The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

OMG that is so cute I love it

My path went along the lines of

All Shook Down - the only album I ever listened to in its entirety while they were still formally a band.
Let It Be
Pleased to Meet Me
Hootenanny
Tim
Don't Tell A Soul
Sorry Ma
Stink

So it's weird that I always had warm feelings for All Shook Down, but not Don't Tell a Soul. DTAS is just a cold record with a lot of life choked out of it, for me. I'm very much looking forward to hearing it with a little more blood pumped through its veins.

Otm

I think with DTAS it's got the hyper overproduction but it's ultimately a regular Replacements record, where at least with All Shook Down he was trying to do something different (though I wished I liked it more)

I listened to Stink when I was reading the book, what a goddamn perfect record

I like ASD, but like I was trying to stammer out up there, it's probably because it was the first record from them I heard.

I mean, I was aware of "I'll Be You", but imagine thinking a band was some sort of Psychedelic Furs rip-off and then hearing "Bent Out of Shape" for the first time.

Stink is absolutely their greatest record, praise be to T Katzmann for pressing record as the cops got on the mic

A friend was having a "bring an 8mm film" party. I asked a crush if she'd want to help me make an "Achin' to Be" video - envisioning mixing shots of trees / water / sunlight with her walking down a street looking pensive. Not that original, but... She didn't know the band and thought it sounded weird. Fair play. A few years later, she mentioned that she really liked that song. Ended up building a paper-mache head / shoulders and setting it on fire to The Sidewinders' "What Am I Supposed to Do". My artistic ideas never actualize as well as in my imagination.

Stink is absolutely their greatest record

this day in wrong opinions

Totally disposable except for "Go"

lmao

lol so wrong, it's absolutely my favorite as well

It ain't my favorite, but Stink sure is better than the current version of DTAS.

Huge fave of mine as well. In fact "Go" is the one I like the least!

oh man stick 'Kids Don't Follow' in my veins.

If Westerberg had written another song half as good as "Dope Smokin' Moron" I would almost understand all the 'Mats worship. Almost.

"Fuck School"? Are you kidding me? Where's the 4 page Uncut oral history of that song.

Another vote for the awesomeness of “Kids Don’t Follow” from Stink

Yeah, Stink is up there.

Okay this new mix of “Talent Show” is pretty good, definitely an improvement. Think I like the banjo now that I can hear it, but time will show the wiser.

"Kids Don't Follow" and "Go" are so great that, for me, the rest of Stink (which I just don't remember) is irrelevant.

I will never forget Goddamn Job

clemenza consistently with the worst old-person takes on 80's punk, "irrelevant" my ass

"Dope Smoking Moron" absolutely fucking rules as well

Stink has such wicked buzzsaw and tossed-off wit. First gen hardcore was all about the riffs and finesse, but they make it seem even easier. "Stuck in the Middle" is my fav of their pogo punk songs.

(xpost) It was so funny you pretending you had file-murdered me or whatever the past few months--the way you'd immediately post after me sometimes, and not reference what I'd just posted, for effect. Please go back to pretending. For the time being, let me simplify what I posted for you: for me--for me--two phenomenal songs are enough to render the rest of an EP irrelevant. That's a compliment. Maybe the rest of it is good, maybe it's not--at the time I decided the rest of the record wasn't nearly as good, bu I don't remember, and I don't feel compelled to check. Those two songs are enough.

Also, why am I not surprised you're somebody who earnestly uses "takes" as a noun? I'm not really a "take" kind of person. I state opinions, write stuff down, etc. One of my favourite Marcus lines ever: "Noah's take on the Flood: 'Big, isn't it?'" He was writing in 1987.

yall are both good posters

for me, the Replacements were never destined to create a "mature" album that was completely successful, so I love Stink because their talent for songs was so evident they couldn't even hide it in these tossed of "jokes" that were better than most band's most earnest efforts... they threw off these incredible shards of melody at a million miles an hour

I was never--not then, not now--a big fan of their jokey side, while at the same time realizing that without that, they simply wouldn't have been the Replacements. So it's not anything I ever wanted to change...I just kind of worked around it.

