The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

Yes.

Bob is on the right channel on that particular version, from what I can hear.

The actual solo break is played on the other channel but the riffage and fills on the right sound more like Bob.

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

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, August 1, 2019 8:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I never thought of the production on Tim as muddy...if anything, it's a precursor to the reverb-drenched DTAS (compare "Here Comes A Regular" with "Rock & Roll Ghost"...or "Little Mascara" to "Anywhere's Better Than Here"). One reason DTAS' production didn't seem super-jarring at the time was that Tim and PTMM softened up Replacements fans for it. Tim was the first 'mats record where my immediate reaction to the production was, "Well, look at you! Mr. Professional Recording Band on a major label with the big reverb sound!"

(Fortunately, said production hasn't dated nearly as poorly as that of DTAS.)

I'm really surprised that there's never been one of those big song polls for them (could've sworn there was) ... Someone should do that.

OTM!

This version of "Achin' To Be" seems to be an improvement upon first listen.

Also wondering if Paul and Juliana Hatfield ever duetted on “Temptation Eyes.”

Barreling through Trouble Boys, christ this is depressing.

it's kind of staggering how the band famous for being fucked up and dysfunctional is even more fucked up and dysfunctional than you could have imagined

yeah, it's v compelling and a great read but yeesh. La Lechera's take itt most closely mirrors my own, I think.

I still keep going back to the I Don't Cares album, it's gotta be the best thing Westerberg's done since Pleased To Meet Me. The peaks on that album really nail it on all the strengths that made the Replacements great.

one of the most striking things about their general fucked-upness/dysfunction/assholery is how fortuitous their timing was. They came up at a time when there was a burgeoning underground cottage industry that could hype them up and sustain them and then pass them on to a major label systems that was simultaneously printing and burning money. Imagine them coming up in the 2000s, they wouldn't have made it past one record.

they always seemed to find people that genuinely believed in them, who they never failed to let down

Imagine them coming up in the 2000s, they wouldn't have made it past one record.

Or earlier than that. Would they have been an on-and-off band like Big Star?

Maybe not, there seemed to be a real bond between the 4 mats. But I'm not sure they would have been together for as long as they were in the 80s.

In the 90's, they may have been Pavement.

pavement were careerist pros compared to the mats

yeah seems unlikely that Matador would indulge the Mats combative bullshit but eh idk.

if they'd come up slightly later they *might* have been able to pull off a Royal Trux-type career

but even there, prickly as they can be Neil and Jennifer are/were two relative workaholics

pavement were careerist pros compared to the mats

Yeah, absolutely. To me Pavement did inherit that "straddle the line between comedy and tragedy" thing, but they had more of a head on their shoulders, you'd even say they were shrewder.

Pavement were sloppy and confrontational in their way, but the 'Mats were downright destructive both to themselves and to everything around them. I mean just consider how much $$$ they cost their label with their grade school bullshit.

for guys that repeatedly professed a fear of ending up as janitors, they sure didn't seem to have much sympathy or awareness of all the people that must've had to clean up after their rampaging destructive nonsense

maybe that was all just self-loathing "shit, I'd sure hate to have to clean up after ME!"

The interesting question to me is whether Westerberg needed all that bullshit to fuel him. Would a less chaotic band have given him anything to work with? Dude can barely sing, was a half-hearted punk with a classic rock jones, somehow was also a great songwriter, but I don't know if he would have discovered that in a more structured environment.

yeah the self-mythologizing is so central to his songs

The interesting question to me is whether Westerberg needed all that bullshit to fuel him.
Fuel him into writing "my heart could use some glasses"? Lol, I can't theorize about what if he had had a different band, seems like he was pretty chaotic/destructive/petulant, etc on his own

how clearly I remember the soul-crushing disappointment the first time I read the title "Dyslexic Heart", only to be followed shortly by the greater disappointment of actually hearing it

same
i will however continue to stand up for corny old "runaway wind"

i loved it when it came out, and it still makes me have a feeling. it's a corny and good song.

I can't theorize about what if he had had a different band, seems like he was pretty chaotic/destructive/petulant, etc on his own

I agree with that...I've only read the chapter from "Our Band could be your life", though I do have "Trouble boys" in my backlog. Anyway, haven't read that, my opinion is very possibly less informed, but considering the way Westerberg's solo career turned out, he surely was a big part of the problem. Weird stuff like the screwdriver hand injury seem like could only happen to him.

