The Replacements: Classic or Dud?

The most remarkable thing about the Replacements, and maybe it is because they were so sort of uneven by design, is I can imagine any of their albums being someone's favorite album, except maybe the last one.

I like Hootenanny but I think Sorry Ma also captures their chaos but just has way more good songs

Sorry Ma was my first Mats album, which I found for sale for £5 on vinyl at a record store round the corner from my house in 91 as a teen who'd just bought Nevermind and wanted to get into everything that came before it (same shop also sold me dirt cheap OG copies of Zen Arcade, You're Living All Over Me and SY's Bad Moon Rising). I just loved the bratty joie de vivre of it so much - my mate had bought copies of Hootenany and Let It Be and I didn't dig those nearly as much (I changed my mind on the latter as I matured, however). Raised In The City is still a personal anthem for me, and Don't Ask Why is a fantastic break-up song.

Stink also fucking rules, sometimes I think that's still the best one

I always forget about Stink.

I LOVED Sorry Ma when I heard it (after ASD) and I feel like Hootenanny is where the dots are connected, the bridge between early and late Replacements

Yes, ^this exactly.

Although sometimes I prefer Sorry Ma. Sorry, LL.

Boringly, I think Let It Be is their best — it has a little bit of everything they ever did, and the songs are mostly great. But huge affection for everything before it too.

I usually prefer Sorry Ma too, if I’m in the mood for this band — that’s why I hadn’t listened to Hootenanny in so long. I was also afraid of it conjuring bad memories but it didn’t, which was a huge relief frankly.

Bad memories because of something you read in Trouble Boys or…?

No just my life back when I was super into this band, sad lol

In exchange for relief from bad memories, I was reminded that Buck Hill and Hayday were 2 of my absolute faves and tunes that I always fit nicely at the end of a mixtape.

I hear you.

I had a friend who was a huge replacements fan and 'all shook down' had just come out and I couldn't figure out what he saw in them. A few years later another friend's band covered 'hayday' which had a really weird visceral impact so I promptly bought Hootenanny (or actually called the first friend and asked him to buy a CD for me and bring it home from college at Thanksgiving because I didn't have a record store nearby).

It's still my favorite record by far. I also still get the urge to run the lights every few years when I find myself driving across Lyndale and Garfield in Minneapolis.

Feel like what LL described in her last post is kind of a common, um, arc of being a fan.

I love all four studio records from the Twin/Tone era, they're A-level records to me, but when I first got into them, I recall loving only part of each one and not caring for the rest. Like maybe a few tracks from the debut, "Kids Don't Follow," and then maybe three or four cuts from Hootenanny and maybe five or six from Let It Be. For whatever reason, I couldn't get into the sloppier and less-serious stuff, which feels ridiculous now because that's so much of the band's appeal to me. That's NOW after I've grown to love the band, so maybe it was just something I was generally wary of from anybody at the time?

I've never really listened to the Descendents, did they have any serious stuff mixed in with the snotty goofs and adolescent frustration?

"Jean Is Dead" off of Milo Goes to College...that album and Fat are really the only ones that I've gone back to.

Actually now that I remember the lyrics, "Hope" and "Bikeage" from the same album too.

There's a bunch of very tuneful and impassioned ballads in the Descendents' stuff. but it's often hellaciously misogynist too.

I have fond memories of Silly Girl, Sour Grapes, Clean Sheets and Bikeage from when I was a teen but I listen to them now and the "I hate you bitch" vibe between the lines is pretty noxious.

my controversial opinion is the best Descendents's best album is 96's Everything Sucks

Still infected with the noxious friendzone bullshit but as always they make it catchy

Some great tunes on that one, no question

The Replacements feel like the smoking, drinking, disaffected fuck-up burnouts at school compared to the Descendents who are farting, junk food eating nerds who think they're smarter and better than the burnouts but in fact are angry misogynist assholes in the modern gamergate / incell / "nice guy" sort of way.

my controversial opinion is the best Descendents's best album is 96's Everything Sucks

It was almost like their "Some Girls".

