For each of us who grew up in the wake of the Beatles’ demise, their music meant and means something pure, sincere and innocent — like our pre-Reagan youths. Sure, we later learned that the Fab Four were flawed individuals like anyone else, but still, no one before or since has made music that speaks with perfect, equal clarity to a child, adolescent or adult.

Before we were Gen X, there was something about which we didn’t have to be cynical.

The film “Let It Be” was hard to find in early video stores. All I knew was that I liked the record. I liked hearing the between-take chatter, the casual sense of humor that indicated a much happier group than I’d later, finally, see portrayed in Michael Lindsay Hogg’s documentary.

Only three things ever bothered me about the original Let It Be album: it was too short (like many of their earlier records), the best songs were on side one (making side two anticlimactic), and the album version of “Get Back” stops before the end tag of the song’s “single” version. Otherwise, it was every bit the quality of any other Beatles album, with the bonus of being earthy and different, with that live-in-the-studio feel.

Later did I come to understand that there really was a “Fifth Beatle,” and he was George Martin. His production of every other Beatles album is a huge part of what makes them so listenable to this day, when many a disc of the era sounds like mud soup.

The original Let It Be, of course, was produced by Phil Spector, who was the kind of hired gun the Beatles could afford. His Wall of Sound can be a source of irritation. It is the weak point, for example, of George Harrison’s otherwise impeccable solo debut, “All Things Must Pass.” But on Let It Be, it never gets in the way of the raw excellence of the songs.

Regardless, the album’s sound never met the approval of, depending on who you ask, Paul McCartney, or the Beatles as a group.

Naked aspires to demonstrate what might have been. Its intention is to represent what the album was meant to be — live, unpolished, pure; a reaction to where the Beatles had already been, secluded in a studio for two full calendar years.

Unfortunately, it is not a complete success. It is not the realization of the envisioned original album. Instead, it sounds lifeless and remade. It lacks George Martin, supplanted in his retirement by Paul Hicks, Guy Massey and Allan Rouse, whose collective efforts still do not approach Martin’s expertise.

Where Phil Spector had created a live feel with interspersed studio chat and musical snippets “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae,” Naked tries to make a raw, natural feel out of high-polished recordings by avoiding overdubs. It is Spector’s version that feels more honest.

Naked begins with the original album’s final track, “Get Back.” Though the song never seemed a likely album closer, it feels even more awkward as an opener. And the loss of the live feel, coupled with the absence of its extended ending, make its very presence almost lamentable.

The album steers through the original’s tracks, usually using different takes invariably lacking in ornamentation beyond modernized reverb and other effects that just sound wrong on a Beatles recording.

Though it is interesting to hear the subtle and not-so-subtle differences, only a few tracks — “Two of Us,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” and “Don’t Let Me Down” (the only song not on the original album) — could make claims to having anything on the original recordings.

At the same time, the stripped down “The Long and Winding Road” and the inferior guitar solo on the title track are disappointments.

In place of dissolves into studio banter, songs fade unnaturally. The song order builds to a better climax, with “Let It Be” as the final track. But with so much material (supposedly) from which to draw, it is sad that more songs couldn’t have found their way to the disc.

Let It Be … Naked ends up another interesting document in the history of the most important pop band ever, in the spirit of the “Anthology” collections. The best reason to buy this CD is a 20-odd minute accompanying CD of studio outtakes — lots of chat with interjected musical meanderings. This and a booklet containing some very amusing dialog in transcription are enough to satisfy the avid Beatle fan, but the rerelease is otherwise unessential.

Grade: B/C