Post by allshookup on May 30, 2006 10:45:44 GMT -5
The REPLACEMENTS AMG Discography
Hootenanny
The Replacements came into their own with Hootenanny, a careening, drunken stumble through punk, rock & roll, country, blues, and folk. The eclecticism of the album separated the Replacements from the post-punk hardcore pack, but it's also what makes the record a mess. Half of the record is devoted to ironic jokes, whether it's the Beatles pastiche of "Mr. Whirly," the tongue-in-cheek title track, or the silly closer, "Treatment Bound." Not so coincidentally, those are songs where Paul Westerberg branches out into other styles, and he found it easier to experiment under the guise of a joke. He does let his guard down on the extraordinary "Within Your Reach," a disarmingly open plea for love that he recorded entirely himself. It's the only truly vulnerable moment on the record, but the snide "Color Me Impressed" also comes close to true emotion. And it's fun to hear Westerberg act tough on "Take Me Down to the Hospital," "Run It," and "You Lose," especially considering how the group has improved. They're still sloppy, to be sure, but Bob Stinson's guitar stings and the rhythm section of Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars rocks with a loose abandon that makes even the filler -- and there's a lot of filler -- enjoyable garage punk.
- Color Me Impressed
"I Will Dare" might be the song that lifted the Replacements several notches on the nascent college radio/indie underground scene, but for those paying attention (not many outside of the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area yet), the previous year's "Color Me Impressed" was enough to prove Paul Westerberg's tremendous worth as a songwriter. Moving out of the band's early hardcore phase into the sort of punk-inspired but pop-friendly rock & roll that was about to get dubbed " college rock" in the U.S. and "Amerindie" in the U.K., "Color Me Impressed" has a simple but catchy chord sequence (it's one of those songs where the rhythm guitar riff is the song's main hook) and a world-weary lyric that Westerberg delivers in an appealingly bored whine. The lyrics describe a jaded party in terms that Elvis Costello himself might envy ("Givin' out their word 'cause that's all that they won't keep"), further developing Westerberg's sensitive outsider persona, the key that set the Replacements apart from the more belligerent likes of Hüsker Dü and Soul Asylum.
- Within Your Reach
The Replacements weren't interested in fidelity to hardcore orthodoxy, a position made obvious by the eclectic Hootenanny album. The biggest shock on that varied set of songs has to be the power ballad "Within Your Reach," which unapologetically adds a completely synthetic electronic drumbeat and echoing synthesizers that have more in common with Prince than Hüsker Dü to an overdubbed set of unusual guitar sounds, including one that's treated with so much echo and phasing that it sounds like it might actually be a backwards track à la the Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping." Westerberg recorded the song by himself, as he always did on particularly personal songs, and the lyrics are an early flowering of his sensitive-tough-guy side, later perfected on "Answering Machine," but the added instrumentation fills the song out more effectively than a solo acoustic recording would have.
Hootenanny
The Replacements came into their own with Hootenanny, a careening, drunken stumble through punk, rock & roll, country, blues, and folk. The eclecticism of the album separated the Replacements from the post-punk hardcore pack, but it's also what makes the record a mess. Half of the record is devoted to ironic jokes, whether it's the Beatles pastiche of "Mr. Whirly," the tongue-in-cheek title track, or the silly closer, "Treatment Bound." Not so coincidentally, those are songs where Paul Westerberg branches out into other styles, and he found it easier to experiment under the guise of a joke. He does let his guard down on the extraordinary "Within Your Reach," a disarmingly open plea for love that he recorded entirely himself. It's the only truly vulnerable moment on the record, but the snide "Color Me Impressed" also comes close to true emotion. And it's fun to hear Westerberg act tough on "Take Me Down to the Hospital," "Run It," and "You Lose," especially considering how the group has improved. They're still sloppy, to be sure, but Bob Stinson's guitar stings and the rhythm section of Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars rocks with a loose abandon that makes even the filler -- and there's a lot of filler -- enjoyable garage punk.
- Color Me Impressed
"I Will Dare" might be the song that lifted the Replacements several notches on the nascent college radio/indie underground scene, but for those paying attention (not many outside of the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area yet), the previous year's "Color Me Impressed" was enough to prove Paul Westerberg's tremendous worth as a songwriter. Moving out of the band's early hardcore phase into the sort of punk-inspired but pop-friendly rock & roll that was about to get dubbed " college rock" in the U.S. and "Amerindie" in the U.K., "Color Me Impressed" has a simple but catchy chord sequence (it's one of those songs where the rhythm guitar riff is the song's main hook) and a world-weary lyric that Westerberg delivers in an appealingly bored whine. The lyrics describe a jaded party in terms that Elvis Costello himself might envy ("Givin' out their word 'cause that's all that they won't keep"), further developing Westerberg's sensitive outsider persona, the key that set the Replacements apart from the more belligerent likes of Hüsker Dü and Soul Asylum.
- Within Your Reach
The Replacements weren't interested in fidelity to hardcore orthodoxy, a position made obvious by the eclectic Hootenanny album. The biggest shock on that varied set of songs has to be the power ballad "Within Your Reach," which unapologetically adds a completely synthetic electronic drumbeat and echoing synthesizers that have more in common with Prince than Hüsker Dü to an overdubbed set of unusual guitar sounds, including one that's treated with so much echo and phasing that it sounds like it might actually be a backwards track à la the Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping." Westerberg recorded the song by himself, as he always did on particularly personal songs, and the lyrics are an early flowering of his sensitive-tough-guy side, later perfected on "Answering Machine," but the added instrumentation fills the song out more effectively than a solo acoustic recording would have.