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Final Album Recorded by 'Most Famous Band in History' Released 56 Years Ago

By Kendra Syrdal Parade - Trending Stories

Updated May 8, 2026 1:23 AM

Let It Be (the album, not the title track) was originally conceived by Paul McCartney as a way to ease the friction between members of The Beatles. McCartney thought that going back to the roots of simple rock and roll would help relieve tension, and the plan was to record it live in front an audience-a first for the time. However, the filming in 1969 ended up exacerbating the many problems between the members of the band, with John Lennon even going so far as to call the experience, "hell, the most miserable [thing] on Earth."

Despite being recorded before Abbey Road, building disagreements about the project left what would become Let It Be in limbo. Lennon privately left the band September of 1969 and in April of the following year The Beatles would publicly announce their breakup. On May 8th, 1970, the full Let It Be album was released, making it the final studio album from "The Fab Four."

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Let It Be sparked three major singles: "Get Back" was the lead single, followed by "Let It Be", and "The Long and Winding Road" which was expected to be the band's last. The Let It Be documentary film was released later that same month in 1970 and would win the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score that same year. The Sunday Telegraph called the film, "a very bad film and a touching one ... about the breaking apart of this reassuring, geometrically perfect, once apparently ageless family of siblings."

Following the release of this final album, McCartney would move forward with filing suit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual agreement(s) on New Year's Eve, 1970. The legal proceedings and disputes would continue on for years after the band's breakup. Nearly four years later on December 29th, 1974, Lennon finally agreed to the terms and signed to terminate the partnerships while he was at Walt Disney World with his family.

While Let It Be was commercially a chart topper, critical reviews of the album were mixed to even "not good." Let It Be is known as the only album of The Beatles to be met with "negative, even hostile reviews." NME said of the album, "If the new Beatles' soundtrack is to be their last then it will stand as a cheapskate epitaph, a cardboard tombstone, a sad and tatty end to a musical fusion which wiped clean and drew again the face of pop."

Despite this, the legacy of the final album from what many consider to be the greatest band of all time cannot be overlooked. Rolling Stone named it in the top 100 of its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and the Super Deluxe Edition holds a 91 out of 100 on Metacritic meaning "universal acclaim."

This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 12:15 AM.