November 19, 2003
Let It Be...Naked Released Here's one take on the new album, which I'm likely to agree with, once I've listened to it: "The new mix is definitely cleaner than the original. The vocals are much clearer, and the acoustic guitars and snare drums are more in the forefront. But several songs, such as "Two of Us," seem almost identical to the original, and de-Spectorized versions of most of the others could already be found on the "Anthology" CDs. The original "Let It Be," for all its flaws, is an accurate document of the Beatles in their final days -- fractured, distracted, bickering, but still capable of pulling it together and producing some marvelous music. "Let It Be ... Naked" is an enjoyable curiosity for Beatles fans, but it won't, and shouldn't, be considered the definitive version."