the beatles released their last album, "let it be," 39 years ago today

on may 8, 1970, the beatles released "let it be" - it followed on the heels of their announcement the at the band officially broken up. to some fans "let it be" is not considered the last beatle's album because the sessions (which included the bands last public appearance - an impromptu rooftop concert at the apple studios) were recorded a year earlier. there was such acrimony among the band members that the tapes were shelved because they didn't want to deal with the task of producing an album from the tapes!

in the interim, "abbey road" was recorded and released that summer - and represents the beatles' last recording sessions. that fall, the beatles hired phil spector to assemble the "let it be" tapes into an what would ultimately become the last album released by the beatles. it which would be released concurrently with the film of the same name that documented those sessions (which at the time had the working title "get back").

twenty three years later, in 2003, paul mccartney released "let it be... naked." mccartney had never been pleased with phil spector's work on album. the beatles had wanted to "get back" to a more basic rock and roll sound. mccartney's version stripped all of all the overdubs introduced by phil spector to create his legendary "wall of sound" and returned, according to paul, the music to what the beatles had originally intended