Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I too felt that LIBN was an ill-timed and pointless release.

Bullet points, while I'm on the soapbox:

- Dumb dumb DUMB title. As Nature Intended would have been a superior title, still fits the mood, and was even used in promo hype at the time (in '69).
- Long And Winding Road (the same take as the original LP) was ALREADY RELEASED non-Spector-style on Anthology 3.
- No accompanying DVD, which was promised at the time. Just as well, it would have been mistreated too...
- Best thing about it was, as previously mentioned, the "naked" Across The Universe - but i agree, it didn't belong on this package.

My faith is restored in Apple/Capitol after the 09/09/09 campaign and the release of The Beatles In Mono, which, a month later, is still blowing my mind. But I was certainly convinced when this thing came out that we were in for continuous BS "reissues" and whatnot because of this thing.

The mixes do sound great, sure. It's the execution of the concept that fails.

LIBN is my favourite Beatles Album. I love the stripped back sound, love the songs, love the feel. Goodbye strings hello Billy Preston.
Listened to the bonus disk part for about 15 minutes once, haven't touched it again.
Just listened to Dig It and Maggie Mae for the first time. Meh. You can keep those. Just give me LIBN as that first disc for a 1 disc price (not NZD$47 )

Clint wrote:I think the point of Let it Be...Naked was to release the album as originally conceived, not to tack on a bunch of bonus material. Dumping Maggie Mae and Dig It for Don't Let Me Down makes perfect sense. If The Beatles would have followed through with their original intent for the project, those two songs would have found their way to the cutting room floor. Besides, I have an old bootleg from Smilin' Ears Records called Twickenham Jams and from listening to that, I don't think we're missing much in the way of unreleased gems.

Honestly, I love both versions of Let It Be. Two of Us, Dig a Pony and I've Got a Feeling are three of my all time favorite songs. I think this album ranks #3 on my list behind the White Album and Abbey Road.

Can't beat I Dig a pony and I've got a Feeling, I love the original Let it Be album, thought the Naked album was boring.

Since we're on a Get Back/Let It Be/Naked discussion, look what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/user/beatlesuploader1000#p/u

This channel features the originally planned "Get Back" album. "For You Blue" reveals an original vocal by George (he sounds aggravated in this vocal, not lively like in the "Let It Be" and "Naked" version(s)). "Teddy Boy" and "Dig It" here show that they should have been included in "Naked".

Maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't LIBN use a different take of I've Got A Feeling? I thought I remembered it not being as good.

As for the outtakes, and whether or not they could have made a better release, yeah I think they definitely could have. I remember really great alternate takes of two of us, really hard versions of get back, and an amazing 8 minute version of Sun King that goes into Don't Let Me Down.

Also some really funny dialogue where John jokes about replacing George with Clapton or Ike and Tina Turner.

"Sweet Apple Trax" was the first bootleg I ever bought in my life. I've always felt it was better than LIB in that it was rehersals and gave more of a real idea as to how the sessions were going and how the Beatles were interacting (Paul upbeat, John hot and cold, George usually grumpy, Ringo pretty much keeping quiet apart from doing "Octupus' Garden" with George). It seemed that in this case the Boot actually came closer to the original concept than the offical LP did.

I thought LIBN was certainly better that LIB in that the tracks appeared without the overdubbed strings and choirs that Phil Spector saddled them with, but it was scratching the surface of what is available in the vaults.