Letting 'let It Be' Be: Mccartney Wins

[DudeAsInCool]

Letting 'Let It Be' Be: McCartney Wins

December 14, 2003

By ROBERT LEVINE

When the Beatles broke up in 1970, the band's manager

handed tapes of the "Let It Be" recording sessions to the

producer Phil Spector and asked him to assemble them into

an album. By all accounts, John Lennon was happy with the

finished product, but not all the other Beatles were.

Layered with Mr. Spector's orchestral touches, it was very

different from the back-to-basics project they had

envisioned. So last year Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr

asked engineers at Abbey Road Studios to go back to those

very same tapes and put together a different album with

most of the same songs.

"Let It Be . . . Naked," which came out last month, is a

stripped-down version that entirely eliminates Mr.

Spector's sound and sensibility. Think of it as a

director's cut. On first listen, the most striking thing

about "Naked" is what's not there: the swell of the string

section on "The Long and Winding Road," the studio patter

before "Get Back" along with "Maggie Mae" and "Dig It" in

their entirety. The songs sound incomplete, somehow wrong.

Of course, they only sound odd because Mr. Spector's

versions are so familiar - we've been hearing them for 33

years. To Sir Paul, the album released in 1970 is the one

that sounds wrong. One can't help but wonder which is

"right."

This is the age of the remix, when movies are extended for

DVD and songs are distended for D.J.'s, and maybe we have

to talk about multiple iterations. "Let It Be" is the most

famous album to be redone in an alternate version, but it's

hardly the only one. Just as DVD directors' cuts often

present a version of a movie closer to the filmmaker's

original vision, albums are being revised to address an

artist's initial intent. In 1997, Iggy Pop produced a new

mix of the 1973 album "Raw Power" with a less muddled

sound, closer to what he had in mind originally. A few

years ago, Universal released a deluxe edition of Bob

Marley's "Catch a Fire," which contains the Jamaican

version of the album that was overdubbed for the American

audience; Ozzy Osbourne reissued two of his early 80's solo

albums, "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary of a Madman,"

rerecording the bass and drum tracks. And in September Sony

put out "The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions," a five-CD

Miles Davis boxed set that presents all the jams his

producer combed through to create a finished album.

Of course, the decision to release an alternate version of

anything often comes down to commerce - bonus tracks and

DVD extras give consumers another reason to buy something

they already own (it's especially important in the slumping

music business). Sometimes, though, there's an artistic

interest in stripping down an album to the way it sounded

before the influence of a producer, a label executive, or

simply a second thought. Think of it as a demix.

Recordings, like films, have always been seen as the final

result of a creative process, a last word of sorts. Redone

in later years, they might be thought of instead as parts

of a conversation between collaborators. Or even, in the

case of "Let It Be," an argument. While it's true that the

Beatles began the project intending to record with few

overdubs, the fact that Lennon and George Harrison each

worked with Mr. Spector on their first solo albums suggests

his influence wasn't ultimately unwelcome.

Now, three decades later, Sir Paul can have his say. Both

albums will be sold in stores, two takes on basically the

same tracks, sitting next to each other on the shelves.

"We're not saying this is better than the old one," said

Jonathan Clyde, an Apple Records executive, of "Naked."

"That's for people to decide."

Many will surely prefer "Naked," a great album by any

measure, which offers an appealing glimpse of the Beatles

revisiting their roots in straight-ahead rock. But the

version released first will always have history on its

side. To those familiar with the originals, the new edition

of "Catch a Fire," will always sound oddly plain, while the

rerelease of "Star Wars," with its extra effects scenes,

will always seem overdone.

Sometimes, it was the influence of someone other than the

artist that made an album notable. Take "Jack Johnson." The

producer Teo Macero essentially recorded a series of

Davis's jam sessions and then spliced the tapes into a

finished album. Certainly, Davis's playing at the time

would have been influential in the jazz world however it

was recorded. But the decision to mix together different

takes was an inspiration years later to electronic music

and the culture of the remix in general. In the case of

Iggy Pop, "Raw Power," even with its tinny production,

became a touchstone for punk. Does knowing Iggy Pop himself

never liked the way it sounded invalidate its influence?

Should knowing that Bob Marley's first album was altered to

appeal to an American audience cheapen our enjoyment of it?

If you don't think so, you might have some uneasiness about

how mutable music is becoming. With technology making

after-the-fact alterations easier and the record companies

eager for sure sellers, it might one day be practical for

artists to rework releases the way playwrights alter

scripts between engagements? Shania Twain's latest album,

"Up!," is sold as a two-disc set of country and rock takes

on the same songs (in Europe, it's a two-disc set of rock

and rhythmic pop). What's to prevent a band from releasing

a live album with stage patter appropriate for each city

("What's up, Brooklyn," for New York; "Hello, Cleveland,"

for Ohio). For that matter, who's to say a change has to be

artistic in nature: why settle for kicking the drummer out

of the band when you can go back and remove his

performances from previous albums?

Music is made in the studio, but it accrues meaning over

time. We hear songs the way we've learned to hear them.

Think of the way the sweeping orchestration of "The Long

and Winding Road" made the song a bittersweet valediction

for the Beatles. Thanks to "Let It Be . . . Naked" we all

know that was edited in: the band never intended to express

any such emotion in that way. Now, though, after listening

to it for 30 years, it certainly seems like they did.  

Robert Levine is a senior editor of Wired magazine, where

he also writes about pop music.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/arts/mus...e2658f067895222

[HolyMoly]

From Robert Levine's article:

Layered with Mr. Spector's orchestral touches, it was very different from the back-to-basics project they had envisioned.

... and ...

Of course, they only sound odd because Mr. Spector's versions are so familiar - we've been hearing them for 33 years.

For years, one Beatle or another has bad-mouthed Spector. But, there's one thing they can't take away from him ... their songs with Spector's orchestral tidbits added in became hits. Whether they'd have been just as popular without the orchestral additions is a matter of conjecture. Personally, I liked the orchestral nature of the Beatles music ... and consider Spector to be the fifth Beatle. It made their music unique from the music of most other groups during that time. As an example, listen to their song "She's Leaving Home" ... then imagine it without the orchestra.

[DudeAsInCool]

I think George Martin helped produce She's Leaving Home, not Phil Spector. I like Phil's early work, but cant see Im a fan of what he did with the Beatles. Have you heard the new version of Let it Be without him?

[HolyMoly]

By golly, you're right. I take back all I said. I don't know why, but thought Spector was involved with them early on. He was "friendly" with them back in his early years (and theirs). But nothing came of it until they hired him to do post-production work on Let It Be. So (ahem ahem), I now consider George Martin to be the fifth Beatle, not Phil Spector. Hehe, perhaps I'm going senile.

[Kooperman]

Being a truly senile person, I'll add that New York disc jockey Murray The K billed himself as the fifth Beatle when the group made their first trip to New York for the Ed Sullivan show. The group was fascinated by his brassiness and gall, and gave him exclusive live interviews for the station which he worked for. The station played Beatle music 24 hours a day at that time, the height of Beatlemania. It was a truly magical time for both New York and The Beatles.