The Replacements - 1984 - Let It Be

It seems appropriate to start off this site with my all-time favorite album. I actually owned this on vinyl. I traded Nick for it. I then traded it to Slim ten years later for an electric guitar. Then, my ex-girlfriend's subsequent boyfriend, a real loser, sold it for meth. At least Nick still has his magic mirror. I hope.

I was in 9th grade when this was released, and I made a purchase at Maplewood Mall that October that turned out to be prescient as a semi-obsessive music fan. I bought, on cassette, the first Icicle Works album and Let It Be. I had seen Icicle Works perform "Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)" on American Bandstand, and so at least I knew them a little bit (still a great album, by the way and will likely show up on this later), but I only knew The Replacements from the free weekly papers, Twin Cities Reader and City Pages. 

It is safe to say, I love everything about it. It was made for a 14 year old making a first foray into music beyond Prince and radio hits. I listened to it so much through the next year, I remember dreaming about it in the summer of 1985. 

This is the favorite album of a number of people in my age group. When Glen and I saw The Hold Steady perform at Bottom of the Hill during Noise Pop on a rainy Sunday in 2005, I chatted with Craig Finn for about 45 minutes, and this is his favorite album. The bulk of that 45 minute chat was about Twin Cities' bands of our youths (he's also a fan of Andre Cymone's Survivin' in the 80s... another you're sure to see later).

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