Rhino Records has issued some very expansive archival collections of the Replacements’ music, and, at least in terms of heft, this triple-CD set of Let It Be doesn’t quite measure up to 2019’s Dead Man’s Pop/Don’t Tell a Soul and the next year’s Pleased to Meet Me. 

But that’s only because the vinyl iteration of this title is a separate package altogether. Both the compact disc and LP sets feature a remastered version of the original long player, complemented by previously unreleased studio and live content. Fourteen tracks of the former, running roughly forty-five minutes, almost double what appeared on the 2008 Rhino reissue of this title, while Goodnight! Go Home! is a previously-unreleased twenty-eight song concert from August in the year LIB came out.

Within the context of the Minneapolis band’s history, however, their third album, issued initially on TwinTone Records in 1984, holds a different level of significance. An almost-indiscernible precision had crept into the group’s previous recordings, almost unbeknownst to its members, but musicality dominates this effort in both the musicianship and the material; the group’s chief songwriter, guitarist/vocalist Paul Westerberg, had also begun to speak in emotional complexity. 

That enlightened state of mind is obvious right from the opening of “I Will Dare” and while that overriding self-challenge falters during the course of the eleven cuts–the Kiss cover “Black Diamond” and his own “Gary’s Got A Boner” sound nothing if forced–-the Replacements nevertheless attain a new level of maturity.

If the three albums prior to Let It Be are the sound of a band struggling to be understood, this third full-length Mats record is the sound of a band struggling to understand itself and making some progress. So, even if the character portrait in the lyrics of “Sixteen Blue” is somewhat less detailed, the chiming guitar isn’t all that far removed from the sounds of their major label Warner Bros. work just around the corner, beginning with 1985’s Tim. 

Sourced from an audience tape at Chicago’s Cubby Bear, the ramshackle, borderline chaotic nature of the performance is customary for the Replacements (throughout their career). Numbers from the not-yet-released longplayer (“Unsatisfied,” “I Will Dare”) are juxtaposed with early tunes (“Takin’ a Ride,” “Johnny’s Gonna Die”), while cover songs turn up at various intervals: the Beach Boys and Ronny & The Daytonas medley of “Help Me Rhonda/Little GTO,” precedes Bad Company’s “Can’t Get Enough” with T Rex’ Marc Bolan’s “20th Century Boy” near the homestretch. 

Yet the foursome’s barely restrained vigor binds this whole performance together. And while it doesn’t take premium sound quality to comprehend the uniformity, the far-away quality of the audience recording renders it a bit difficult to hear how nuanced the Replacements sound on cuts like “Can’t Hardly Wait.” And that’s even after the application of Justin Perkins’ engineering expertise.

The breathless succession of tracks is no doubt the result of a combination of excitement and impatience on the part of a band that once couldn’t play fast enough for its own satisfaction. No question, early numbers like “Color Me Impressed” are speedy. Still, there’s just enough self-discipline in place to avoid sloppiness: at this point, on things like “Shiftless When Idle,” the Replacements knew full well how to straddle the line between spontaneity and structure (albeit they are a bit wobbly in doing so).

Likewise, over the course of this second CD, subtitled Kiss My Grassroots, there’s a tangible sense of the group instinctively filtering out the extraneous touches such as the vocal treatments on these two (inferior) versions of “Answering Machine.”  Similarly, unself-conscious restraint elevates the force of lead guitarist Bob Stinson’s solos and fills, like those on “Perfectly Legal”; he nails just enough of the notes accurately to know how far afield he can otherwise go. 

Journalist/singer/songwriter Elizabeth Nelson’s devotion to the Replacements takes the form of a scholarly treatise featured in the notes for the enclosed twenty-four-page booklet. She parses down the meaning(s) within the songs and the group dynamic to such an elaborate degree, her attention to detail becomes comparable to the arrangements of tunes like “Androgynous,” overseen by LIB’s co-producers Steve Fjelstad, Westerberg, and Peter Jesperson. 

The latter, co-curator of this vault effort with the label’s Jason Jones, contributes a more measured perspective via his prose. Yet, as former manager of the often cantankerous quartet, he communicates with marked immediacy, especially as his words are juxtaposed with action shots of the band onstage.

The combination of those elements within the graphic design of this package correlates to the sonic polish the aforementioned Perkins’ remastering affords the original album, i.e., it’s just enough. As a result, this archival effort devoted to Let It Be documents how the Replacements sounded at their best, that is, as if they were bashing away in a moment of purely joyful, unfettered inspiration.