As I noted with my earlier Bad Religion reissue review, the first question everyone asks when a reissue comes out is "Do I really need to buy this again?". I think that an implied second question is "Can I sell (or do without) my old copy?"

The quick answer is that this reissue will probably not replace a previous owned version of Let It Be and the bonus tracks don't provide enough value to justify buying this release a second time.

I've been trying to look at this release by what it is rather than what it could have been, but that has been hard. Rhino did such a fabulous job with the Elvis Costello reissues that I was expecting the same treatment with The Replacements set. At minimum, I would have expected all the unused tracks (below) from the Let It Be sessions would have been included on this disc.

Who's Gonna Take Us Alive
Temptation Eyes
Street Girl (version one)
Street Girl (version two)
Gary's Got a Boner (alternate version)
Perfectly Lethal
You Look Like an Adult

WIth this reissue clocking in at 55 minutes, it seems kind of strange that only two of these outtakes were included. In addition to the missing outtakes, there is so much good live material from this tour that a second disc could have been easily justified. (If anyone from Twintone is reading this - I suggest another reissue that includes ALL of the Let It Be outtakes along with the Feb '84 show from the Pop Shop, Cleveland.)

So...now that I covered what isn't there, let's take a look at what is:
- 20th Century Boy (b-side of 'I Will Dare' 12")
- Perfectly Lethal (LIB Sessions)
- Temptation Eyes (LIB Sessions)
- Answering Machine (home demo)
- Heartbeat - It's a Lovebeat (Grass Roots cover)
- Sixteen Blue (alternate version)

I would assume that most 'mats fans have "20th Century Boy" so there is about 17 minutes of new material added to this disc. The sparse bonus material makes it hard to justify owning two copies of this release. Additionally, there are some reviews posted to Amazon that say that some of the core tracks have been edited from the original release. I don't have my turntable currently set up so I can't personally comment but I'm going to keep both Twintone vinyl for the time being. (I'm also going to be keeping my "Let It Be Sessions" bootleg).

Hopefully the other Replacements reissues have more promise.