10 Albums That Fell Apart During Production

4. Let It Be - The Beatles

If you watch the Get Back documentary that's on Disney+, you can tell what the Beatles were originally going for for what would become the album Let It Be. Even with all of the bickering going on at the time, there's still an earnest attempt for them to go back to their roots as a bar band, sticking to live playing and making the ballads a bit more understated than the grand visions they were working with at the time. It made sense that they went with Abbey Road as their last album, then Phil Spector came in and dumped his schlock all over these sessions.

While Spector's rap sheet working with both George Harrison and John Lennon on their solo albums was great, hearing what he did to these back to basics songs was the exact opposite of what the band was going for. As opposed to leaving the rawness in, you can hear Spector tinkering these songs into their own pop symphonies, with Paul McCartney especially being pissed that The Long and Winding Road was given the full orchestral treatment without his permission.

By the time it came out, the rest of the Beatles had already moved on to other projects, but Paul was frustrated enough with their final album to make a revised version called Let It Be...Naked, taking away all of the fluff and hearing the album as the band intended it to be heard in the first place. The golden age of the Beatles was the stuff of music legend though, and you can see why people would have a few issues with this mess being their last real swan song.

 
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