Post by allshookup on May 30, 2006 10:48:20 GMT -5
The REPLACEMENTS AMG Discography
Let It Be
The Replacements half-heartedly tried to expand their reach on Hootenanny, and they followed through on that album's promise on Let It Be. Kicking off with the country-rock shuffle of "I Will Dare," the record explodes into a series of pseudo-hardcore ravers before hitting Paul Westerberg's piano-driven rumination, "Androgynous," one of four major ballads that cuts to the core of Midwestern suburban alienation. "Sixteen Blue" is one of the definitive teenage anthems of the '80s, while "Unsatisfied" rages in despair and Westerberg rarely was more affecting than the solo performance of "Answering Machine." All four, along with "I Will Dare," form the core of Westerberg and the Replacements' canon, and are enough to make Let It Be a cornerstone post-punk album, even if the rest of the record pales next to the songs. All the remaining songs are convincing garage rockers, even if they reveal the Replacements' former punk stance to be a bit of a pose -- a cover of Kiss' "Black Diamond" comes off as a tribute, as does the co-opting of Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" for "Gary's Got a Boner." Furthermore, the original numbers lean toward the Faces, leaving the Ramones behind, and while everything except "Seen Your Video," which now sounds as dated as a "disco sucks" rant, consists of bracing rockers, they're a bit inconsequential and point the way toward the band's deadly fascination with classic rock.
- I Will Dare
The unwieldy, ramshackle drunk-rockers known as Minneapolis' Replacements landed themselves at the top of the jangle rock heap in 1984 with the recording of "I Will Dare" for their album Let It Be. A band who always had pop tendencies and an extraordinary songwriter in Paul Westerberg, the 'Mats tamped down their rockingest impulses for an irresistible ditty of a love song with the killer chorus, hooky verse, and proficient guitar from the kingpin of the Rickenbacker, R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. An even unlikelier element to the song was the addition of Westerberg on mandolin. The song -- with its skiffle beat, light country-rock flavor, and bouncy new wave beat -- captured the spirit of the times when music was changing, particularly American guitar rock. Lyrically, it captured the tentativeness of young love, presumably something the band and their fans could relate to from their collective pasts. In essence, the song was simply a high-watermark for the college rock sound of the day and contributed to the band's fourth album, which became a big independent-label hit, spurring them onto a major-label recording deal. "I Will Dare" had all the right elements and the Replacements were in the right place at the right time; it stands as perhaps the band's most beloved song and is a touchstone for their mid-'80s heyday, not to mention its status in the jangle and college rock canons.
- Favorite Thing
After the poppy-folky shock of the opening "I Will Dare," "Favorite Thing" probably caused the Replacements' early fans to relax: its hoarse opening shout and familiar punky chords sound comfortingly similar to the band's earlier records, and the fact that the first completely intelligible line Paul Westerberg delivers, after a particularly marble-mouthed opening verse, is "I don't give a single shit" was probably equally encouraging. The difference is that "Favorite Thing" is taken at a slightly slower tempo that allows Westerberg and Bob Stinson to add a little Southern-style jangle to the guitars; as a result, "Favorite Thing" sounds rather like a young R.E.M. covering something off Cheap Trick's first album. Similarly, Westerberg's lyrics are a bit softer in tone than most of his earlier songs; this is an unabashed love song, something Westerberg was too self-conscious to write in the Replacements' early days. While a lot of early fans felt that the Replacements went soft on their later albums, "Favorite Thing" proves that there was a middle ground between "F*ck School" and "Merry-Go-Round."
- Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
Based on a real-life incident involving the Replacements' adolescent bassist, Tommy Stinson, "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" is one of two hardcore goofs on 1984's Let It Be. Starting with a barely audible steal from a strange children's record, the song explodes into a perversely catchy rocker that owes a lot to the New York Dolls' glammy proto- punk, especially in the way the chorus builds up from an oddly martial section powered by Chris Mars' snare drum rolls to the shout-along "Rip, rip! Gonna rip 'em out now!" refrain. Lyrically, of course, the song is a total goof, sung by Paul Westerberg in the voice of a distracted, obnoxious doctor more interested in his tee time than his patients. (In a particularly inspired touch, you can just barely hear the doctor hitting on the surgical nurse underneath Bob Stinson's closing guitar solo.) While not a song for hypochondriacs to think too hard about before minor surgery, it's an excellent example of the Replacements' underrated sense of goofball humor.
