Let It Be: Special Edition

• 1. Introduction

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  "Let It Be: Special Edition" gave Giles Martin an unusual assignment. He would remix an album his own father, George Martin, had helped produce. Apple Records released the box set on the 15th of October 2021, more than half a century after the original recordings. Engineer Sam Okell worked alongside Martin on both a new stereo mix and a Dolby Atmos version. Buried within the set was something that had circulated only among collectors for decades. An earlier mix of the sessions, predating the familiar 1970 album, was receiving its first official release. Two questions run through the release. What had been lost when that earlier mix was set aside? And what do the raw session recordings reveal that the finished album never could?

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• 2. The First Edition

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  On the 8th of May 1970, "Let It Be" arrived in UK stores as a limited edition box set. Inside sat a 164-page paperback book alongside the record. By December of that year, the set was already out of print, replaced by a standard LP without the book. That swift disappearance turned the original edition into a piece of Beatles history few listeners ever held. The 2021 reissue was designed to follow the same commemorative logic as earlier Beatles 50th anniversary box sets. It was timed to land in the same month as the original release. An interruption of an entirely different scale would change those plans.

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• 3. When Release Slipped

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  The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the box set's planned release to October 2021. Peter Jackson's "Get Back" documentary series, built around the same 1969 recording sessions, was similarly shifted to November of that year. Two other major reissues faced comparable delays. The super deluxe edition of "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" was pushed back until April 2021. The super deluxe edition of "All Things Must Pass" moved to August 2021. A trailer released in August 2021, two months before the box set's arrival, confirmed that the set would include a book. The book would contain essays, photographs, session notes, and a message from Paul McCartney about both the recordings and the upcoming "Get Back" documentary. The set would ultimately appear in both CD and vinyl formats.

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• 4. The 1969 Mix

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  Glyn Johns assembled his version of the Get Back sessions in 1969, a full year before the album that the world eventually heard. His mix received its first official commercial release with this box set. The original Johns mix appears in its unaltered form only on the Japanese Super High Material CD, known as the SHM-CD. Every other edition of "Let It Be: Special Edition" presents a hybrid instead. That recording blends elements from Johns' 1969 version and the 1970 mix that became the familiar album. On the 28th of January 2022, the full audio from the rooftop concert made its streaming debut. It arrived under the title "The Beatles: Get Back - The Rooftop Performance."

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• 5. A Bird's-Eye View

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  Pitchfork awarded the box set a score of 9.1 out of 10. Its reviewers wrote that the release shines a light on "the brilliant and tumultuous process" behind the original album. Some of the outtakes were described as "uncomfortable and fascinating." Music critic David Quantick said the set "does wonders for the record" and gives the listener "a bird's-eye view of the sessions." On Metacritic, the box set aggregated a score of 91 out of 100, drawn from seven reviews, with the site indicating "universal acclaim." The set reached number two on the Australian ARIA albums chart and number five on both the New Zealand chart and the US Billboard 200. A bonus EP in the package gathered four previously unreleased tracks from the sessions alongside new mixes.

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