LET IT BE

When Toto pulled the curtain back and revealed the Wizard to be just a plain human being the mystery ended permanently. This album had the same effect on many of us Beatle fans. The boys from Liverpool knew it, too, when they delayed the release of this LP until after the superb "Abbey Road" had reminded everyone that they could still amaze us. The songs here sound like demos instead of finished product and even Phil Spector couldn't put lipstick on this sow. It's not that the songs are so terrible, it's just that the dissention and stress between the musicians is so obvious that it drains all the color out of the tunes for me. Of course "Let it Be," "Get Back" and "The Long and Winding Road" will forever be classic McCartney creations but they would have been right at home (and maybe more appropriate) on his first solo effort. For a thousand different reasons that have been thoroughly documented in various books John, George and Ringo just mailed it in on this one. Perhaps it's fitting. If this is what they were going to be producing as we all ventured bravely into the decade of the 70s then we were better off without the magnificent Beatles. Let it be, indeed.