The Replacements Let It Be released

Let It Be The Replacements

Released: October 2, 1984 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: college rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. I Will Dare (8/24/84, 7 CO) Favorite Thing (8 CO) We’re Comin’ Out Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out Androgynous Black Diamond Unsatisfied (9 CO) Seen Your Video Gary’s Got a Boner Sixteen Blue Answering Machine (10 CO) Total Running Time: 32:56 The Players: Paul Westerberg (vocals, guitar, piano, etc.) Bob Stinson (guitar) Tommy Stinson (bass) Chris Mars (drums, percussion)

Rating: 4.151 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings) Quotable: “A cornerstone post-punk album.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Let It Be Puts the Replacements on the Map “Let It Be was a “cornerstone post-punk album” AM that “put the Replacements on the college rock map.” PM This album and Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade “came th help define ‘college rock ‘ in the mid-1980s and made them the darlings of the rock underground.” RD Pop Kulcher Marc Fagel goes so far as to say the Replacements are “second only to R.E.M. as the best American rock band of the ‘80s.” PK “Let It Be was the band’s first great album.” PK “They were still confused, bored, rude, disaffected, horny and, quite often, wasted, but for 34 glorious pop-savvy minutes, they sounded exactly like winners.” BL “Mixing scrap-metal guitars with tenderhearted melodies, this bar-punk classic makes it okay to shotgun your beer and cry in it.” EW’12 Their Earlier Stuff Let It Be was “an album that straddled the band’s punk days and the more melodi and sensitive songs that would come to define their later career.” RD “The early stuff was fun, with a nice post-punk spin on Stones-like rockers. But here’s where they really turn into something remarkable.” PK They had previously “proved they could do sloppy drunk better than anyone, but on Let It Be” BL indie rock’s favorite fall-down drunks stand tall” BL and create “pure, unadulterated rock and roll.” CQ They “left their loud and fast playing behind in favor of the more melodic, coming-of-age, post-punk-inspired hooks of Let It Be.” PM Westerberg, One of the Best Living Pop Writers One might think the album’s title is an homage to the Beatles’ album of the same name, but in the spirit of the Replacements it is more likely a random tossed-off title that mocks how much analysis goes into things like naming albums. Musically, the album “doesn’t resemble the Beatles album of the same name in any kind of way, but it does showcase how bandleader Paul Westerberg was a disciple of Alex Chilton and Todd Rundgren, who were among Paul McCartney’s brightest progeny.” PM “Westerberg was easily becoming one of the best living pop writers, and the Replacements joined R.E.M. in the winner’s circle of alt-rock, a prestige later given to bands like Sonic Youth and the Pixies.” PM Westerberg showed a “knack for writing melodies that were bold, reeked of attitude, but remained remarkably accessible.” RD “With his heart on his sleeve, Westerberg poured his love, his loss, and his inhibitions into each and every lyric, note, chord, and yelp.” CQ He “wails white blues at all the phoniness he finds in the world, all the loneliness he feels.” VB He “dwells on those uncomfortable moments, chronicling the torments of growing up in agonizing, heart-ripped-open detail” TM offering a “tragically heroic voice to America’s disaffected suburban teenagers.” VB “If you want to talk about a coming of age record I would be hard pressed to find another one that’s as good as this.” UAW Colin Meloy of the Decemberists echoed this sentiment, saying, “The record seemed to encapsulate perfectly all of the feelings that were churning inside me. The leap from seventh to eighth grade had felt like a quantum shit and my head was reeling from the changes. My eccentricities were becoming more and more pronounced against the status quo of my schoolmates. I was fitting in less and less.” CM-70 The Songs The songs on Let It Be “range from abject dejection to blindingly upbeat giddiness to fist-in-the-air anthem stuff, and each balances catch bubblegum hooks against gonzo rock delirium in a slightly different way.” TM The album contains “convincing garage rockers, even if they reveal the Replacements’ former punk stance to be a bit of a pose.” AM “The original numbers lean toward the Faces, leaving the Ramones behind.” AM Here are thoughts on individual songs from the album. “I Will Dare” On I Will Dare, the opening number, “Westerberg and his crew come right out and hit you over the head.” TM The song has been described as “jangle-guitar power pop” PK and “country-rock shuffle.” AM The song features R.E.M.’s Peter Buck on guitar. “Favorite Thing” “This song is just a celebration of the rock and roll spirit and lifestyle.” MH It “sounds like he’s an aging rock and roll fan or even musician.” MH It’s a good statement about being who you are and being happy