The Replacements’ Let It Be (Deluxe Edition) takes a deep and definitive look at the album that helped define alt-rock in the '80s, overflowing with songs that bleed vulnerability and wit about alienation, longing, and that endless teenage ache.
When the Replacements released Let It Be in 1984, it felt like a middle finger to the Midwest punk orthodoxy they’d helped build, and a crystal ball for everything that might come after. Forty years later, the Minneapolis misfits’ masterpiece returns in a newly remastered, expanded edition that shows its bruised brilliance still has a place in 2025. Let It Be (Deluxe Edition) reintroduces a young Paul Westerberg, Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars in all their chaotic, ragged glory. Available as a 4LP or 3CD set, the collection goes deep into the band’s archives, unearthing unreleased studio cuts, alternate takes, and a long-lost live show that captures the band’s untamed spirit in full flight.
Among the rarities are alternate versions of “Gary’s Got A Boner” and “Favorite Thing,” outtakes like “Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive” and “Street Girl,” and a different vocal take of “Androgynous,” now featuring its full, restored piano intro. All five bonus tracks from the 2008 expanded edition are also remastered and included here, sounding sharper than ever. “Unsatisfied” remains a howl of existential confusion; “Answering Machine” turns missed connections into poetry. And “Seen Your Video” still bites the hand that feeds, mocking the MTV age even as it courts it.
The crown jewel of the set might be Goodnight! Go Home!, a 28-song live recording from Chicago’s Cubby Bear in August 1984. Captured just weeks before Let It Be hit shelves, it’s a snapshot of the Mats at their most combustible and chaotic as they tear through new songs like “I Will Dare” and “Unsatisfied,” early anthems “Color Me Impressed” and “Takin’ A Ride,” and ramshackle covers of the Beach Boys’ “Help Me Rhonda” and Bad Company’s “Can’t Get Enough.”
Rhino’s exclusive bundles sweeten the deal with a 10-inch bonus disc, Live At City Garden, recorded in 1984 at the beloved Trenton punk club. One highlight is a raw, rarely heard version of “You’re Getting Married,” performed as a birthday request for the band’s original manager, Peter Jesperson. Westerberg famously rewrote the lyrics mid-song to tease Jesperson, a moment Jesperson calls “one of the greatest in all of Replacements lore.”
Critics got it immediately. Robert Christgau gave it an A+ in The Village Voice. Rolling Stone awarded it four stars. Decades later, it’s still showing up on “greatest albums ever made” lists. And for many of us who heard it as an epiphany when it first came out, it still sounds like salvation. It’s always been a record for the weirdos, the dreamers, the ones who never quite fit in. Forty years on, it’s still the sound of rock and roll finding a way out.