Let It Be in the raw
More than 30 years after they broke up, The Beatles are set to release a raw version of their Let It Be album, giving fans the chance to experience just how the band sounded in the studio.
“It’s all exactly as it was in the room. You’re right there now,” Paul McCartney said on Thursday of the album Let It Be … Naked.
After Abbey Road Studios put their 21st century digital technology to work on the original 1969 album, McCartney said of the no-frills result: “This is the noise we made in the studio.”
Apple Corps, the Beatles’ record label, said the group had originally intended the album to be free of studio effects and to have no over-dubbing of voices and instruments.
Turmoil
Instead, it got caught up in the turmoil of the band’s break-up and was re-produced by Phil Spector. His version was nothing like the one the Beatles had originally intended.
“When I first heard it, it was really uplifting,” said Ringo Starr, the only other remaining Beatle. “It took you back again to the times when we were this band, the Beatle band.”
“Even the track listings are different. The new album replaces Dig It and Maggie Mae with Don’t Let Me Down.”
The album will be released worldwide on November 17.
Diehard Beatle fans, with an inexhaustible appetite for nostalgic trivia, will also be treated to a 20-minute bonus disc of the Beatles at work, in rehearsal and in the studios.
As their fame soared, the band stopped playing live and became more involved in elaborately produced albums that changed the face of pop.