The Beatles - Let It Be

Sloppy in conception, and even sometimes in the playing, Let It Be often gets a bad rap. Unfairly, as it's often as charming, well written, and (oh yeah) rocking as the Beatles' "better" albums; it's also more outright fun than Abbey Road, the masterpiece it followed into the stores. With Lennon and McCartney working together on the perfect "I've Got a Feeling," "Two of Us," and "Dig a Pony," it's hard to believe these guys were about to implode. --Rickey Wright Amazon.com

 The Beatles find success in just letting it be.
This is The Beatles last album. Not the last to be recorded but the last to be released. This is the point where the tensions within the group were really beginning to split it apart. It is incredible that they managed to record one more album after this one with Abbey Road. This is the rawest the group had been in a long time and even though Phil Specter is producing it, his normal spit and shine polish is completely absent here even on the heavenly orchestrated songs, "The Long And Winding Road", and the title track.

Everything here sounds under-produced. Two of the tracks are just flat out segments and there is a great deal of studio chatter in between songs. The best songs here, however, are among the most gut-wretching confessional songs the group ever wrote. "Across The Universe" is a beautiful folk song where John Lennon dreams of the heavens the beauty of the natural world. Paul McCartney's "Long And Winding Road" accuratly describes the group's career and all the turmoil they'd faced. No fancy studio techinques or elaborate production here. Just some of the best songwriting imaginable.

The group had a bad experience recording this album as well as with filming the movie of the same name. I think that the ability to turn out quality material even if you're not on good terms with the rest of your band makes you an exceptional musician. The Beatles managed to record this album and even another one after it. Stuff like that makes the Beatles truly one of the greatest teams ever. May 2, 2008

 Simply Great Songs
After uncovering this CD in my large collection a few days ago and popping into my computer, I remembered again why I once worshiped this
album, and this great band in general. Although I don't listen to The Beatles as much as i used to, there music is still as fresh as it ever was.

Despite plenty of recongniton years after its release (Rolling Stone couldn't help but include this as one of the many Bratles albums to make the cut for 500 greatest albums) "Let it Be" seems to be the forgotten Beatles album. This is not suprsing considering it was released after the band broke up, and its entire existence only seems to remind fans of the Beatles great demise in those finaly two or three years.

For those who have seen the Beatles Documentaries, they know that this album was recorded for a documentary and that during the recording, things were quite tulmutous between the fab four. The Recording sessions took place in a hot stuffy room, and a lot of the stuff was recorded live. This is all greatly reflected on this album, as certain songs (Two of Us, Dig a Pony, Ive Got A Feeling, MAgge Mae) lack that squeeky clean sound that the majority of The Beatles' catalog contains. Still it is these songs that makes "Let it Be" the album that it is. For modern fans of The Beatles, looking to buy this album, they known that most of the other songs are classic singles already accesible on various Compilation albums. Not to put down songs like Get Back, The Long and Whinding Road, or the title track, but for the consumer who's looking to buy this product, be aware these are not the songs you should be looking to buy this album for.

All of the songs i've mentioned so far fall into the endless list of Beatle classics, in my opinion."Dig a Pony" and "I'Ve GOt a Feeling" both have a unique gritty rock and roll sound that cant be found in any other BEatles Song. Harrison also provides two of his best and least well known tracks with "For YOu Blue" and "I me MIne". Then of course there are the hits, which are slightly different from the single versions many others are more more familiar with. FIrst of all, this album contains the far superior version of Across the Universe, as opposed to the B -side version available on PAst Masters 2. Also, i am partial to the slightly modified guitar solo in the album version of "Let it Be", featured here, which is also about 20 seconds longer then single version. If i'm not mistaken, the "Get Back" version here is actually slightly shorter then the single, but it really doesn't make a difference.

LEt it Be is an essential to any Beatles collection, as it features some of their less known rock out tunes still with a WHite Album-esque attitude. Let it Be is simply another one of the many classics this amazing band put out. April 29, 2008

 "The Beatles Farewell"
"Let It Be" is final Beatles album released even if it was in fact recorded before Abbey Road during the sessions of January 22 1969 to Jan 31 at Apple Headquaters,their company instead of the Abbey Road studio.There`s no hidding it,at this point of their career,there was a lot of tension and that affected Let It Be.By that time Ringo and George has already left once,tought they would come back soon after things were never the same.It was indeed a job at that point for The Beatles,once a dream it had now severly taken a beating,it wasn`t fun to be in the band anymore.Paul wanted the band to play live again for his own reasons,probably so they could work more as a unit,who knows?I don`t think what he wanted worked very well as the band instead was disfonctional and sadly the material on here suffered from it.

The band eventually split in 1970 after Let It Be`s release as Paul announced he quit the band and no one was comfortable staying in a band like this when things were going bad.Its still a little surprising that even if Let It be was recorded before Abbey Road,on Abbey Road they were better and each musician focused on the music and they putted thier differents aside in order to make a great rock album,wich they did.On Let It Be as it can be seen in the movie it was chaos(Paul told George exactly what to be,leaving no place for his creativity you should have seen poor George...),the session wasn`t that good but still someone decided to release it and that might not have been expected.That`s not to say its awfull and its not listenable but its not the greatest Beatles albums,in fact its pretty much at the bottom if you want to know the thruth.Every fan with sense can tell you that.

The songs are a mixed bag really,there are some good songs such as "I Me Mine" that stand out while there are other short meaningless songs such as "Maggie May"(like the song but its too short to go anywhere)and "Dig It".A few songs can be considered good and all but its not up to what The Beatles could really do.I do like so songs as stated above,like "Get Back" and "Across The Universe",tought I must say this really does feel as if it was the band`s last album.You can`t compare Let It Be to say Revolver or Abbey Road,it doesn`t have the quality either of those two have and its too different.Those 12 songs are definatly not up to other albums in The Beatles catalogue,and there is nothing to hide that its the soundtrack of the film Let It be wich should already make it less of a great album.And this should interest you,the band didn`t give their approval to make of the sessions an album until nearly a year after,even The Beatles themselves don`t really like it that much I guess im not the only one...

Since the original Let It Be album there has been an alternate version "Let It Be...Naked" wich most Beatles fan consider to be better as it has a few differences with this particular versions.That is another interresting story but its another story.Some other reviewers make the comparisons but i won`t.Anyway this is one of the few ocassions where The Beatles did misteps.Its also to note that most tracks if not all of them are live on Let It Be.It was definatly a bad thing to bring Phil Spector in as he mostly messed up the album while there are really few exceptions to that rule.Despite all there is still some good in it and its worth owning as any other Beatles albums,be advised its one of their worst tought there are some good songs and all.It was never intended to be released but it did anyway,its still nice to hear that stuff.Being objective I give it 3 stars,not the best that is five,but neither the worst that is 1 star,its in between. March 31, 2008

 Gold
Turning vinyl into compact discs - Thank You! All Beatles Albums are classics. Let It Be captures their finest sounds. March 29, 2008

 Half baked
The idea behind "Let it be" was to make an album & movie of The Beatles creating and recording an album with little or no overdubs and then performing it live somewhere. Not a bad idea, but somewhere along the line it never really came to fruition. Instead we are left with a disjointed and somewhat drab collection of songs. Some of tunes are good. While others should have been either reworked, discarded or b-sides. Phil Spector producing is down right terrible too. I know he didn't have much to work with. March 26, 2008

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