I hate ILoveMusic, it's got too many POLLS - Artist Poll #104 - THE REPLACEMENTS - RESULTS

i suddenly hate my ballot ;_; i didnt even vote for unsatisfied & put bastards at #28 #fail

but back to answering machine, a thing i really love about the Mats & paul’s writing especially is the minutiae of life that he includes. the songs feel like such a lived experience of the 80’s in a way that isnt nostalgic but factual

idk

bastards of young was my In into the Replacements. for a long time, i just associated them with that song. loved the SNL performance (one of the reliably more findable videos from early Youtube days), loved the toss-off video (bruce springsteen did a cover of the video a few years later with "brilliant disguise", but he added his a human body to the shot). the raw thrill of it has somewhat worn off through overplaying it through my 20s, but even now, the first verse still rips so hard

God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled
It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten

the songs feel like such a lived experience of the 80’s in a way that isnt nostalgic but factual

Which has to do with the details, like you say. Not just a lived experience of the '80s but a lived experience of the '80s for a lower-middle-class guy in Minneapolis who isn't sure what to do with himself.

I think "Bastards" was the only Replacements song I definitely knew was a song by a band called the Replacements for a looong time. The video popped up on Rage from time to time and I thought it (principally the video, initially!) amazing as a youngster.

https://images2.imgbox.com/2c/c7/MnHwOLlk_o.jpg

#4
Can't Hardly Wait
from The Shit Hits the Fans (live, 1985) and Pleased to Meet Me (studio, 1987)
Score: 828
Votes: 36 (4)
Youtube: promo video

Youtube: Tim version!

best part of bastards is the beginning, worst part is the end.

the middle is pretty sweet

There is one in the top 3 I'm drawing a blank on, but there goes my #1.

Left/Chilton/Dare in some order

the joe pera joke about “baba o’riley” applies to “bastards of young” too, i think. they realized they wrote a perfect song, panicked, and added that coda

Had "Can't Hardly Wait" at #16, despite issues with the officially released studio version.

Bacobits OTM.

Chilton is the one I'd lost track of, in the 20s on my ballot.

the line "i'll be home when i'm sleeping," with the iii chord on "sleeping," is absolutely everything. my #2.

I should say that:

- two "CHV" votes were emphatically for the Tim-era demo.
- The TSHTF version is contained in the Youtube clip of the whole album, near the start of the thread.

I'm glad Pleased To Meet Me is holding its own. It was my first Mats album - I rescued it from a bargain bin. I was prepared to take a chance on the 'Mats, even though I wasn't impressed by the only other Westerberg songs I knew - his two songs on my sister's copy of the Friends soundtrack.

XP: "CHW", even

lol there has got to be a short list of perfect songs with weirdly dumb or out of place codas. Bastards of Young, Baba O'Riley, Zep's The Ocean...

https://images2.imgbox.com/91/8d/pPvUt3lz_o.jpg

#3
Left of the Dial
from Tim (1985)
Score: 857
Votes: 36 (5)
Youtube: original promo video

is it weird that my favorite thing about "left of the dial"
is the stick clicks? wasn't going to vote for it. but then i relistened to make sure.

fucking anthem

can't argue at all with #1 and #2, one of which was my #1.

"Left of the Dial" was my #1. Five to one, baby.

so in 2012 my students at the station recorded their version for College Radio Day. It moves me.

youtube.com/watch?v=_so4E2ttTOw

fucking anthem

― bunny slopes

hell yeah! my #2. left of the dial --> Can't Hardly Wait is a great live move too

I guess Warner Bros muted the sound! Oh well. Dig the images.

Wasn't expecting this so high - it kind of sneaks up since it's not an anthem like 'Hold My Life' or 'Bastards', or an emotional gut punch like 'Here Comes A Regular'.

another thing about "left of the dial": that wasn't a phrase that people used before that song, as far as i know. they invented that. possibly one of their most lasting influences!

Suzanne Vega had left of center about the same time too. Lots of left happening.

but left of center was more of a general cultural/social positioning. left of the dial was specific to radio, and radio embraced it.

Idk. This was my #1 - I saw Joe Pera mentioned above and this song does a similar thing. Once that opening guitar chimes in ...

i wasn't expecting it so high either but it's where i had it so i'm very glad

That it’s a track 9, generally not a showcase kind of spot, too.

"Left of the Dial" was my #1 ... it's perfectly of its moment, like a photograph, but also a culmination of college radio before 1985

I did just listen to it - the version in my head is much more mid-tempo and restrained than the actual version is.

Left of the Dial is their best song, anthemic, longing

The competition for #2 through #4 was pretty close. They were jiggling around constantly. Another couple of ballots and those four could have been reversed again. But #1's lead over the rest has been significant and entirely consistent since the pool of ballots was very small.

i had Left of the Dial in the lower part of my ballot but its still v good/great

https://images2.imgbox.com/0d/c4/cbuXl1sr_o.jpg

#2
Alex Chilton
from Pleased to Meet Me (1987)
Score: 874
Votes: 35 (4)
Youtube: audio track

Watching Color Me Obsessed now. Pretty interesting. Quite a few name interviewees.

I NEVERRR TRAVEL FAAAAAAAARRRRR

WITHOUT A LIIIITLLLE BIG STAAAAAAR

https://images2.imgbox.com/6b/85/EYmgCisH_o.png

#1
I Will Dare
from Let It Be (1984)
Score: 972
Votes: 36 (3)
Youtube: audio track

confession: Alex Chilton was the song that got me into the Replacements. We used to play Rockband a ton, and Mr Veg added Alex Chilton when they released it as dlc. I’d never heard it before & I was like O_O “what is this magical song i fucking love it” and got all their albums and here I am

I Will Dare is an excellent song to dance to

Pete Buck mandolin solo FTW! REM & the Mats were the Beatles & Stones of 80s college rock radio. some friends & I even made a pilgrimage from Michigan to Athens, GA on a whim one snowy March weekend, driving straight through and I distinctly remember having the windows down between Atlanta & Athens when left of the dial came on a left of the dial radio station "sweet Georgia breezes, safe cool and warm" - everything just clicked into place.

Thanks everyone for voting and writing stuff. I'll post full voting numbers a little later...

Interesting that #1 and #3 had the same number of votes, in fact more first place votes for “Left of the Dial,” but still got knocked out in points. Can’t complain with the top 3!

Well done 3xNag!

Also, I docked “I Will Dare” on my ballot specifically b/c of Buck’s contribution.

great #1, BrianB otm re R.E.M./Mats and the Athens/Minneapolis connection

i could be convinced that any of the top 12-15 or so of this poll could have been the #1. making setlists must have been hard for them near the end, there's like a couple dozen that you HAVE To play

yes!!!!!!!! i bought "let it be" because joe hanna, the proprietor of play it again records in bethlehem, pa., told me i had to, and "i will dare" was therefore the first replacements song i ever heard, and i was hooked forever by the time they got to the first chorus. the performance is wonderfully loose and optimistic. the unexpected swing, as someone said in the voting thread, really makes this one. but it's also such a beautiful pop song, with the punk attitude still intact but the passion of their wider ambitions, their dare, so to speak, fully on display. it hit me exactly where i was at that exact time, and it's never let me go.