The Replacements 'Let It Be' Deluxe Box Set Reissue Party and Exclusive Pre-Sale

Let It Be by The Replacements—Paul Westerberg, Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars—originally released by highly revered indie label Twin/Tone Records, is widely hailed as one of the greatest albums of the 1980s and a cornerstone of indie rock. On November 21, the landmark 1984 album returns in a newly remastered and expanded edition from Rhino.

Let It Be (Deluxe Edition) will be available on 4LPs and 3CDs and includes the album alongside unreleased studio and live recordings.

The set gathers a wide range of unreleased material from the Let It Be sessions, including alternate versions of “Gary’s Got A Boner” and “Favorite Thing,” as well as previously unreleased outtakes “Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive” and “Street Girl.” The alternate version of “Androgynous” out today features a different vocal take and the full piano intro, restored for the first time. All five bonus tracks from 2008’s Let It Be (Expanded Edition) are included here, newly remastered for this set. 

The collection also includes Goodnight! Go Home!, an unreleased 28-song performance recorded in August 1984 at the Cubby Bear in Chicago. Sourced from an audience tape and newly remastered, it finds the Minneapolis quartet charging through material from the not-yet-released album (“I Will Dare” and “Unsatisfied”), early favorites (“Color Me Impressed” and “Takin’ A Ride”), and characteristically offbeat covers “Help Me Rhonda/Little G.T.O.” (originally done by The Beach Boys/Ronny & The Daytonas) and “Can’t Get Enough” (Bad Company).

Live at City Gardens is a six-song soundboard recording made February 11, 1984 at one of the band’s favorite punk clubs in Trenton, NJ. One highlight is a rare performance of the ballad “You’re Getting Married,” a birthday request from the band’s original manager and Twin/Tone co-founder Peter Jesperson, who co-produced the 1984 album, as well as this Deluxe Edition. Westerberg altered the lyrics mid-song, delivering them to a punk crowd Jesperson feared “might eat him alive”—but didn’t. “In all of The Replacements’ lore,” he says, “I think this is one of the greatest moments ever.”

By the time Let It Be was recorded, The Replacements had nearly outgrown their rough-edged hardcore beginnings. In their place were songs about longing, identity, and the uneasy shift from youth to adulthood. Tracks like “Unsatisfied” and “Answering Machine” embody that evolution, while “Seen Your Video” preserved their instinct for irreverence. The response was immediate, earning a rare A+ from Robert Christgau in The Village Voice and four stars from Rolling Stone. Its critical reputation only snowballed from there, eventually landing it on countless lists of the greatest albums ever made.

As a music journalist and singer and songwriter from the critically acclaimed DC-based pub-rock band the Paranoid Style, Elizabeth Nelson writes in the liner notes, “In form and function, The Replacements were the ultimate rebuke to masculine punk, and Let It Be, at its core, is a record for girls.” It’s also a record for the terminally shy, and for anyone who ever felt like a freak in their own skin. It is, in short, the blueprint for what so many of us wanted and needed rock and roll to be: a refuge, a provocation, and in the end, a way out.