1984: THE REPLACEMENTS
Let It Be
One way to tell Let It Be was the Replacements' last true indie release: the very title. Would any corporate label's nervous-Nelly lawyers have let them get away with nicking the Beatles like that? Then again, there was something so unassumingly, charmingly careless about the band that you could almost — almost — imagine the rip-off was undeliberate. Audacity, or accident? This Minneapolis foursome often seemed to be treading that fine line, with shows that devolved from mosh-pit rave-ups to drunken looniness, anchored by the acclaimed songwriting of Paul Westerberg, who seemed eager to take the piss out of his own most sensitive efforts. This 1984 LP caught them at a great transitional moment: not yet having shed their early scrappiness, while Westerberg came into his own as a writer. They could do vicious (''Seen Your Video'' hardly needed any commercialism-indicting lyrics beyond its title) or go goofball (''Gary's Got a Boner,'' anyone?) and even turn out a pop classic or three — like the plaintive ''Answering Machine'' — in the midst of the glorious mess.
ESSENTIAL TRACK ''I Will Dare''
Written by Leah Greenblatt, Simon Vozick-Levinson, Chris Willman, Sean Howe, Clark Collis, Shirley Halperin, and Whitney Pastorek
Who are the indie bands to watch for in the future? See EW.com's coverage of South by Southwest to find out.
