The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

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

26 bonus minutes of Dave Pirner yelling at cops.

Has this been discussed anywhere yet? https://www.stereogum.com/2096712/josh-boone-replacements-biopic-nat-wolff-owen-teague/news/

i saw chris r. the music writer for the strib say it was not real?

Weird if that's true, it's being reported all over the place.

Oh I see it's on his Twitter.

Along with Surly closing their beer hall? WTF, no!

There was some Replacements discussion on a Jason Isbell twitter thread (sorry, I love his twitter, more than his music, tbh), where, inevitably, someone brings up that they could have been huge, like the Stones. And Isbell, as a great songwriter, I think nails why that was never in the cards: "Those songs were just so damn deep." That is, as silly and insecure as he could be, Paul's best songs were the product of serious introspection, whether he'd admit it or not, and that kind of stuff rarely fills arenas. It's a good point, imo. "Unsatisfied" might be one of the greatest anthems ever written, but it's not the kind of anthem that sells records or tickets.

Also saw another related take on the thread that the Replacements were "all Keith Richards with no Mick Jaggers," which was sadly otm.

Yeah, more or less *sigh*

Or even anyone who wanted to be a Mick Jagger. If you look at their contemporaries who broke bigger — U2, R.E.M., 10,000 Maniacs — they all had lead singers who filled that lead performer role in ways Westerberg wasn't comfortable with. The Replacements could never decide how much they wanted people to like them.

And did their best to offend anyone who did. Oppositional attitudes like that rarely lead to career success in any field?