Re-recorded, remixed, overdubbed and repackaged--all before its 1970 American release, mind you--Let It Be has long been the most second-guessed album in the Beatles otherwise sterling catalog. This curious, three-decade-late, stripped-down rethink offers up yet another spin on what started as a back-to-the-roots album/documentary project called Get Back in January, 1969, but ended up as the band's de facto swan song 18 months later. Paul McCartney in particular has long been irked by producer Phil Spector's grandiose orchestra and choir overdubs to the title track and "The Long and Winding Road," and indeed the "bare" versions here have a distinct, plaintive charm lacking in Spector's typical pomp. All the various snippets of studio and live chatter that seasoned the original have been removed, leaving the recordings to be judged on their essentially live-in-the-studio merits. If the intent was to "de-Spectorize" the album, the inclusion of John Lennon's 1968 benefit track "Across the Universe" and George Harrison's "I Me Mine" (which marked the last-ever Beatles session in January, 1970) in their original versions seems equally odd, the legendary producer having appended them to the album's original track listing in the first place. The rambling "bonus disc" of conversation and song snippets culled from hundreds of hours of session and film tapes may fascinate diehard fans, but it also underscores the murky, often unfocused state of affairs the Fabs found themselves in during the last year of their remarkable career. --Jerry McCulley
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