Showing posts with label Let It Be. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Let It Be. Show all posts
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Israel Starr & Troy Kingi - Let It Be
I’m cheating here,
including this on a 2019 list, because so far as I know, Israel Starr and
Troy Kingi’s collaborative effort, ‘Let It Be’, was released in December of 2018.
But, well, you know. What’s a month or so between friends, right? It’s summer
down here at the bottom of the world, and this one is a certified funky summer jam
dripping with positivity. Which seems like a pretty festive thing to be. I
believe the glittery production vibe is mostly Starr, and the soulful vocal is
mostly Kingi. 2019 was a big year for Kingi in particular, with the release of his
Holy Colony Burning Acres album. Which was a successful follow-up to his 2017 breakthrough release, Shake Your Skinny Ass All The Way To
Zygertron, quite possibly the finest space-funk album we've ever seen in these parts.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Classic Album Review: The Beatles - Let It Be Naked (2003)
After posting the album review for The Beatles’ Love, it
occurred to me that it took some 375 posts before everythingsgonegreen finally
got around to covering The Beatles in any detail. Which is a pretty shocking
state of affairs when you consider what a monumental pop cultural influence
that band has been throughout my lifetime. Even more so when you consider that
The Beatles were one of the first bands I truly loved – as a child, before the
rather more rebellious teenager, and later, even more cynical adult, came
along. Even today though, the band’s Revolver album still rates in any notional
all-time top five albums, if I was pressed to name them. With Sgt Pepper not
far behind. So, yes, coverage of The Beatles was a long time in coming and
definitely overdue. But just like a number 17 bus, you wait an age for one, and
then two come along at once. So here’s another one, another classic album
review written some time ago. A variation on the same theme – a reconfigured
classic album in the form of Let It Be, the 2003 Naked version. Most definitely
not a George Martin creation:
It always seemed there was a direct correlation between The
Beatles’ decision to stop touring/performing live (post-1966), and a distinct
improvement in the quality of the band’s studio output/albums - see Revolver
’66, Sgt Pepper ’67, and the White Album ’68.
Essentially what you get on Naked is Let It Be stripped right back to its bare core - the most obvious development being the removal of the strings so beloved of Spector at the time of the original. The result is a marginally improved album, but certainly nothing spectacular, and sceptics will argue that the release of Naked in 2003 was nothing but another cynical attempt to milk the cash cow that The Beatles’ back catalogue has become.
I’m not so sure I agree with that sentiment entirely, and I’ll take the project at face value - as a genuine attempt to right what McCartney and others perceived to be a long-standing wrong. On Naked, aside from stripping back the excessive production - mostly to discard the decoration and gloss provided by Spector - the track-list also gets something of a minor revamp. This probably improves things slightly, placing as it does a raw version of ‘Get Back’ as a barnstorming album opener, and including the much-heralded ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (absent from the original Let It Be, but the B-side on the ‘Get Back’ single release) as a welcome additional track.
As you might expect, the most obvious changes can be picked up on the best known stuff from the original Let It Be; the era-defining title track itself (the album closer), the epic ‘Long And Winding Road’ (a much improved version here), and John Lennon’s brilliant dream-like ‘Across The Universe’. Even after the exercise in revamping the original versions, it is these tracks - plus ‘Get Back’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ - that stand out as the album’s best cuts. Proof surely, if it was needed, that regardless of any enhancement or additional production, you just can’t beat a quality tune.
Naked is a slight improvement on the original, but Let It Be was always an album of extremes (uneven in terms of quality), and it always contained a little too much filler for my liking.
My CD edition came with a bonus disc, which turned out to be a bit of a throwaway item really, containing mostly conversation snippets and short rehearsal extracts from the original recording sessions. In these post-Anthology days, it represents nothing particularly new or exciting, neither is it an especially riveting listen. But hardcore Beatles fans may beg to differ on these points given that it does offer a brief insight (albeit a limited one) into the inner workings of a band very much on the cusp of self-destruction.