Oh he was definitely self-destructive on his own. I guess I mean I don't think he would have happened at all with a more together band. Like, I don't think there's an alternative universe version of the Replacements that's less dysfunctional.

In the alternative universe, he's just a fuckup at the bar playing bad cover versions and getting thrown out.

In the alternative universe, he's just a fuckup at the bar playing bad cover versions and getting thrown out.

isn't that pretty much how it worked in this universe?

he's just a fuckup at the bar playing bad cover versions and getting thrown out.

Aka that guy you or someone you know dated for 5 minutes

When I was learning how to play the guitar, I learned a lot of replacements songs and had this grand idea of getting together an all girl cover band that just played 'mats songs at weddings.

It's funny how at the time (on the cusp of fame/major label jump)... Soul Asylum was just this amazing, insanely captivating live band, basically everything that their crosstown rivals The Replacements were not. But flash forward 30 years and one band's legacy is a cult legend, and the other one is a punchline, if even that...

in random conversation, if you can somehow seamlessly insert "...we could build a factory and make misery..." it usually gets chuckles.

gettin through the epilogue. do ppl ever draw comparisons between All Shook Down and Third/Sister Lovers? Seems like an obvious parallel in a lot of ways, even if the latter is much better than the former.

The connection is Jim Dickinson salvaging the sessions for Pleased to Meet Me the way he did for Big Star, albeit less creatively.

xp:
Think you may be the first on that one, Shakey.

Right after I finished that book I probably spent more time than I should have listening to Paul - and Tommy!- solo projects.

Feeling that Soul Asylum comparison.

Did Jim Dickinson produce All Shook Down? Thought it was only Pleased To Meet Me.

this amazing, insanely captivating live band, basically everything that their crosstown rivals The Replacements were not

this is insane.

(re: the Replacements, SA were a great live band)

All the Mpls heads I know who were around back in the day if you asked who was the best live band would say "Soul Asylum", like not even a pause to think, even people I know who hated the 90s SA still talked about them like people talk about James Brown in the 60s

xpost No, I meant that Pleased to Meet Me has the Big Star connection, but not All Shook Down.

And yeah, Soul Asylum (and to an extent the Goo Goo Dolls!) had pretty great live reputations. And Buffalo Tom (who were nicknamed Dinosaur Jr Jr.).

my goodness, james brown?
that seems hyperbolic

buffalo tom's songs were so boring! where is all this hyperbole coming from?

I suppose there's at least one big difference that tilts the scale in favor of the Mats, and it's the songs.

agree. saw both, in Minneapolis, many times. Soul Asylum were amazing. but the Replacements where amazing and had better songs. best live band of the time for me, and not because of the mythologized f-ing up. only saw them go totally off the rails a couple times (along with a couple no shows ("gone fishing," "Tommy hurt himself mowing a lawn")), and a jazz musician friend who was with me at one of those, considers it the best rock show he's every seen.

Soul Asylum were always winning these "best live act" polls, or "best underground live act" polls or whatever. They got so boring (as did Buffalo) that people forget they were ever raucous live acts. Like, look at this Christgau Buffalo Tom review:

Big Red Letter Day [Beggars Banquet, 1993]
In which the purely horrendous Dinosaur Jr. clones of Birdbrain enlist the aid of reputed pop producers to reconfigure themselves as virtually mediocre Soul Asylum drones. Don't despair, children, the attempted J Mascis roar is still with us--augmented, as they say, by jangle, harmony, and the occasional tunelessly rendered tune. Does college radio really believe this is art and Janet Jackson isn't? C

Sure, he doesn't like it, but he even says they used to be Dino Jr clones and then goes on to compare them to SA. They were in that same mix.

Here's his review of the first SA, fwiw:

Made to Be Broken [Twin/Tone, 1986]
Unless the meaning of life is passing me by, Bob Mould's proteges are the latest concept band, admired more for their correct aesthetics than for how they actually sound (or what they actually say). Fast turmoil rools, with hints of metal anthem and country warmth sunk deep enough in the mix that nobody'll cry corny. As a concept, pretty admirable.B

Buffalo Tom love is baffling to me. I remember hearing "Soda Jerk" on the radio a lot, and seeing them on My So-Called Life (were high school kids into Buffalo Tom in 1994?), and figured faceless blandness/bland facelessness was apparently the new vitality.

(But I've only heard "Soda Jerk," so maybe that's not representative of what they do/did?)

I have no idea. I am honestly not sure I've heard them beyond the radio hit. same with sa. I just know they had their fans back in the day.