And then came 1984's Let It Be. Naming your third album after the Beatles' swan song takes either artistic confidence or sheer screw 'em guts. The Mats had both by this stage, coming up with a tremendous disc that's regularly called one of the best of the 1980s. There's sheer gold on this album track after track – "I Will Dare," "Sixteen Blue," "Androgynous." The band hasn't given up their bratty, loud side – witness "Gary's Got A Boner" or Kiss cover "Black Diamond" – but clearly Westerberg is looking toward loftier goals than being a soundtrack for beer bashes.

In their final albums, the Replacements would sink a little too much into sentiment – especially after hard-partying Bob Stinson was kicked out of the band – but on Let It Be, they find a perfect balance between rock and heart. "Unsatisfied" is perhaps the Replacements' best moment to date, an every-man anthem response to Mick Jagger's "Satisfaction." "Look me in the eye and tell me / that I'm satisfied," Westerberg wails over a track that builds in momentum to a heartbreaking climax. It's hard to believe this is the same band that was singing "I hate music / it's got too many notes" just a couple years before. Bonus tracks added to Let It Be include excellent outtakes "Perfectly Lethal" and "Temptation Eyes," which wouldn't be out of place at all on the album itself, plus a fun cover of T. Rex's "20th Century Boy."

In their lifetime the Replacements were critics' darlings and a lifeline for a small, dedicated fan base. By the time word was getting out about them, they broke up in 1991. Rhino's dazzling restoration and expansion of their first four discs – and the second set coming this fall – make a valiant case for them possibly being the best band the '80s ever spawned. If you've never heard the Replacements before, it's never too late to start.