- Androgynous
From their artistic breakthrough album, Let It Be (1984), "Androgynous" shows the Replacements beginning to shed their furious hardcore punk rock attack, allowing Paul Westerberg's well-crafted traditionalist songwriting to come to the fore. Indeed, out of the album's five original hard-rocking tunes, all but one are credited to the band as a whole. The rest of the songs, pop/rock and ballads, are Westerberg's alone. Though the shredded vocals and screaming guitars might be turned down -- actually put aside altogether -- for "Androgynous," the shambolic, late-night, drunk-at-the-piano performance clearly retains the garage band, punk rock spirit. Sounding a little like something off of David Bowie's classic Hunky Dory, "Androgynous" is played as a fake- jazz/ pop standard, Westerberg pounding out some basic piano chords and Chris Mills playing the drums with brushes. Westerberg's Alex Chilton/ Big Star influence was starting to show through a bit more on Let It Be as well. The skewed Tin Pan Alley arrangement that ends in a whimsical, dissonant self-destruction clearly echoes the Big Star album Third/Sister Lovers (1974, released 1978). Westerberg's naturally gruff voice is hoarse here as well, as if he had been playing and singing rockers all night and decided to sit down at the piano for one last go. It is this weary but spontaneous spirit that makes the song great. Such uninhibited, instinctive, and raw energy characterized most of the band's records. But it was Let It Be and 1987's Tim which managed to capture the band at a fleeting moment when they straddled the line between mature songcraft and snotty attitude, their great melodies and insightful and often poignant lyrics imbued with blazing, reckless performances and production. Westerberg took the pop gleam from Chilton, the rock & roll swagger from the Rolling Stones, and upped the edge quotient of both, adding a good dose of punk rock. Westerberg grapples with issues of adolescent and post-adolescent sexuality on these records, obviously the main theme of "Androgynous." Addressing an otherwise casual social observation about fashion trends that show " Dick, he's wearing a skirt/Here comes Jane/Y'know she's sporting a chain," with witty turns of phrase, "Same hair, revolution/Same build, evolution," arriving at the simple conclusion, "Tomorrow who's gonna fuss." Westerberg turns in some classic lines in the song, like, "Don't get him wrong and don't get him mad/He might be a father, but he sure ain't a dad," and, "Mirror image, see no damage/See no evil at all/Kewpie dolls and urine stalls/Will be laughed at/The way you're laughed at now." It is perhaps a broad stroke, but nevertheless true to recall that such lines resonated for a whole slew of alienated teenagers and young adults in the conservative Reagan-era '80s, which at times felt like a time warp of the Eisenhower '50s. Westerberg's songs always communicated a knowing pathos; he had been there, as the narrator in his ballad "Sixteen Blue" seemed to say.