The Replacements feel like the smoking, drinking, disaffected fuck-up burnouts at school compared to the Descendents who are farting, junk food eating nerds who think they're smarter and better than the burnouts but in fact are angry misogynist assholes in the modern gamergate / incell / "nice guy" sort of way.

Yes, this, definitely.

Though the Mats could probably actually ruin your life, whereas you'd simply block the Descendents on Twitter and never think of them again.

especially after Milo went to college

Hello why do you think I loved the Replacements with all of my tiny foolish heart and didn’t have any time whatsoever for Descendants??? But for evading the misogyny trap no one beats the Dü ❤️

yeah I was listening to some Descendants last year for the first time in years and it was pretty shocking how much they scan to modern incel stuff

🤮🤮🤮

I honestly only know the super short food songs.

I only know the cover of “Wendy” from the SST Duck & Cover comp. They seemed like weenies.

not necessarily saying this is a good thing, but I think there's a very good argument to be made that they are the most influential punk band of all time

This thread's making me scared to go back to my ALL records.

But for evading the misogyny trap no one beats the Dü ❤️

oh hells yeah

I thought that first Descendants album and first EP were great, but I think I'll pretend they split up after that rather than finding out for myself what I "missed."

This thread prompted me to relisten to Milo Goes to College for the first time since the 80s. Tight playing, catchy melodies, wonderfully snotty vocals, but yeah some really repulsive views of sexuality.

Ugh...looking through lyrics as it's a different experience to read all of them clearly but I feel like I just died a little bit inside. Maybe I'll just pretend "Weinerschnitzel" was the only thing they ever released.

Shared a cigarette for breakfast
Shared an airplane ride for lunch

Great track. Should've made Dead Man's Pop instead of "Back to Back."

Wait, it’s not on that?

It is, but as a bonus track, not the album proper.

I should say, Dead Man's Pop (had it gotten a final mix back in the day) should've come out, not Don't Tell a Soul, and on top of that, they should've swapped out "Back to Back" for "Portland."

"We Know the Night" would've been nice too, but according to Wallace they erased the full-band performance so it's lost forever. The version that survives is great, but I don't think they would've used it on a final album.

Dead Man’s Poop more like it.

Dead Man’s Pop definitely shoulda come out, but I don’t think there was any way that was gonna happen. The sound of it (the recent-ish mix, that is) is far more dry than that of PTMM or even Tim. And a dry-sounding record in 1989 was a non-starter if you wanted a hit, which they did, and almost got (“I’ll Be You” stalled at #51). DTAS got them more exposure than they’d ever had; without the digital-reverb-drenched gated-drum sound, no Petty tour, no regular MTV rotation, no radio play.

With the benefit of hindsight, Wallace and Jason Jones both suggested something that was plausible - Lord-Alge should've mixed the singles. There was precedent for that, both in the Replacements camp and elsewhere on Sire/WB's roster. So slap the Lord-Alge mix on to both the singles sent to the radio stations and the music video, but let Wallace take care of the album. (I don't think a tiny bit more echo would've hurt had Wallace gone that route too, which is plausible based on his work elsewhere.)

I always like the Replacements, but some days, like today, I absolutely love them. And almost any day, for whatever reason, "Don't Tell A Soul" is the one I reach for first. I *think* it was the first one I heard, because it was contemporary, but regardless, I really like it.

I'm glad DTAS has its devotees. I'm like that with Tim, which was likewise my first Mats record. I definitely came back around to DTAS after Dead Man's Pop, it helped me connect with some of the songs I'd shrugged at. "Anywhere Is Better Than Here" e.g., is much more of a stomping rock song without the layers of acoustic guitars and whatever else is on there.

Yeah, in the right situation, "Anywhere Is Better Than Here" is a really great song to put on when you're massively pissed off.