The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

my not-liking bands that were compared to the replacements might have started with goo goo dolls!? i went to some radio showcase show my senior year of high school where they played and i was like ok let's see hopefully they're good
nope

yo la tengo and MBV sounds much more appealing

Lemonheads, another boring Boston band that once had a hip reputation!

Buffalo Tom's first couple records are kinda more folky Dino Jr. Jr. I remember playing this one back in the college radio days. I think they played the Bluebird in Bloomington that year but I was not 21 yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEIb5Xrf81g

Evan Dando's current hair situation...check.

feel like Janovitz has some decent music writing.

whoah wha happen here

going back to my point about All Shook Down and Third/Sister Lovers - I'm not talking about the literal Alex Chilton/Jim Dickinson connections the band had, which were all prior to recording All Shook Down, I'm talking about parallels between how the albums were recorded, their place in the bands' respective catalogs, their overall feel, the state of the bands at the time etc. It's weird to me that, given all the Big Star connections mentioned, no one in the book seems to be aware of this...? Both albums recorded by critical darlings that failed to realize their commercial ambitions, both recorded with the band in disarray/sort of halfway to a "solo album", both helmed by drug-addled self-destructive leaders in the middle of a personal meltdown, both cobbled together from a variety of sessions featuring a variety of musicians, both featuring material that's markedly more depressive and nihilistic than before. Don't get me wrong, I still think All Shook Down is just not that good and that Third/Sister Lovers is incredible but the similarities are pretty pronounced imo.

xps

and of course there's a Velvets connection to both lol

I see that Tommy Stinson was touring with Evan Dando a couple of months ago. xpost to myself

honestly it was the stories of Tommy and Paul shooting speedballs and driving backwards down the street that made me think of Chilton circa 1975. If only Tommy and Paul had been dating twins at the time

Eh Buffalo Tom’s A-sides comp and Let Me Come Over are decent...there’s no real surprises and they’re not as distinct or as interesting as their predecessors but there’s some good songs there imo

I meant that All Shook Down wasn't exactly cobbled together, at least not the way Pleased to Meet Me was, though yeah, it was a sorta solo album in spirit with different dudes playing. I'm not sure, from memory, All Shook Down is markedly more depressive and nihilistic than the band's other stuff, but it is definitely more subdued.

I bought that Buffalo Tom album reviewed by Christgau without previously hearing it. It was shit. I won't hear Lemonheads dissing tho :)

I think you can draw a line between, say, "Sadly Beautiful" and "Holocaust", for one

xp

I feel there’s a million US/UK bands from the late 80s on who are essentially REM/Husker Du/Replacements soundalikes that are best described as Made To Be Compiled; one big comp of this stuff might actually be half decent

Being merely ok is their hallmark.

LL, I never knew about your replacements love. We could be irl friends if we lived close to each other. I'm in a book as the girl who wore a Paul Westerberg rubberband around her wrist. They were one of the first bands I fell hard for too (plus REM, not Husker Du, meh, Sugar was one of the worst live shows I ever saw).

oh man don't poke the Huskers nest around here, oy

I'll stump for the Goo Goo Dolls first two records on Metal Blade (which how weird is that) also Junk Monkey's Five Star Fling as good fake Mats

Yerac! I’d have loved to have known you as a young person! Now too obvs, we could could cook up a storm & lol about evil but my mats love has faded and I’m still a Dü partisan! Lol ❤️💜❤️

Also I really think Mould-haters may enjoy Grant Hart’s solo output more — super melodic, great songwriting about familiar and esoteric topics, varied styles/not formulaic. Esp when compared to the plates of unsalted potato slices who rode on comparisons to other bands.

I heard the unfinished Grant concept record about the Unabomber he was making before he passed, some amazing stuff but frustrating because about half doesn't have vocals, but the finished tracks were amazing

I'll stump for the Goo Goo Dolls first two records on Metal Blade (which how weird is that) ...

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, September 6, 2019 3:22 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago)

I'll go one further and stump for the WarnerBros major label debut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dohTwQWKGwU

Man you all are lighting some fires tonight. Y'all better be glad 19-year-old plains doesn't have the internet or there'd be hell to pay.

I saw the Goo Goo Dolls at CBGB once! Christ, they sucked.

