Review Summary: The Replacements's change into adulthood.
Name a few music acts from 1984 and Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper or Michael Jackson come to mind. They had the hits and glory. Turn to college/post-punkers The Replacements and heads are likely to scratch. These four young men from Minneapolis wouldn't know a thing about making it into the Billboard Top 100, nor would they care. They weren't the biggest thing happening, but they were on the way to become one of the most important bands of the year after the release of Let It Be.
The album isn't like their previous works, chocked with aggressive punk and rebellious lyrics – those punk songs that ran for two minutes and under. It changed a little with 'Hootenanny', their second album release. They were leaning towards a college sound with less hardcore punk and radical edge than before. In difference, The Replacements were becoming more mature going from the angst of 'Kick Your Door Down' to airy anthem 'Color Me Impressed'.
'I Will Dare', an upbeat, foot-tapping tune opens the album. “How young are you?/How old am I?/Let's count the rings around my eyes,” Paul Westerberg sings swiftly. Chris Mars's drum-beat goes hand in hand with Bob Stinson's simple guitar melody underneath Westerberg's verse. It's not until the chorus kicks in when the band really start enjoying themselves. Bob Stinson's guitar matches with Westerberg, adding an extra nudge of pure joy; the album's biggest factor. We smile next at the catchiness of 'Favorite Thing' – it's edgy guitar breaks into the powerful chorus. Other upbeat joy-rides like the giddy 'Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out' and 'Gary's Got a Boner' chain Westerberg's perplexing lyrics together with the band. Then we're onto Let It Be's discontinued second part, full of the serious stuff. 'Androgynous' plays like a duet between Westerberg and his piano. “Here comes Dick, he's wearing a skirt/Here comes Jane, you know she' sporting a chain/Same hair, revolution/Same build, evolution/ Tomorrow who's gonna fuss,” Westerberg's vocals back up the piano's scent and really come together as one. It's a simple song that means so much in the three minutes it is.
Because never, at any moment of Let It Be's astonishing thirty-three minutes is there a dull, or boring moment. Simpler put in the word's of Dr. Frankenstein, “IT'S ALIVE!” - an album filled and sugar coated with pure joy. Never has there been an album as entertaining as Let It Be. The band cover glam-heads, Kiss, with the heavy 'Black Diamond' and make it their own, even better version. 'Unsatisfied' and 'Sixteen Blue' slow down the band's usual aura with clean and acoustic guitar thundering riffs. The moving chorus in 'Unsatisfied' reaches the highest peak yet in the maturity of the group. They've gone from drunk and angry teens baffling about rebbelling to creating their first rock n' roll ballad and additionally producing one of the best albums of all time.
Let It Be is The Replacements magnum opus. A true music masterpiece mastered by four cantankerous and festive twenty-something year olds from Minnesota. Let It Be is The Replacements's turn to adulthood, almost abandoning and turning away from their previous punk/college sound. Let It Be is a dive onto the edge of rock n' roll with both mettle and puerile lyrics which give the album it's glorified status.
Let it Be is Let it Be.
