It seems there are always great bands that are massively influential and critically praised, yet remarkably their album sales and celebrity remain miniscule.
The Replacements was such a band.
In 1984 the Replacements released their third full-length album on Twintone Records, Let It Be.
The album, which is a masterpiece of indie and early alternative rock, landed the band on a major record label, Sire Records, and was critically acclaimed while never even gaining platinum sales status.
The album provides a good blueprint for what would be called "grunge rock" less than a decade later.
Singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg displays angst by the truckload on some tracks and then irreverent and smug humor on others.
The album kicks off with "I Will Dare" in which Westerberg tells the listener to "count the rings around my eyes" to tell his age.
The bouncy beat of the song seems contrary to the pain in Westerberg's nicotine and alcohol scarred voice, but somehow the band seems to pull it all together with the notable help of a guitar solo by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck.
The second track, "Favorite Thing," is the hardest on the album and displays the band's punk roots from the Minneapolis club scene. The song is another standout on an album full of them.
Two songs that display the band's sense of humor are "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" and "Gary's Got a Boner."
The songs stand in contrast to the other more heartfelt vocals of some of the other songs found here.
They are hardly of the same caliber as the serious songs, but it's still hard not to smile during the "rip, rip, we're pulling them out now" in the chorus of "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out."
Westerberg vents his anger very noticeably during "Seen Your Video," a very obvious attack on a young MTV.
"We don't want to know your phony rock n' roll," Westerberg screams.
Let It Be's true highlights come in three of the slower torment-laden songs near the end of the album.
"Unsatisfied" features Westerberg imploring listeners to "Look me in the eye then tell me that I'm satisfied." Westerberg's slowed-down lyrics and beautiful 12-string acoustic guitar make this the best and saddest song found here.
"Sixteen Blue" finds the 23-year-old singer reminiscing about his teenage years.
Finally "Answering Machine" closes the album with Westerberg lamenting a lost love singing "How do you say you're lonely to an answering machine?" It's lyrics like these that make these songs the high points of Let It Be.
The songs manage to be at once musically sound and lyrically and emotionally moving. They prove to be just a precursor to a songwriting career that has yielded wonderful work and little fanfare.
The Replacements career lasted ten years, ending with their breakup in 1990.
Although they never achieved the success they deserved, their influence can be clearly seen in much of the alternative rock that became phenomenally successful in the 1990s.
Let It Be stands as the pinnacle of the band's career, displaying a young band just hitting its stride and a young songwriter hitting all the right emotional chords.
