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More Reviews and Commentaries for Let It Be
TWO AMAZING SIDES, including a MIND-BLOWING Four Plus SIDE ONE for this White Hot Stamper 2-pack! At its best, this album has the real power of live music, but it takes a special pressing to make it happen. Both of these copies had one stunning side and one that just didn’t impress us, so we’ve paired them up to give you incredible sound for the entire album.
We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
So many copies of Let It Be lack the kind of energy and transparency that you need to bring this music to life, but these killer sides did EVERYTHING we were looking for. It doesn’t get any better than this, folks!
Side One
A++++. Nothing else in our shootout came close! Super spacious with serious immediacy and presence, this one knocked us out from the moment we dropped the needle. This level of clarity and transparency is typically accompanied by a hard, thin midrange, but you won’t hear anything like that here! The mids are just as rich and Tubey Magical as we could ask for (and we ask for a lot!). Absolutely stunning!
Side Two
A+++, easily the best side two in our shootout. Big and clear, rich and full-bodied, with tons of presence and detail, this is exactly the way we want this music to sound. White Hot Stamper material, all the way!
Boring? Not This Copy!
We just finished another big shootout for this great album, and it still surprises me how BORING the average British copy is. (Of course, the German pressings and the domestic copies are even worse, but you probably already knew that.)
You’ve got to do a lot of work to find a copy of Let It Be that doesn’t sound murky, sleepy, thick and/or veiled. We went through a massive stack of nothing but British imports and only a select few were FUN and INVOLVING enough to merit the Hot Stamper designation.
The Beatles: Rock Band
On a copy like this the natural rock n’ roll energy of a song such as Dig A Pony will blow you away. There’s no studio wizardry, no heavy-handed mastering, no phony EQ — just the sound of the greatest rock band of all time playing and singing their hearts out. It’s a thrill that you don’t really get from the more psychedelic albums like Sgt. Pepper’s or Magical Mystery Tour.
The Brits Are King
The British copies seem to be the only way to go for this album. We played a few German copies which were a mixed bag — some tracks would sound amazing but others would sound funny. Some Capitol pressings are surprisingly good, but they’ll never have all the magic of the master tape. It takes a superb copy to get this album right, and this Super Hot Stamper really does the job.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Two of Us
Dig a Pony
Across the Universe
I Me Mine
Dig It
Let It Be
Maggie Mae
Side Two
I’ve Got a Feeling
One After 909
The Long and Winding Road
For You Blue
Get Back
AMG Review
There are few other rock records as controversial as Let It Be… which was not their final album, but largely recorded in early 1969, way before Abbey Road. Although Phil Spector’s use of strings has generated much criticism, by and large he left the original performances to stand as is: only “The Long and Winding Road” and (to a lesser degree) “Across the Universe” and “I Me Mine” get the Wall of Sound treatment… the album is on the whole underrated, even discounting the fact that a substandard Beatles record is better than almost any other group’s best work. McCartney in particular offers several gems: the gospel-ish “Let It Be,” which has some of his best lyrics; “Get Back,” one of his hardest rockers; and the melodic “The Long and Winding Road.”