After the run of momentous archival Replacements releases over the past decade—the world-burning live set on For Sale, the miraculous de-glitzing of their late-’80s material on Dead Man’s Pop, the peak of their achievement liberated from tinny production on Tim (Let It Bleed Edition)—it’s tempting to imagine that the vaults of whatever garage they run Mats HQ out of might be infinitely deep. Each year could bring new treasures, lifting the Replacements’ music out of the cellophane realm of “the ’80s” and placing it once and for all in rock’s timeless firmament.
Their 1984 masterpiece Let It Be—a joke title, but also a boast, a dare—is already in that firmament. It is the band’s most celebrated record, the one where they trained their homegrown Midwestern punk sensibilities on Paul Westerberg’s most mature songs yet, creating in the process an enduring template for what would come to be called indie rock. It captured the band on the precipice of a major transition. They didn’t know at the time, but it would be their last record on the local Twin/Tone label before signing with Sire, distributed by Warner. It would also effectively conclude their run as a democratic quartet, as madcap guitarist Bob Stinson drifted into addiction and became disillusioned with the band’s evolution from the hard and fast into the songwriterly and craftsmanlike. In 1984, there was a sense that the Replacements were destined for something beyond the basement rehearsal space and the sub-two-minute punk song. Let It Be, with its cover photo of four dirtbags on a roof, is the sound of the band flicking down cigarette butts toward whatever lay beyond, sounding its depths.
The Mats’ previous album, Hootenanny, dared listeners to sit through a bunch of abortive pastiches (hardcore, surf rock, Chubby Checker) in order to get to a few transcendently good songs. On Let It Be, the throwaways are essential. Yes, “I Will Dare” is flawless, and the genderfuck utopia of “Androgynous” shimmers behind Westerberg’s clumsy piano chords. But the band also plays “Black Diamond,” a Kiss cover, with a commitment so total that it vaporizes the schlock of the original. And has there ever been a more inspired feat of sequencing than following the Ted Nugent rip-off “Gary’s Got a Boner” with the aching “Sixteen Blue”? The songs tap the same source; they give us a comic view of a sexually inept young man and then a tender view of what could be the same character. “You’re looking funny/You ain’t laughing, are you,” Westerberg howls, before launching into a guitar solo filled with weeping feedback.