- Unsatisfied
Opening with the "Maggie May"-like jangle of a 12-string acoustic guitar, "Unsatisfied" soon loses a bit of its folk lilt. A reverberating electric slide guitar swoops up, and the band kicks in. But it is Replacements leader Paul Westerberg's impassioned howls, his ragged voice delivered fill-tilt from the get-go, that takes a Rod Stewart-like, warm and seasoned rasp to a howling punk folk-rock extreme. Even with the volume pedal work of guitarist Bob Stinson offering plaintive, steel guitar-like wails with the slide, the chiming textures and melancholy chord progression can not keep Westerberg's frustration in check. It is a bit of a twist on the usual Replacements dynamic; where the singer's sweet melodies and intelligent lyrics were usually juxtaposed against a loose-cannon rhythm section and a caterwauling electric guitar or three, on "Unsatisfied" Westerberg is the one ranting and raving while the band keeps it pretty much contained. It is yet another pretty melody, but Westerberg realizes that these lyrics can not simply be delivered, they must be acted and lived. Not far into the arrangement, from Let It Be (1984), the singer is screaming, "Look me in the eye and then tell me/That I'm satisfied/Are you satisfied?...I'm so, I'm so unsatisfied." This is not a cheeky, winking Mick Jagger coyingly bemoaning his lack of "girly action." Rather, this is the sound of a man venting pent-up rage and frustration from his very depths, dismayed by the state of his relationships and his life in general. He sounds stymied and helpless. The song became an anthem for a large segment of a generation, a disaffected group of young adults -- caught in the depth of the dark Reagan years -- who felt lost and unable to figure out why or how to change. Westerberg simmers on the verses, "Everything goes/Well, anything goes/All of the time/Everything you dream of/Is right in front of you/And everything is a lie." The target is not clearly defined; though it begins in the microcosmic world of a personal relationship, Westerberg represents many when he seems overwhelmed by larger cultural and societal trends: a lack of integrity, sincerity, compassion, and so on. The song is almost all chorus, the refrain a mantra for the narrator, as if merely repeating the primal-scream complaint will help alleviate some of his suffering. He rails continuously on the chorus lines, taking only two breathers for the relatively calm country-rock (perhaps a bit of Tom Petty influence) verses. The acoustic and hard-edged electric guitar combination takes a classic rock configuration and keeps it alive for a post-punk generation. The band shows ambition to texture and layer their arrangements. The production straddles rootsy pop and punk rock, and along with the nakedly aching emotional lyrical content, influenced a generation of bands to follow in the Replacements' wake.
- Gary’s Got A Boner
After Bob Stinson was kicked out of the Replacements, Paul Westerberg disowned the hardcore throwback songs on Let It Be and Tim as filler tunes he'd written so that Stinson would have something to do in the band. While that's probably true, the goofy intensity of a song like "Gary's Got a Boner" is a big part of what makes Let It Be one of the defining albums of the '80s. Besides being a thoroughly rocking piece of New York Dolls-style trash (and indeed, Stinson does go absolutely nuts on his solos), the lyrics are moderately impressive for the way in which the title figure is the one singled out for mockery, a refreshing change from the casual misogyny of a lot of hardcore punk. "Gary's Got a Boner" may not be one for the ages, like the next track on the album, the gorgeous "Sixteen Blue," but it's essential nonetheless. Incidentally, the band thoughtfully gave Ted Nugent a co-writing credit, since the song blatantly rips off the main riff from the Nuge's "Cat Scratch Fever."
- Sixteen Blue
The Replacements, like their Twin Cities neighbors Hüsker Dü, were one of the few bands of the 1980s who transitioned and finessed hardcore punk rock into post-punk and what became known as " alternative" rock. Like the Hüskers' Zen Arcade, the Replacements' Let It Be straddled the band's harder-edged underground background and their pop ambitions; both bands seemed to let their guards down to open up and display their acknowledged roots influences and songwriting prowess. Main songwriter Paul Westerberg melds the shambolic spirit of his band's early garage punk records with his love of the rock and pop traditions from the 1950s to the '70s. On the ballad "Sixteen Blue," one can even hear lyrical echoes of "Growing Pains," an old Fields and Schwartz song that was recorded by Tony Bennett and the Count Basie Orchestra back in 1959: "Your age is the hardest age/Everything drags and drags/You're looking funny/You ain't laughing, are you?" ( Westerberg) "You can't explain it/But you're one solid hurt" ( Fields/ Schwartz). The lyrical concern is timeless, empathizing with someone going through what the singer has already gone through; or perhaps he is even singing to himself. Westerberg's lyric cuts a little more to the chase: "Everything's sexually vague/Now you're wondering to yourself/If you might be gay." This is a theme that Westerberg also explores on the album's "Androgynous." "Sixteen Blue"'s slightly out of tune and fuzzy guitars playing a sweet classic pop major to minor chord progression make the piece feel like a younger, slightly troubled sibling to prom themes like oldie "Sixteen Candles." Perhaps it is suitable that the 1989 movie Heathers took place in a high school named Westerberg High, in homage to Paul Westerberg.
