Tonight I'll be doing pull-ups on the toilet POLL - Artist Poll #104 - THE REPLACEMENTS Voting Thread

Heck, I got turned away at the door for that secret Maxwell’s show back in the day so maybe I need to vote in this poll after all.

Hell, I love "Valentine." I think Slim himself lobbied heavily to get it on the album (and unbeknown to him, the label was also telling them the album was too short at ten songs under 30 minutes) - it was more or less his sole contribution to Pleased to Meet Me because they were already done recording by the time he joined the band. And I like "I Don't Know" for that matter too, but I have a slight preference for the raw studio demo that was a hidden track on All for Nothing/Nothing for All.

"Red Red Wine" definitely feels like filler, nothing special, but it's still catchy and goes down easy.

I had no idea anyone had anything against "Valentine" until just now. It'll be high up on my ballot.

Yeah "Valentine" is fine IMHO. It feels almost like it's all bridge, building anticipation for transition to the next section. (Or something. I'm no musicologist.)

You know what other vaguely wistful mid-paced track doesn't seem to have come up at all here? "Sixteen Blue". I really should give that more points somehow...

put together most of a ballot from their big three albums but i need to listen to the rest of their discog a few more times, i've never really spent much time with it until now. probably controversially i've found don't tell a soul to be much more enjoyable than its reputation would suggest and have found their pre-let it be stuff to be just too punk for my tastes.

are there any b-sides/outtakes/other non-album stuff that are must listens?

perfectly lethal mentioned upthread, but i like that one a lot too

Oooh. I reckon "Portland", from the DTAS era is pretty great. Amongst actual b-sides, the first one, "If Only You Were Lonely" is memorable. (And not even vaguely related to hardcore.)

Also: the two pre-LIB tracks Alfred mentioned should possibly be on every ballot. (Full disclosure: they're high on my own. LOL)

"Portland" will be on my ballot.

Is there truth to the legend that they/mgmt were trying to get Rod Stewert to record 'Sixteen Blue?'

Is there no love for Replacements For Sale here? I think it's become my favourite Replacements LP.

Ha, I like it a lot but somehow wasn't considering voting for it until you just said that.

Yet another version of "Can't Hardly Wait"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWkZ7lMBm4w

For Sale will be on my ballot, I haven't played it much yet but I could see it becoming my go-to Replacements album

I might need to do a deep dive in the next few days to contribute. My relationship with these guys has always been a little weird, since I was first introduced via that All For Nothing/Nothing for All comp which focused only on Tim and after, then in my first job out of college my boss would occasionally put on Don't Tell A Soul when we were working late. It wasn't really until about 2005 or so that I finally went back to anything earlier and was finally blown away by Let It Be.

Valentine is top-tier Westerberg, probably in a lot of people's top 10s, top 5 for me.

Also voted in the solo tracks poll. Which meant revisiting all of Paul's releases except for the soundtrack work, and a couple of Chris Mars solo releases-which are fun but not memorable.

Stereo/Mono really dwarfs his entire solo catalog, just an amazing collection of songs and he sounds like he's having fun to boot, so maybe that made putting up with his middling major label releases worth it? Probably ended up with something like this on the solo albums.
Stereo/Mono
14 Songs
Eventually
49:00
Folker
Dead Man Shake

Suicaine Gratification is fairly terrible, but Eventually and 14 Songs are fine sequels to All Shook Down. Voted for one track off of 49:00 which works better as a piece IMO.

don't know if I've got time to vote, but yes, Replacements for Sale un-jaded my ears. Really well recorded, captures great performances of almost all my favorite songs (I have very few post-Tim.)

shit, i haven't even heard that! gonna fix that right now

although i hear that Replacements '65 is even better

B-b-but what about Replacements VI?

are you kidding? Replacements VI is arguably the worst UK version of a US Replacements release!

Somebody's forgotten Bastards of Young...And Old. All about the bartender cover!

Are you the kind of completist, Karl, that also owns The Replacements Story?

Replacements'

i am not, but i have to leave something for old man malone to discover when i'm 90 years old!

I love Stereo and Mono very much. You got your clear-toned burning candle emo ballad thing going on Stereo, and then he Chris Gaines it into Keith Richards mode as the Grandpaboy alter-ego for a cruddy-toned (well put, Nag!) thing with Mono. I think it was seeing him on Letterman in full-on Grandpaboy mode with his dangling-glove accoutrement that first got me to take a closer look at this Paul fellow and his Replacements of yore. I would come to learn interesting facts about the performance such as: on drums is Michael Bland from the New Power Generation, and on bass of course is Joey Buttafuoco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i2mNLb8-oA

this documentary from around that time, 2001-2003 or so, features a great many other bold fashion choices and other cool aging punk weirdo behavior like smoking cigars or laying on the ground backstage in the fetal position for a few minutes before getting up to gargle and go play a super loose and sloppy version of "High Time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEipqtk-gLc

This is reminding that maybe I should vote for that Adam Horovitz favorite Replacements Going Steady.

i have that first Grandpa Boy 45 that was released about 5 years before stereo/mono, sad to see it is not going for much on discogs

oh yeah that one! the guy had a knack for single-shot music videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPEbFkrrLN0

I think it was seeing him on Letterman in full-on Grandpaboy mode with his dangling-glove accoutrement

LOL, I saw that when it aired back in the day. Great to see again, especially when Paul puts his hat on Letterman.

