The truth, as it often does, lies somewhere outside the spin. The new Naked album does give a glimpse of a different Beatles sound than the one long since etched into our collective memory. On some tracks, particularly the more stripped-down numbers that open the newly sequenced album ("Get Back," "Dig a Pony"), the changes are negligible: You may notice a slightly different ambience, but the songs remain virtually unaltered. On others, the contrasts are impressive. The band's grungy side emerges on bluesy jams like "Don't Let Me Down" and "I've Got a Feeling," revealing rough edges that were smoothed out in the final mix.
In the "new" mix, two lost heroes emerge: The first is keyboardist Billy Preston, whose lithe, funky accompaniment was largely buried under the sleek layers that Spector crafted, while the second is Spector himself, who gathered the shards of the Beatles' bitter final sessions and polished them into enduring pop gems. The swelling orchestral arrangements that many consider the hallmark of Spector's "interference" may have been imitative of Beatles studio mentor George Martin, but they were also entirely appropriate and immensely helpful. Spector took Paul's grandiloquent ballads "The Long and Winding Road" and "Let It Be" -- sweet but faltering piano-based demos in the "naked" versions -- and elevated the songs toward the timeless feel that McCartney was aiming for. Likewise, his mix of "Don't Let Me Down" is striking, taking Lennon's knockoff of a Bobby Bland-style blues jam and transforming it into a gorgeous and sincere love song. The Naked album is a tantalizing glimpse into the Fab Four's creative process, yet it also shows how much they had come to rely on a little help from the studio booth. Although the Beatles were zonked out on speed, smack, and cynicism, Spector approached their music with fresh ears, and the world was the winner.