I like Stink. Regardless, I think the album is maybe more/as indicative of things to come as the similarly formative but not really definitive Land Speed Record.

I'm a Hootenanny guy myself. Have we ever polled their albums?

I don't know about that, but I'm really surprised that there's never been one of those big song polls for them (could've sworn there was):

ILM Ballot Polls for 2014 and beyond -- order, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

Someone should do that.

it's really too bad that 1) Tim has such dull production and 2) they couldn't finish Can't Hardly Wait, which along w Nowhere is My Home could have replaced two of the three throwaways: Dose of Thunder, I'll Buy or Lay it Down Clown

you're crazy, "I'll Buy" rules

I like "Dose of Thunder" and "Lay It Down Clown" a lot too

but to reiterate: "I'll Buy" rules

Always felt that "Let It Be", "Tim" and "Pleased To Meet Me" were absolutely perfect albums. No filler as far as I'm concerned!

ums otm throughout thread, esp his um, take, on Stink.

“Can’t Hardly Wait” always seemed to be Sacrificial Victim A on the altar of the Nu-‘Mats.

was always such a magic song live and then when Pleased to Meet Me came out it didn't have it (much as I love that record).

Yeah, exactly

in the dark days before Napster/etc I knew of the Replacements by reputation, and saw Tim on CD for cheap so bought it having never heard a note by them before, and did not get it at all, thought it was shit and sold it on. I was expecting raucous punk rock and it did not deliver. of course later I heard Sorry Ma and that was what I was expecting the Replacements to sound like. I have since then listened to most of their later stuff and I think mostly in chronological order, and that allowed me to "get" Tim a bit more. I still think the production is bad though

(xxxp) "dose of thunder," in all its unfinished kiss wannabe glory, is a kinda perfect distillation of who they were.

to me it feels like a half hearted attempt to be a band they used to be

the version of 'Can't Hardly Wait' on The Shit Hits The Fans is worth seeking out if you haven't heard it.

If you have problems with every one of their records (and love parts of every one of them), I'll again heartily recommend a compilation I mentioned earlier in this thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_You_Know_Who_I_Think_I_Was%3F

For me, they get it almost exactly right ("Johnny's Gonna Die" is missing, maybe one or two others I'd want on there), and there's also a great extra song, "Pool and Dive."

the version of 'Can't Hardly Wait' on The Shit Hits The Fans is worth seeking out if you haven't heard it.

I was really impressed at the time that they were the band most loved by writers at the Village Voice in the 80s. I still like them

Pretty sure that'd be R.E.M. if you went by Pazz & Jop--you'd also have to check Husker Du, Sonic Youth, etc. I don't think Public Enemy or any hip-hop band had enough albums to compete.

i like basically every track on tim, but i do kinda wish there were a version with less muddy production

I loved that P&J represented Husker Du, Sonic Youth, REM, etc, but it seemed at the time like the VV really had a thing for the Mats

(xpost) Retirement leaves me lots of time to do important work like this.

Pazz & Jop points, '80s (albums only, and only those in the Top 40):

R.E.M. - 986 + 793 + 526 + 433 + 420 + 129 = 3,287
Replacements - 158 + 937 + 865 + 846 + 290 = 3,096
Husker Du - 658 + 535 + 457 + 372 + 350 = 2,372
Sonic Youth - 186 + 313 + 716 = 1,215

R.E.M. had more total points, but I think you're right in an important way: three times the Replacements finished ahead of R.E.M. in the same year.

I refuse--refuse--to check U2.

Live at Maxwell's presents so much of their best material without any of the Sire albums production choices. Should have been officially released years ago, could have been canonical like 1969: The Velvet Underground Live

Yes. Was just listening to that particular version of “Can’t Hardly Wait” after the discussion earlier.

That riff is exciting when one of the guitars playing it or playing off it is played by Bob Stinson, kind of boring in any other hands.