'Let It Be' 50th anniversary reissues | Page 14 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Listened to the remix of ‘LIB ‘ earlier and the overriding thought when doing so is that there are layers but no depth – no idea how that works but something is amiss. I’m not too sure but if the idea of these remixes is to make them more in line with modern mixing then maybe that it is but I could be wrong on the purpose.  On first hearing, and others may be hear it differently, but I first hear vocals then drums followed by the guitars or piano or whatever is left (and oddly enough some weird noises that I’ve never heard before, and I doubt are meant to be there), yet nothing sounds how it should. Maybe that’s the point and I am just old.

I don’t want to go thru the tracks one-by-one but two to briefly highlight are ‘ATU’ which sounds tinny at the beginning and everything is all over the place and ‘IMM’ sounded muffled and meh, most otherwise are alright. The worst offender to me was ‘TLAWR’. We all know that Spector detested the basic track and so heavily shoved on the orchestra and choir to bury it; Paul then heard it and detested what Spector had done and has spent 50 years resenting it. All is fair enough, both are right to a degree. The problem here for me is that it sounds like Giles has had to reach a compromise (it’s been said that Paul asked for the harp to be turned down, I doubt that was all) and so we have the basic track sounding like it’s having a fight with an orchestra to get rid of it, whereas Spector’s just sounded like an overdone ballad. Actually, it reminds me of both the abhorrent Lennon ‘Anthology’ version of ‘Grow Old With Me ‘ with George Martin’s orchestral score or the just as bad ‘Love’ mashup where Sir G crapped out a dreadfully tacky score on top of take one of ‘WMGGW’. It’s very bizarre that the two biggest disappointments for me on the original album (‘ATU’ and ‘TLAWR’) are the biggest letdowns on here. 
One addition I do wish to add is the admission that the best remix of ‘OA909’ is on ‘LIBN’, as far as I can remember that’s the entire positive on it. Here, it again sounds muffled. What is that? Is it better thru speakers and I need to not listen on headphones? You do hear differences and new sounds here and there, some might even be by The Beatles.

Maybe one of the problems is that ‘LIB ‘ is a murky album; there never was a true best take, the band were never really at it to the same level as the other studio albums (except on the Rooftop), and we all know it was all junked and left to whoever to sort out to go and make a nice polished bright ‘Abbey Road ‘. Maybe, therefore, giving ‘LIB ‘ a shine and polish and getting rid of some of the dirt only helps show some of the flaws more. Certainly the biggest revelation and reminder to me is just how good a job Spector did. The original album is so much superior as it was in 1970 and found on the 2009 remaster – tho those who EQ and study every pressing and release in every country will probably think differently.

Von Bontee said
I personally don’t believe that dead Spector contributed anything besides a willingness to go through hours of tapes and a buncha non-ironic Adult Contemporary schmaltz-orchestrations, myself. But at least he never buried the entire project under ATMP -sized reverb…

  

He lopped off three minutes from ‘Dig It ‘ which many will be very happy with.

If anyone is interested in reading about the rejected compilations that eventually led to Spector’s edition, you can find a lot of information here. The site has been up for a very long time and is fascinating, however, I have no idea if it gets updated so some of the details may be inaccurate. I have no idea.