with that. MH “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” This is a sort of childhood nightmare kind of song where the narrator imagines the worst case scenario of having his tonsils removed. The song isn’t a deep song, but does manage to mock the reverence people can shower upon supposedly admirable professions like doctors. “Androgynous” Androgynous, with its “Ray Davies-like music hall camp,” PK has been hailed as the album’s centerpiece. PM It is “one of four major ballads that cuts to the core of Midwestern suburban alienation.” AM “The first hit of the piano strikes your nerves, tugging at your eyes, and by the time Westerberg sings, ‘Future outcasts, they don’t last,’ you’re right there beside him – in the dusty bar, within the late hours of a week night, and with nobody to hold onto but the music.” CQ It “puts Westerberg and the band’s newfound seriousness at center-stage. Still, there’s a moment where, as he sings the song’s title, you can hear him let out the faintest laugh.” PM The song was significant for bringing a spotlight to LGBQT+ issues before that term was even in vogue. It is an especially punk-rock kind of move for a band that reportedly were all straight but like to mess with expectations by doing things like wearing dresses on stage. The song serves as a powerful statement to not judge others and just live your life. The Crash Test Dummies and Joan Jett have both covered the song. “Black Diamond” Black Diamond is a “rollicking if shambolic cover of the Kiss classic.” RD “It’s a garage band version…cut in half…There’s no way if you’re a Kiss fan that you could hate this because it’s the attitude and the energy they bring to the song...They’re not goofing on it.” UAW “Unsatisfied” “The yearning teen angst of Unsatisfied makes the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ sound like inconsequential bubblegum” PM as Westerberg “rages in despair.” AM It is “a sullen ode that gives voice to a vague generational restlessness felt by many in the Replacements’ audience.” TM The song’s “shimmering acoustic guitaris belie its bitter sentiments.” RD “Seen Your Video” Seen Your Video “now sounds as dated as a ‘disco sucks’ rant, consists of bracing rockers, they’re a bit inconsequential and point the way toward the band’s deadly fascination with classic rock.” AM The song seems like it might be an instrumental, like they were “making a song and forgot to put lyrics on it” UAW but then without a minute or so left they finally come in with a vocal that lambasts artists featured on MTV and who “sold out.” “It’s basically a middle finger to the…record industry.” UAW “Gary’s Got a Boner” “The band is still joyously amateurish at times.” PK Gary’s Got a Boner co-opts “Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent AM for a song about “raging hormones.” TM The band even thought it sounded enough like Nugent’s song that they gave him a songwriting credit. Pop Kulcher’s Marc Fagel wasn’t sold on this song or “Black Diamond,” saying they are “throwaways [that]…would have fit in better on the band’s earlier albums, but the music is set off against Westerberg’s rapidly growing skills as a lyricist.” PK “Sixteen Blue” This “is one of the definitive teenage anthems of the ‘80s.” AM Westerberg “manages to do a better job of conveying teenage sexual naivete than almost anything recorded by hundreds of bands before or since.” PK The song expresses the confusion and doubt that teenagers have about sex. “Answering Machine” “Westerberg rarely was more affecting than the solo performance of Answering Machine.” AM Its “rumbling guitars and final repetitive line – ‘Oh, I hate your answering machine’ – closes the album on a powerful note.” RD The song definitely ties to a specific era when it wasn’t always easy to get a hold of someone and the frustration that went with that. The narrator struggles with what he wants to say to the other person and that he can’t talk to the person directly. Notes: A deluxe edition added covers of T-Rex’s “20th Century Boy,” the Grass Roots’ “Temptation Eyes,” and the DeFranco Family’s “Heartbeat – It’s a Lovebeat” along with the song “Perfectly Lethal,” a demo of “Answering Machine,” and “Sixteen Blue” with an alternate vocal.

Reviews: BL Blender (10/08). “100 Greatest American Albums” AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 522. EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” CM Colin Meloy (2007). 33 1/3: Let It Be. Bloomsbury Academic: New York, NY. TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 643. MH The Music Hole (3/24/2021). Album Review: The Replacements – Let It Be PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” PK Pop Kulcher/Marc Fagel Greatest Rock & Roll Albums of All Time UAW The Ugly American Werewolf in London (9/18/2024). “#199: The Replacements – Let It Be VB Vibe (Dec. 1999). “100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century,” pages 154-164. WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Links: First posted 3/20/2010; last updated 5/12/2025.