- Answering Machine
Paul Westerberg often railed against the coldness and distance-enhancing aspects of modern conveniences and technology. Witness: "Skyway" from the Replacements' album Tim (1987), their anti-video video for "Bastards of Young," and "Answering Machine." It seemed almost quaint later on when such devices became omnipresent. But in the early to mid-'80s, answering machines were not deemed as essential to daily life. Westerberg, though, is onto something larger than his problems with the machine; that just masks a larger truth. As with most of his almost-Luddite and contrarian songs, the starting point for "Answering Machine" is one of life's small details that comes to represent a gaping divide between people who wall themselves off from each other, oftentimes deliberately. He sings: "Try to breathe some life into a letter/Losing hope, never gonna be together/My courage is at its peak/You know what I mean/How do say you're OK to/An answering machine? How do you say good night to/An answering machine?" Over a raging solo and heavily affected electric guitar, Westerberg's ravaged voice sounds genuinely frustrated and desperate, singing as if through gritted teeth. The solo arrangement is highly effective; it conjures a picture of Westerberg alone, alienated, enraged after finally working up the courage to call across time zones (another gulf to transverse) only to reach the machine: "How to do you say 'I miss you' to/An answering machine?" With a full band, the hard rock approach might have seemed overly heavy, the lyrical nuances plowed over. But the driving guitar on its own is hard enough to give the song an edgy and furious tone, while allowing Westerberg's ever-expressive voice to cover the rest of the emoting with gut-wrenching passion. The maddening sense of frustration is heightened as the song draws to a close with a looped recording of an operator's voice and noisy, rattling percussion. On a live version from the limited-edition EP Inconcerated Live (1989), the rhythm section kicks in for the final measures, driving the song over the wall. While he had always shown signs of a songcraftsman behind his and his band's punk rock posture, Westerberg really started coming into his own as a songwriter on Let It Be (1984). He peppers the lyrics with ambitious and cutting lines like, "Try to free a slave of ignorance/Try and teach a whore about romance." The tension-release play between the verse and chorus themes of "Answering Machine" betray a writer with an ear for melody, whose musical abilities clearly transcend the Replacements' humble garage/ bar band origins, ranking him among the best songwriters of the '80s and '90s. Against the emotional context of this song, one ponders the significance of the band's name; Westerberg seems to fear that answering machines are serving as replacements for human contact. If nothing else, the band was always about heart, sincerity, and integrity. With songs like "Answering Machine" and "Unsatisfied," Westerberg seems to feel stifled in a world that places decreasing value on such qualities.
Let It Be
The Replacements half-heartedly tried to expand their reach on Hootenanny, and they followed through on that album's promise on Let It Be. Kicking off with the country-rock shuffle of "I Will Dare," the record explodes into a series of pseudo-hardcore ravers before hitting Paul Westerberg's piano-driven rumination, "Androgynous," one of four major ballads that cuts to the core of Midwestern suburban alienation. "Sixteen Blue" is one of the definitive teenage anthems of the '80s, while "Unsatisfied" rages in despair and Westerberg rarely was more affecting than the solo performance of "Answering Machine." All four, along with "I Will Dare," form the core of Westerberg and the Replacements' canon, and are enough to make Let It Be a cornerstone post-punk album, even if the rest of the record pales next to the songs. All the remaining songs are convincing garage rockers, even if they reveal the Replacements' former punk stance to be a bit of a pose -- a cover of Kiss' "Black Diamond" comes off as a tribute, as does the co-opting of Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" for "Gary's Got a Boner." Furthermore, the original numbers lean toward the Faces, leaving the Ramones behind, and while everything except "Seen Your Video," which now sounds as dated as a "disco sucks" rant, consists of bracing rockers, they're a bit inconsequential and point the way toward the band's deadly fascination with classic rock.
- I Will Dare
The unwieldy, ramshackle drunk-rockers known as Minneapolis' Replacements landed themselves at the top of the jangle rock heap in 1984 with the recording of "I Will Dare" for their album Let It Be. A band who always had pop tendencies and an extraordinary songwriter in Paul Westerberg, the 'Mats tamped down their rockingest impulses for an irresistible ditty of a love song with the killer chorus, hooky verse, and proficient guitar from the kingpin of the Rickenbacker, R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. An even unlikelier element to the song was the addition of Westerberg on mandolin. The song -- with its skiffle beat, light country-rock flavor, and bouncy new wave beat -- captured the spirit of the times when music was changing, particularly American guitar rock. Lyrically, it captured the tentativeness of young love, presumably something the band and their fans could relate to from their collective pasts. In essence, the song was simply a high-watermark for the college rock sound of the day and contributed to the band's fourth album, which became a big independent-label hit, spurring them onto a major-label recording deal. "I Will Dare" had all the right elements and the Replacements were in the right place at the right time; it stands as perhaps the band's most beloved song and is a touchstone for their mid-'80s heyday, not to mention its status in the jangle and college rock canons.
