I bought my first copy of Let It Be when I was 15 and it unlocked my lifelong love of the Replacements. Soon I was hunting down albums, bootlegs, zines, T-shirts—I even agreed to clean my high school biology teacher’s snake and guinea pig tanks for several weeks to borrow his VHS tape of a live performance at the Orange County Speedway from 1989.
In the pre-internet everywhere days of the ’90s, searching for your favorite band’s live, unreleased, or rare music took this level of commitment. And the Replacements rewarded this madness. Digging through used CD stores was the only way to hear the band’s first B side and first great drunken ballad, “If Only You Were Lonely,” or one of their chaotically awesome (or awesomely chaotic) live shows. The Replacements broke up before I discovered them, and for years—outside of a solid B-side disc in the band’s Greatest Hits collection—it didn’t seem like there were enough of us fans to make anyone with access to the archives care.
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Fast-forward to 2025, when Rhino is releasing a 4-LP (or 3-CD) box set of Let It Be, stocked with unreleased tracks, photos, essays, and an entire concert (plus a BONUS live show if you pre-order). But the weird part is… it’s routine at this point. Let It Be is the fifth Replacements deluxe edition from Rhino, following Rykodisc’s remasters of their entire catalog back in 2008. The band’s name turned out to be an omen to its fans, as I’m now replacing Replacements albums every few years. It’s almost too much of a good thing, except that it’s giving fans an in-depth look into the creative process of four Minneapolis guys who’d probably hate me using the words “creative process.” The magic of the band was their ability to straddle contradictions—smart and dumb, punk and pop, skilled and sloppy—with the ease of an inebriated tightrope walker. With these releases, we get to see the effort it took to seem effortless.
As such, I couldn’t hardly wait for Let It Be. It remains my favorite ’mats album and my go-to answer for fave album ever, so I was eager to see what new insight or context this set would offer. After all, the Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash and Pleased to Meet Me sets allowed me to hear those albums with fresh ears, and the Let It Bleed and Dead Man’s Pop editions went even further, giving me new definitive versions of Tim and Don’t Tell A Soul.
Turns out, though, what makes Let It Be great is already on the album. That’s not a knock on the quality of the set’s material. This album holds up incredibly well. It remains a boldly emotional soundtrack for all the joy, fury, and awkwardness of growing up. “Unsatisfied” is as rallying an anthem now as ever, and it’s hard to believe songs as empathetic and accepting as “Androgynous” and “Sixteen Blue” were written 41 years ago.
So by comparison, these newly released versions of the classic songs are fantastic, just not revelatory. Based on the alternate takes and demos, Paul Westerberg’s songs were pretty fully formed by the time they reached the studio. There are subtle differences—a rawer “Answering Machine,” a gentler “Androgynous,” a somehow cruder “Gary’s Got A Boner”—but my main takeaway is that by this this time, Westerberg had grown into a more confident songwriter and driving force.
As for the session’s outtakes, they’re gems, yet at the same time, I would not swap any of them onto the album over the songs already there (though to the defiant anthem “Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive” comes closest to being a candidate). Moreover, these unreleased gems have already been released to us die-hards, on the 2008 reissues and those 1990s bootlegs. So if you’re looking for fresh discoveries, reset your expectations.
Instead, focus on the set’s live shows, which fully deliver on my teenage desire of time travel. Goodnight, Go Home is a 28-song concert at the Cubby Bear in Chicago a month before the album’s release. It’s sourced from an audience recording, proving that even in our modern era, it’s still Replacements fans taking care of each other. The sound quality is fuzzier than the live shows on Rhino’s other Replacements’ sets, but that makes you feel inside the venue, or at least listening to a dub from your friend’s cool older sibling. The band opens with “a new one,” a rollicking early draft of “Can’t Hardly Wait,” setting a tone of wonderful unpredictability. The setlist ranges from early standouts (an explosive “Kids Don’t Follow,” the best “Shiftless When Idle” ever) to Let It Be numbers (a fun, shambling “I Will Dare”) and an eclectic mix of covers. One of which best represents the set as a whole: three-minutes into “Help Me Rhonda,” just as it’s getting sloppy and you can feel the audience slipping, Bob Stinson’s falsetto kicks in and the band turns on a dime into an incredibly electric “Little GTO.” This is the band balancing their sharpest and messiest impulses.
The bonus show was at Trenton, New Jersey’s City Gardens from February 1984 and, while only six songs, showcases a full emotional arc. “I Will Dare” opens the set and sounds like a promise to the audience. Then Westerberg starts cursing at the venue’s lights during the second song, an anger that leads to a slow-burn, growling version of “20th Century Boy.” But his fury dissipates as they deliver on that dare by playing an extended version of their shockingly tender rarity “You’re Getting Married.” The crowd could revolt… but they’re into it, which even surprises Westerberg, who says, “At least you fuckers ain’t enemies, that’s nice to know.” So they reward the audience by playing their requests. It’s a beautiful showcase for this band’s range.
These two shows, together with a crystal clear remaster of the original album and enlightening liner notes from music journalist-musician Elizabeth Nelson and the band’s original manager Peter Jesperson, make this latest version of Let It Be worth it for fans like me. All of these sets are a teen me’s dream come true, even if the archives are starting to feel a little depleted. So do I need an expanded Stink or Hootenanny? No. But if they’re released? I will dare.
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