The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

DTAS was my first Replacements album and I bought it when I was 14 and I loved it intensely. I'm sure it objectively sucks but it reminds me of my prelapsarian self. Now that I have read Trouble Boys, my feelings about this band have changed and recently I had a dream that Bob Stinson was my best friend and he was super cool until I realized during the dream that Bob Stinson was actually not a very objectively good friend and also is dead.

The whisper in the song "Don't Tell A Soul" utterly disillusioned me - I loved the band for how they fitted punk to sentimentality, but the whisper was just corny. And yeah, Stink is their best output as a unit, brawling and hilarious.

I always put these guys, Minutemen and Hüsker Dü in the same bag labelled 'canonical 80s rock bands I just don't get'. Never gave it much thought tbh.

they were like my three favorite bands for a while!!
all so different
also reminds me of a deeply horrendous period of my life but HD has emerged as the most enduring favorite, Minutemen endlessly replayable, and Replacements are absolutely the shitty boyfriend who treated me like garbage.

shoulda made that plural tbh but who cares

I love the corniness of DTAS. Personal faves include Talent Show, We'll Inherit the Earth (no prob with this one), Anywhere's Better Than Here (great opening scream) and I'll Be You.

The opening scream on side 2 was what made me totally fall in love with this band. The sentiment too. I remember exactly where I was standing when I flipped the tape and listened to it for the first time. My friend's sister's empty bedroom, standing near the closet.

Reading about how hateful/disdainful/dismissive PW was to the new fans that DTAS earned them made me realize what a choad he was. Is? Idk

the badness of dtas is extremely overstated. i like that record a lot

What about All Shook Down? That's a real good record.

not a fan!

Since thred is all like ‘how i intersected replacements,’ i was a pretty huge early phase thru Let It Be Fan, i even played shit hits the fans non-boot, til we all died. But i was meh+ on tim and meh with ~fanboy concern~ over ptmm.

I have never heard dtas or anything afterwards that was not on radio. they were somewhere between ‘too emotio-historically ~important~ to me for me to risk, and too obviously putting out some bullshit.

and thats how i break it down to a certain extent.

the making of don't tell a soul as related in the Mehr book is fairly disturbing ... i just ended up thinking: "just make a record, dudes."

The making of every album as told to Mehr is fairly disturing!

The making of every album as told to Mehr is fairly disturing!

Tyler: couldn't agree more. At a certain point in that book, I found the band (one of my favourites) quite tiresome. I felt sorry for all the record-company suits and PR people who were genuinely trying to help them.

The account of the PTMM party at the expensive French restaurant is depressing.

mats have aged the least well for me out of the bomb-burst of new favorites that exploded my head and torso in spring 1985 (black flag, minutemen, meat puppets, huskers, replacements.) black flag not on the menu anymore really either except my war obv. minutemen pups and huskers still completely rule.

At a certain point in that book, I found the band (one of my favourites) quite tiresome.
haha yeah, there's a point where it goes from devil may care rambunctiousness into genuine group psychosis I think.

Agreed, re: the book, and opportunities sabotaged. Went from "I wishwishwish the Replacements would reform and put out another album" to "maybe they've had their day and I'm okay with that".

Am not critical of any of the records. Coming aboard with PTMM, then seeing "I'll Be You" on MTV, have no problems with the sound of DTAS or ASD. If anything, being a wordplay with musical hooks fan, the straightforward pop/rock of those two make them perfect summer albums for me, along with the early PW solo records.

talent show and i won't both own

Now that I have read Trouble Boys, my feelings about this band have changed

interested to hear more about this!!

They suffered from massive low self esteem. Better to self sabotage than fail or be failed. Possibly behind the alcohol use, too.

yeah, the romantic image of the band against the world is dismantled entirely by the book ... just a group of people who were *bad* for each other.

I kinda can't listen to this band anymore because (like Nirvana) it just makes me sad.

the book didn't really ruin the music for me, actually, though it did add a less fun element to the whole thing. and the book is really great, well-written, comprehensive, a lot of amazing stories etc. one of the better rock bios in recent years for sure.