“Loose Ends” from Tommy’s band Bash & Pop is love at first audition here. I happened to catch them at their Long Beach, CA debut way back early 90’s but not til now am I listening to their albums.

TroubleBoys, I am liking this band better than I remembered. Something about that Stinson Brothers bass and guitar blood harmony still gets through. Cf. Instances where you can't separate the art from the artist. vs. instances where you can.

Think that’s the last time I use “cf.” as I have been recommended not to.

I have my tracks list together, need to think a bit on the solo stuff. I'm not sure I have 20 tunes I like enough to vote for, so I'll just put whatever I can muster enough enthusiasm for. Pretty much every Westerberg album that I've heard post-14 Songs — which is most but not all of them — I have found pleasant but undistinguished. Literally don't remember anything from Stereo/Mono except the Flesh for Lulu cover.

My 31st track was "God Damn Job," which I hated to cut. Hope someone votes for it!

I might vote for it. Is horsetrading votes on this thread kosher though?

This rando’s pointless assessment of all the solo stuff and what my ballot will look like:
#1-10: “Mr. Rabbit”, “Postcards From Paradise”, 8 of my favorite tracks from Friday Night Is Killing Me (Bash & Pop)

#10-20: a couple other stand-outs from Stereo/Mono era, maybe 3? from Open Season (nice surprise!), like 1 or 2 from 90’s major label Paul, one from The I Don’t Care, and just because I respect the gesture of it, at #20: (49:00).

putting two covers and a bunch of that Bash & Pop pap above this is wacky to me, but you do you rattle, you do you

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

Amongst actual b-sides, the first one, "If Only You Were Lonely" is memorable

a perfect song. i love the sad drunken paul acoustic countryish subgenre and i love that they doled 'em out sparingly and reluctantly (and sometimes a little plugged in and a little more drunken, shoutout "treatment bound"). they were really good at sequencing and strange collisions, especially in the early days. (shoutout also, obviously, "never talking to you again," which is much more sober and clear-headed, much less country and not a replacements song but, otherwise, same thing).

Xpost: Best to be somewhat respectful of one another's voting decisions, I think. *Everyone's* ballot is completely and utterly wrong. Especially mine. Goes without saying really. :)

I've enjoyed me some Bash & Pop in the course of this exercise. Embarrassingly I'd not knowingly heard any of it before and a brisk sampling would probably have suggested I wouldn't like it much, but I ended up throwing some points their way. Mr Stinson is onto something there methinks.

I quite like the look of the 'other' side-poll now. 72 distinct tracks have appeared on ballots and the distribution of the votes has pleasing curvature to it. Meanwhile, I think a little over 100 Replacements tracks have been given the nod.

Hell they didn't have many more than that, did they?

That rough list at the top suggests 180+ distinct compositions with a commercial release. But that includes the 20-odd TSHTF covers. And the dozens of posthumously-released outtakes. Pretty sure there are still a few conventional album tracks that haven't attracted a vote yet either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UJcXZ3NrCQ

10/16/83 opening for X in Minneapolis

Cool, thanks.

Re the solo/other ballot:

Not sure how many people need to know this but I think it might be necessary to present both a score for 49:00 as an integrated whole AND scores for constituent parts. And y'all can decide for yourselves which final ranking feels right at rollout time. Some of its individual sections/songs seem popular and at least one re-appears on a different release. I can make the votes already received work both ways.

Any future voters for 49:00 as a whole are encouraged to keeping noting, where applicable, constituent songs one would have voted for as standalone tracks.

I specifically left 49:00 off my solo/other list b/c I thought it would be too hard to tabulate. I remember being kinda miffed when it and the other 5:05/3oclockcreep releases came out at the time - 'why does this songwriter continually self-sabotage his career' thoughts. Paul gonna Paul.

I wonder about Westerberg's financial situation. He obviously has done some things "for the money" over the years but also a lot of times has seemed indifferent to it. I have no idea what kind of income something like the Replacements catalog generates on an annual basis. I assume not tons, but maybe enough?

I think he's doing fine, and it probably helps that he lives a pretty modest lifestyle in an area with an average cost of living. (I think Minneapolis is pretty much at the median. A city like Chicago is noticeably more expensive, and then cities like San Francisco or New York City would be significantly more than double in cost.)

FWIW, it was mentioned briefly, but when they did the reunion tour, he had just gotten divorced which likely put some financial strain on him. But it's likely his long inactivity helped keep his financial obligations relatively low (assuming any decision or settlement was based on his income from that same stretch), and the reunion probably shored up his finances to meet those obligations.

(Possibly too) late lobbying post: the originally UK-only track "Nowhere Is My Home" from (approximately) the Tim era was already mentioned early in the thread (by birdistheword, I think) but here's a Youtube link to reinforce the crucial, crucial message!

I am aware of that track and have listened a few times- it was on some comp or other over here, maybe the one called something like All Or Nothing At All but it never hooked me.

Word. It seems to be on expanded Tim issues too these days.

I could almost vote for a 10 second excerpt of the lead guitar hook alone. LOL.