The Beatles – Let It Be​ – Black Vinyl reissue

The Beatles – Let It Be

My first experience with a Beatles album was in my childhood, when my mom got some mail order records (cassettes) back in 1970, one was Let it Be by the Beatles, not the White album, Revolver, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or any of their more notable records. So my like of the Beatles was based on that record. And I listened it it a ton. My mom not so much. The 4 portraits of each member of the band on the cover were etched in the mind of a 9 year old who was just discovering sixties popular music. Fast forward in time and I’ve run most of the Beatles recordings through my psyche hundreds of times and not all that excited to hear The Beatles, even though watching Sir Paul discuss the recording trivia of certain hits with Rick Rubin on HULU has been pretty interesting.

The Beatles: Get Back by Peter Jackson, on Disney+, who re-worked hundreds of hours of footage that was shot in 1969 of the Fab Four writing music in preparation for a planned TV broadcast. In its chaotic and haphazard manor, dictated over by Paul, EGOs are exposed for all, and we see how there were camps. Paul (just Paul), John/Yoko, George and his Hari Krishna chanters in the background, and Ringo floating above the fray, the freedom of the crucial* drummers role in any band. (*see how Dave Grohl transformed Nirvana)

But what we witness is the creative COLLABORATIVE process in action. Which is any form is difficult, yet with the number one band ever, almost PTSD-inducing horror. The band’s pressure to function in the corner that the greatness they (and George Martin) painted themselves into. Illustrated by Paul’s demanding perfectionism, John’s withholding and aloofness, George’s fragile defensiveness, and Ringo’s happy go-lucky, cheery personage.

I’m not a music critic, (I like what I like) nor am I a Beatles historian–this is just my connection to that album, by how it to be mixed later), and done somewhat on the fly, is what makes it ta great Beatles record to me.

We learn that:

• George was truly a great songwriter.
• Ringo was an amazing drummer, and an actual nice person existing in incredible circumstances.
• Paul was the resented ringleader, and kind of a fucking dick.
• John seemed a little bullied, but had a genius he could count on to save his ass at the last minute.
• It’s no wonder the Beatles broke up. Solo careers were each’s salvations.

I am aware that more than a few people feel the Beatles were overrated, but in the context to what was going on in the sixtes music scene at the time, they were nothing sort of revolutionary. One can say that about Elvis, Chuck Berry and Dylan, but the Beatles broke the shit in ways the others could only dream of.

But this site is about vinyl record releases, not precesses, so here you go: Buy the record on Amazon. Listen to it and uncover its rightful place in the Beatles canon. Report back here.