*
That’s a fairly strong run, whatever your poison, and those
albums were all pivotal in sealing the band’s standing as iconic pioneers of
the album format, far removed from the lovable boy band/singles band status of
earlier years.
The same can’t be said about the band’s final studio album
however, and by the time the original Let It Be album was released in 1970, The
Beatles were a band in name only. Any sense of unity, commitment to each other,
or indeed, genuine collective inspiration, had long since disappeared.
Let It Be was a swansong, but despite its undoubted historical significance, and one or two truly exceptional moments, it won’t go down as a classic Beatles album. Far from it - in fact, many of the recordings made in 1969 were originally shelved (others being released on Abbey Road), such was the group’s general nonchalance about the project. George Harrison actually threatened to quit the group while the 1969 sessions were still in progress.
Let It Be represented the sound of a band at the end of its tether, and the fact that the post-production reins were handed to Phil Spector suggests they knew as much at the time. Spector, famous for his “wall of sound” style of production, was belatedly called in to tart up the shelved recordings - something that evidently bugged Paul McCartney for the best part of three subsequent decades. Let It Be Naked is the result of McCartney’s attempt to de-Spector-ise (and remix) the original release. For better or for worse.
Let It Be was a swansong, but despite its undoubted historical significance, and one or two truly exceptional moments, it won’t go down as a classic Beatles album. Far from it - in fact, many of the recordings made in 1969 were originally shelved (others being released on Abbey Road), such was the group’s general nonchalance about the project. George Harrison actually threatened to quit the group while the 1969 sessions were still in progress.
Let It Be represented the sound of a band at the end of its tether, and the fact that the post-production reins were handed to Phil Spector suggests they knew as much at the time. Spector, famous for his “wall of sound” style of production, was belatedly called in to tart up the shelved recordings - something that evidently bugged Paul McCartney for the best part of three subsequent decades. Let It Be Naked is the result of McCartney’s attempt to de-Spector-ise (and remix) the original release. For better or for worse.
Essentially what you get on Naked is Let It Be stripped right back to its bare core - the most obvious development being the removal of the strings so beloved of Spector at the time of the original. The result is a marginally improved album, but certainly nothing spectacular, and sceptics will argue that the release of Naked in 2003 was nothing but another cynical attempt to milk the cash cow that The Beatles’ back catalogue has become.
I’m not so sure I agree with that sentiment entirely, and I’ll take the project at face value - as a genuine attempt to right what McCartney and others perceived to be a long-standing wrong. On Naked, aside from stripping back the excessive production - mostly to discard the decoration and gloss provided by Spector - the track-list also gets something of a minor revamp. This probably improves things slightly, placing as it does a raw version of ‘Get Back’ as a barnstorming album opener, and including the much-heralded ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (absent from the original Let It Be, but the B-side on the ‘Get Back’ single release) as a welcome additional track.
As you might expect, the most obvious changes can be picked up on the best known stuff from the original Let It Be; the era-defining title track itself (the album closer), the epic ‘Long And Winding Road’ (a much improved version here), and John Lennon’s brilliant dream-like ‘Across The Universe’. Even after the exercise in revamping the original versions, it is these tracks - plus ‘Get Back’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ - that stand out as the album’s best cuts. Proof surely, if it was needed, that regardless of any enhancement or additional production, you just can’t beat a quality tune.
Naked is a slight improvement on the original, but Let It Be was always an album of extremes (uneven in terms of quality), and it always contained a little too much filler for my liking.
My CD edition came with a bonus disc, which turned out to be a bit of a throwaway item really, containing mostly conversation snippets and short rehearsal extracts from the original recording sessions. In these post-Anthology days, it represents nothing particularly new or exciting, neither is it an especially riveting listen. But hardcore Beatles fans may beg to differ on these points given that it does offer a brief insight (albeit a limited one) into the inner workings of a band very much on the cusp of self-destruction.
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