I haven't even read the book! feel like what I already know is bad enough

the book is so great, one of the best new rock books i've read in the past five or so years. but i'm not a huge replacements fan so it couldn't ruin anything for me.

And unlike many reporters Mehr can write.

oh I'll get around to it eventually

It’s well written but super depressing.

The book did not, in any way, ruin my favourite music by them. I thought less of them as people--more so for the way they behaved after Bob Stinson was gone--but the music is the music, and that never changes.

(I mean, not that I especially had any strong feelings about them as people before reading the book. Music is almost always more interesting to me than the people who made the music. Very occasionally, like with Bob Dylan in 1965, I'm immensely interested in both.)

I don't know anything about their personas so all this talk of them being vile human beings is actually kind of intriguing. I'll have to give Let It Be another shot.

Has anyone read Lemon Jail?

(I love DTAS and PTTM btw)

https://www.amazon.com/Lemon-Jail-Replacements-Bill-Sullivan/dp/1517901693/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537471702&sr=8-1&keywords=lemon+jail

It's a quick read and, in my opinion, the most successful book to capture the essence of our destructive, drunken outcast brigade in all its successes and foibles. Bill’s ever-present comic sense, woven throughout the book, paints authentically the circus world that it was. I laughed aloud many times!"—Chris Mars

A dig at Mehr's book, perhaps?

Quick read? The thing is over 500 pages.

oh never mind

Agreed, re: the book, and opportunities sabotaged. Went from "I wishwishwish the Replacements would reform and put out another album" to "maybe they've had their day and I'm okay with that".

i read that book and felt aghast -- like i couldn't BELIEVE all the chances they had and all the opportunities they were given and they chose to sabotage and burn $100 bills and trash buses and act like colossal babies. if this sort of petulant and destructive behavior is being covered by the umbrella of "low self esteem" i wonder what they would have done if they had normal self esteem?!

in the back of my mind are the people who were not given opportunities because the opportunities kept going to and being subsequently squandered by petulant money-burning attitude monsters

That is otmfm.

I posted this above, but ffs, Westerberg would trash and mock radio interviewers on the air, and then turn around and -- without the slightest hint of self-awareness -- whine about how they're not getting airplay.

punk rock, complete with the price

Westerberg would trash and mock radio interviewers on the air, and then turn around and -- without the slightest hint of self-awareness -- whine about how they're not getting airplay.

this reminds me of somebody, just can't put my finger on it hmmm

they really did pioneer the "it's not cool to try" attitude that a lot of the big indie/alternative bands had and that ultimately poisoned the minds of a lot of the people of my generation (including me)

I dunno about "pioneer" - certainly they were a rallying point for that kind of thinking for that generation, but there's lots of precedents

otm
it's a toxic attitude
it's not cool to burn money and trash stuff, that is what is not cool

I remember the scene in the Mehr book about the veteran tour bus driver (I forget who, it's been years since I read this) being really sad and pitiful. Here's this guy who's probably seen his share of idiotic rock and roll excess, and he's just kinda going "come on guys, you're going too far here."

I guess no one has read the book I linked to upthread. I may take the plunge, and if I do you can expect a full report

In the book all the guys (save maybe Tommy) more or less act like they are living on borrowed time. Why behave, why succeed, when you've been primed since birth to be a janitor, or join the army, or die? But in the end, it seems everyone but Bob came out the other side more or less intact.

The most amazing aspect of the book imo is the low bar of "failure" in that era. They would be playing to thousands, and sell hundreds of thousands of records, but that just wasn't enough by the standards of the day to make much of a mark.

Today they would be, like, Spoon or somebody?

Spoon or New Pornographers or whoever have no problem licensing material to corporate America. Westerberg would have signed a contract, after which he would've unzipped his pants and pissed on it in front of the corporate guy.

did they really sell hundreds of thousands of copies of any of their albums?