Hootenanny

Most of the album was recorded between October 1982 and January 1983 in the Stark/Mudge Mobile Unit warehouse in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, which the liner notes describe as "a warehouse in some godawful suburb north of Mpls." Run It and Within Your Reach were cut at Blackberry Way, and Treatment Bound in a basement. The label said it sold more than 38,000 vinyl copies.

It is often regarded as the first release on which the band branched out from breakneck punk into blues, country, rockabilly and boogie. On the title track the instruments were swapped around, with Mars on lead guitar, Tommy Stinson on rhythm guitar, Bob Stinson on bass and Westerberg on drums, and Within Your Reach has Westerberg playing everything. The lyrics of Lovelines were largely taken from the classifieds in an issue of City Pages, Buck Hill is named for a ski area in Burnsville, and Mr. Whirly, a parody of the Beatles' Oh! Darling, carries the writing credit "mostly stolen." Grant Hart of Hüsker Dü made the cover under the name Fake Name Graphx, borrowing from the 1963 compilation The Original Hootenanny. Westerberg called it "our first blatant theft."

It placed 30th in the 1983 Pazz & Jop poll. Within Your Reach was later used in the 1989 film Say Anything..., on John Cusack's recommendation. Rhino reissued the album in 2008 with seven extra tracks and notes by Peter Jesperson.