THE BEATLES
Let It Be (1970)
Apple/Capitol
Produced by GEORGE MARTIN

Phil Spector did not ruin LET IT BE. He ruined "The Long and Winding Road." If anything ruined LET IT BE, it was the Beatles' ambivalence in the project and the discomfort of four intensely private people dealing with having their every movement filmed.

The album was originally called GET BACK with Glyn Johns on the dials and was famously touted as the Beatles' "back-to-roots" project. The problem with this logic is that the Beatles had redeemed any 1967 overindulgence they'd suffered with the White Album, which had some back-to-roots material and didn't abandon studio wizadry entirely, therefore giving a full picture of the Beatles in 1968, not one diluted through some sort of preconceived notion of what type of music they should release.

That said, we know I'm a sucker for basic rock & roll, and the songs that aren't labored or studied or boring here are pretty good, and the distinctive sound of the recordings, not to mention Billy Preston on piano, helps quite a bit.

"I've Got a Feeling" and "Two of Us," two John-Paul duets, are beautiful in every sense and are perhaps the Beatles' most moving recordings since REVOLVER aside from "Don't Let Me Down." McCartney would never again match the direct power of "Two of Us."

Nor would he come close to the anthemic glory of "Let It Be," as much an ode to introspective pleasure as the Beach Boys' "In My Room," as much an ode to the pain of solitude as "Eleanor Rigby," as much a love song as "Two of Us." The single version only contains a fraction of the power of Spector's version, with its perfect Harrison solo.

Paul also brings us the famous "Get Back," with Preston's stellar work and that famous LP ending, and the famous "The Long and Winding Road," which is buried in strangling string and choral overdubs that render it unlistenably (and famously) sugary. In its original incarnation, reproduced later on ANTHOLOGY 3, it is one of the most chilling things the man's ever written, sparse and fragile and yearning. Never before have I heard a song ruined so massively by production values.

That's the key to the album's problem -- schizophrenia. It's not that I mind string overdubs, it's just that they seem like a bad idea on these songs for which part of the point is their stripped-down nature. And of all the songs to augment, "The Long and Winding Road" simply doesn't need the help of Spector or anyone else to be grand. Some of the other tracks here did.

Although I presume he was saving all his good stuff for his first solo album, I still wonder where John Lennon is throughout this record. His contributions (the best of which, "Don't Let Me Down," didn't make the cut) are lazy and fun but seem like supreme b-side material, nothing of longevity or significance. The fifty-second "Dig It" (it was supposed to be a six-minute jam) and the even shorter take on the traditional "Maggie Mae" speak for themselves, while although "Dig a Pony" may have its moments, the song is incredibly overwrought and thoroughly uninteresting. It's just late-'60s British blues-rock nonsense.

He also has, with Paul, the fine rocker "One After 909," but that was written before Beatlemania existed. Then there's "Across the Universe," which he'd been trying to get on a Beatles record for about three years by this point. It had been thrown onto a charity collection with awful choir and wildlife overdubs. Spector's schmaltzy B-movie strings (the man's "wall of sound" simply is not made for stereo sound) aren't a big improvement, but they are an improvement, and the song wouldn't get respectable treatment on disc until 1996.

George offers the bizarre "I Me Mine," which seems to go on forever, though in the film John and Yoko's concurrent and just as odd dance sequence is one of the few highlights, and "For You Blue," his best song since "Within You, Without You" (or "Something," if you're, uh, that type, but that was recorded later anyway). It's a bouncing blues number with John on ruthless slide guitar, and it's joyous and sexual enough that it could be reimagined as the soundtrack to a hardcore porn flick. No reason not to love it, then.

Much like the film LET IT BE, the album is just too erratic to make much of an impression, too confused and unfinished. The Beatles were dissatisfied enough to shelve it and record another LP, ABBEY ROAD, but once they ceased to exist the music couldn't stay unreleased for long and Spector was brought in for a reimagining after both Glyn Johns mixes were rejected. Spector has endured decades of criticism for his work, but the problem here is just that the Beatles were worn out and the dream, as John later said, was over.