10 Legendary Rock Albums That Were Originally Very Different

After the grueling sessions for the White Album, the Beatles were in desperate need of some sort of shakeup. The double album experience had almost destroyed their camaraderie, and Paul McCartney thought that the best way to rebuild their chemistry was by getting back to their bar band roots. It may have worked for a little bit in the studio, but the Let It Be album that we know today was not a record that we were supposed to hear.

As the sessions got going, the band started to fracture even more, with George Harrison leaving the studio for a spell before finishing their sessions with a performance on top of the Apple Corps building. For all of the great material still there though, the band felt it best to put it back on the shelf and make Abbey Road instead, acting as a final goodbye to the golden age of what they were about before cutting solo projects. The label wanted one more record though, and Let It Be was brought out of the can by Phil Spector, putting on different layers of strings to songs to make it feel more coherent.

While it's nice to have the material of those sessions out to the world, Paul McCartney was always vocal about not wanting it put out, especially unhappy about Spector taking The Long and Winding Road and turning into this grandiose piece of music. For a title that was all about letting things go, it seemed like everyone at the Apple offices didn't really get the meaning behind the trademark song of this project.