The Replacements’ third album, Let It Be, will be back in stores in deluxe form on Oct. 24, a few months after the 41st anniversary of its release. The Rhino project includes four LPs and three CDs that help trace the evolution of the material on Let It Be, which has long been regarded as one of the best rock albums of its era.
The Minneapolis-reared band’s final album for indie Twin/Tone before jumping to major-label Sire, Let It Be is an order of magnitude more vibrant, catchy and soul-stirring than any prior Replacements release from the first jaunty guitar lick of “I Will Dare.” As further demonstrated by its iconic rooftop-shot album cover, it burbles with an honest ambivalence that’s never far from the surface.
Paul Westerberg’s writing takes giant leaps for rock’n’roll-kind here, and he’s no longer singing or screaming at you, but to you. You can practically see him sitting at a beat-up piano, lit cigarette precariously dangling from his mouth, as a solitary lightbulb sways from the ceiling on “Androgynous,” a “love who you want to love” ballad tackling subject matter rarely touched in underground music of this era. The winsome guitar figure of “Unsatisfied” permeates with a sly sincerity capable of making you re-examine your own life choices, and “Answering Machine” crystallizes the pangs of love from a distance with a litany of rhetorical questions (“how do you say I’m lonely to an answering machine?”).
The album will now feature alternate versions of “Androgynous” (which can be heard below), “Favorite Thing” and “Gary’s Got a Boner,” the previously unreleased outtakes “Street Girl” and “Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive” and remastered takes on five bonus tracks previously unearthed for a 2008 deluxe edition.
Also included is a previously unreleased 28-song concert from the Cubby Bear in Chicago in August 1984, more than two months before the release of Let It Be. Rhino.com is offering versions with an exclusive 10-inch vinyl of Live at City Garden, taped in February 1984 at the Trenton, N.J., club of the same name.
