Revolution 9” when I used the phrase “aural collage”). I haven’t listened to it much. Anyone who’s bitter about the speaking bits of the album getting ditched ought to love this, though. “Maggie Mae” is on it, even. Maybe “Dig It” is too.
The new sequencing didn’t strike me as too odd (but I was switching to the previously released versions of the tracks a lot to compare them); the album has good flow. The absence of “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae” help. It’s always been the ugly duckling of the Beatles catalogue—the band found it so frustrating to make listenable that they ditched it and recorded Abbey Road, after all—but I think we finally have a version of it that we can stack proudly alongside Sgt Pepper’s and the White Album (but then, I always loved this album). That is to say that, if I feel like listening to Let It Be, I think I’ll be more compelled to get this version instead of the original. Overall, I like it.
First of all, I can’t believe how little interest people here have in this release. It’s the fucking Beatles, people!
Anyway, I’m listening to the leaked release right now. Yes, I’m going to buy it when it comes out.
The new “Across the Universe” is beautiful. It’s a different version from the two that have been released already. It doesn’t have the overdone strings and choirs or the ultracompressed vocal of the Let It Be version. It doesn’t have the completely out-of-place birds or the silly falsetto background vocals on the refrain that the WWF version has. We finally have a definitive version of this song. I love it.
“The Long and Winding Road” sounds very good without the overdone orchestration (given that you like the song at all, of course). It sounds similar to the demo that was on the third Anthology volume, only more complete. I don’t know how many takes they had of this; my understanding is that Spector had to cover it up in production because all the takes he had of it were so bad, but this one sounds perfect. I don’t know if any parts were re-recorded, but I doubt it.
The tempo of “I Me Mine” is noticably slower. The strings and choirs are likewise gone, placing the emphasis on the guitars (which are pretty interesting, now that I can hear them). It repeats Spector’s trick of doubling the track length by repeating the first part.
“Don’t Let Me Down” is a different take from the previously released version. The refrain is sung more than screamed now, and the harmonizing during it is higher in the mix. It’s not an incredibly different take, but it’s nice to have.
The rest of the songs are subtly different in their mix. No serious real revisionism going on here. They all sound like the same takes as the album versions. “For You, Blue,” which I mentioned earlier, sounds nearly the same, except with much better clarity (a cleaner and more prominent lead vocal, more audible strumming from the acoustic rhythm guitar). Stuff like the talking before and after tracks such as “Get Back” and “Dig A Pony” are gone, which brings the songs back into the Beatles canon instead of feeling like a collection of unfinished demos. The solo in “Let It Be” is different from both the album and single versions of the song. A lot of the improvement simply has to do with the fact that it’s been remastered (the version I’m comparing it to was the 1987 CD remaster).
Songs such as “I’ve Got A Feeling” and “One After 909” sound pretty much the same, except for a “new” background vocal or two here and there. I’d be surprised if most people notice a difference at all.
There’s a second disc which consists of one track, “Fly On the Wall,” a sort of aural collage of the sessions (apologies to anyone who was reminded of “Revolution 9” when I used the phrase “aural collage”). I haven’t listened to it much. Anyone who’s bitter about the speaking bits of the album getting ditched ought to love this, though. “Maggie Mae” is on it, even. Maybe “Dig It” is too.
The new sequencing didn’t strike me as too odd (but I was switching to the previously released versions of the tracks a lot to compare them); the album has good flow. The absence of “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae” help. It’s always been the ugly duckling of the Beatles catalogue—the band found it so frustrating to make listenable that they ditched it and recorded Abbey Road, after all—but I think we finally have a version of it that we can stack proudly alongside Sgt Pepper’s and the White Album (but then, I always loved this album). That is to say that, if I feel like listening to Let It Be, I think I’ll be more compelled to get this version instead of the original.
Much better than another damn compilation, in any case.
(post deleted by author)
I quite like Maggie Mae sung by Paul in that strong Scouse accent. As you may know the song is actually a traditional Liverpool folk song / sea shanty. This link gives the full version :-
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~dexy/music/magmay.txt
As this is “traditional” there are no copywrite problems in giving it here.