Speaking of which, I saw The Lemonheads once at CBGB and they were grebt. But don’t just take my word for it, guy from my high school who became a record company exec thought so too.

I'll co-sign Superstar Car Wash.

re: BUff Tom, Let Me Come Over was a great record, Taillights Fade especially

Not sure how well this translates three decades later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVnNm-bORpk

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

otm! i love proper mats but will definitely stand up for AORwesterberg, which is i guess the "pleased to meet me" version of Can't Hardly Wait, through the Singles songs, through I dunno, the few good bits on "Eventually"

Even Here We Are, Dyslexic Heart, Blackeyed Susan, Hide N Seeking, Runaway Wind, Knockin on Mine, Tears Rolling Up Our Sleeves, love all those corny rock songs

Yeah. I'd add "best thing that never happened" to the list of stuff that holds up against the mats.

But really, David Buckley said in his Ferry/Roxy bio that even the worst Roxy record is better than the best Ferry record. This applies to Westerberg too.

so the algorithm tells me my number two song for the year was the Maxwell’s version of “Can’t Hardly Wait.” I’ll take it.

is there a thread for us all to post our “results” ?

Think people are just using My Spotify playlists, let me show you them

Maxwell's slow jam ride through "Can't Hardly Wait" is even better than Fine Young Cannibal's "Ever Fallen in Love", thanks for the tip!

lol

His this one been posted yet?
https://thekey.xpn.org/2016/03/13/listen-replacements-rock-living-hell-upenns-houston-hall-1986/

http://myfavoritealbum.libsyn.com/303-bob-odenkirk-on-the-replacements-sorry-ma-forgot-to-take-out-the-trash-1981

cool.

That's great. I'm going to check the Better Call Saul thread and make sure it's there too.

Pleased To Meet Me box coming

https://store.rhino.com/artist/the-replacements.html

Following up last year’s DEAD MAN’S POP, PLEASED TO MEET ME (DELUXE EDITION) will be available as a 3 CD/1LP set and digitally on October 9! More than half of the music (29 of the 55 tracks) on this deluxe edition set is unreleased material, including demos, rough mixes, and outtakes, as well as Bob Stinson’s last recordings with The Replacements from 1986. Pre-order your copy and listen to six previously unreleased “rough mixes,” including “Alex Chilton,” here: https://Rhino.lnk.to/pleasedtomeetme

Several exclusive bundles can also be pre-ordered now at www.Rhino.com, which include a variety of limited edition items including a t-shirt, tote bag, iron-on patch, bumper sticker, placemat,
and a cassette featuring a previously unreleased interview with Paul Westerberg recorded just before the release of the album.

i would wear that t shirt !

Don’t even like that album that much but I would too.

Could be interesting, though the six rough mixes are kind of underwhelming - the tracks themselves aren't bad, they've been issued before, but these rough mixes sound exactly like preliminary mixes that never would have made the album, nothing special.

And "Birthday Gal" (best heard on All for Nothing/Nothing for All) should have made the album. It would've been the logical album closer if "Can't Hardly Wait" had been included on Tim (also best heard on All for Nothing/Nothing for All).

Considering most of the record was assembled on a Fairlight, I’m curious in what form the rough mixes exist: as tapes? As a collection of Fairlight discs? On a Fairlight hard drive?

(I should note that I also have no idea how a Fairlight actually works, beyond the very basics.)

It's just a sampler, essentially. I don't think most of the album was assembled on a Fairlight at all. if the book is accurate I think Dickinson just used a sampler to, as needed, loop the best bits of the best takes. Which is to say, I'm sure there are lots of versions of the songs, just maybe not up to the (relatively) slick standards of the finished album.

Wonder what a Fairlight version of Birthday Gal sounds like.

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.

― U or Astro-U? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, August 1, 2019 9:37 PM (one year ago)

Another track from the upcoming Pleased to Meet Me box set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUf2x5aK1c

Also, as many figured, a Rhino rep said they hope to continue doing these box sets as an ongoing thing, similar to Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series, though the well's going to dry up much faster since they only had seven albums and an EP to work with, of which two are now done. (Also, most likely they'll jump around in terms of chronology rather than continue moving backwards one album at a time.)

can't wait to hear Stink without the strings