In the summer of ’88, a couple of months and a bit of luck changed everything. Financed by the sale of a pretty decent cassette collection, I dove headfirst into records. What I brought home would shape my entire musical DNA: R.E.M.’s Murmur and Reckoning, the Pixies’ Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, Hüsker Dü’s Warehouse, Dinosaur Jr.’s Bug, Violent Femmes’ debut, Dead Kennedys, Dream Syndicate, Giant Sand, Thin White Rope, Butthole Surfers’ Hairway to Steven, Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime … and Let It Be by The Replacements.

The album cover had immediate appeal: Four restless hoodlums slouched on a Minneapolis rooftop, casually glancing in all directions and nowhere. Their previous record, Hootenanny, hinted at a more eclectic sound than their sloppy punk roots, but in 1984, Paul Westerberg’s bruised heart and melodic genius finally collided with the band’s booze-soaked, working-class swagger. The result is a rare moment of drunken brilliance.

The title, the hooks, the ragged beauty nods to the Beatles as much as the Clash. The grit, the rasp, the swing is pure Stones and Faces. The Replacements stumbled into adulthood chasing melody over mayhem, and created a blueprint for college rock, Americana, grunge, indie — hell, the whole underground map of the next decade. Their cover of Kiss’ “Black Diamond” collides arena-rock dinosaurs with alleyway punks. Opener “I Will Dare” has Westerberg crooning restless love while strumming mandolin, plus R.E.M.’s Peter Buck drops in on guitar. It’s like Springsteen for the post-Born to Run kids: Romantic, reckless and totally theirs. From there, it’s a beautiful mess with acoustic detours, punk blasts (“We’re Comin’ Out”) and aching ballads like “Androgynous” and “Sixteen Blue.” That marriage of chaos and clarity made Let It Be both a cornerstone of the 1980s and an eternal classic.

This album sounds like basement floors sweating into cracked sidewalks, spilling out into smoke-choked clubs. It’s the echo of a band that turned a suburban rooftop into a stage – and left the walls humming four decades later.

Originally published on tidal.com/magazine August 22, 2025