- Favorite Thing
After the poppy-folky shock of the opening "I Will Dare," "Favorite Thing" probably caused the Replacements' early fans to relax: its hoarse opening shout and familiar punky chords sound comfortingly similar to the band's earlier records, and the fact that the first completely intelligible line Paul Westerberg delivers, after a particularly marble-mouthed opening verse, is "I don't give a single shit" was probably equally encouraging. The difference is that "Favorite Thing" is taken at a slightly slower tempo that allows Westerberg and Bob Stinson to add a little Southern-style jangle to the guitars; as a result, "Favorite Thing" sounds rather like a young R.E.M. covering something off Cheap Trick's first album. Similarly, Westerberg's lyrics are a bit softer in tone than most of his earlier songs; this is an unabashed love song, something Westerberg was too self-conscious to write in the Replacements' early days. While a lot of early fans felt that the Replacements went soft on their later albums, "Favorite Thing" proves that there was a middle ground between "F*ck School" and "Merry-Go-Round."
- Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
Based on a real-life incident involving the Replacements' adolescent bassist, Tommy Stinson, "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out" is one of two hardcore goofs on 1984's Let It Be. Starting with a barely audible steal from a strange children's record, the song explodes into a perversely catchy rocker that owes a lot to the New York Dolls' glammy proto- punk, especially in the way the chorus builds up from an oddly martial section powered by Chris Mars' snare drum rolls to the shout-along "Rip, rip! Gonna rip 'em out now!" refrain. Lyrically, of course, the song is a total goof, sung by Paul Westerberg in the voice of a distracted, obnoxious doctor more interested in his tee time than his patients. (In a particularly inspired touch, you can just barely hear the doctor hitting on the surgical nurse underneath Bob Stinson's closing guitar solo.) While not a song for hypochondriacs to think too hard about before minor surgery, it's an excellent example of the Replacements' underrated sense of goofball humor.
- Androgynous
From their artistic breakthrough album, Let It Be (1984), "Androgynous" shows the Replacements beginning to shed their furious hardcore punk rock attack, allowing Paul Westerberg's well-crafted traditionalist songwriting to come to the fore. Indeed, out of the album's five original hard-rocking tunes, all but one are credited to the band as a whole. The rest of the songs, pop/rock and ballads, are Westerberg's alone. Though the shredded vocals and screaming guitars might be turned down -- actually put aside altogether -- for "Androgynous," the shambolic, late-night, drunk-at-the-piano performance clearly retains the garage band, punk rock spirit. Sounding a little like something off of David Bowie's classic Hunky Dory, "Androgynous" is played as a fake- jazz/ pop standard, Westerberg pounding out some basic piano chords and Chris Mills playing the drums with brushes. Westerberg's Alex Chilton/ Big Star influence was starting to show through a bit more on Let It Be as well. The skewed Tin Pan Alley arrangement that ends in a whimsical, dissonant self-destruction clearly echoes the Big Star album Third/Sister Lovers (1974, released 1978). Westerberg's naturally gruff voice is hoarse here as well, as if he had been playing and singing rockers all night and decided to sit down at the piano for one last go. It is this weary but spontaneous spirit that makes the song great. Such uninhibited, instinctive, and raw energy characterized most of the band's records. But it was Let It Be and 1987's Tim which managed to capture the band at a fleeting moment when they straddled the line between mature songcraft and snotty attitude, their great melodies and insightful and often poignant lyrics imbued with blazing, reckless performances and production. Westerberg took the pop gleam from Chilton, the rock & roll swagger from the Rolling Stones, and upped the edge quotient of both, adding a good dose of punk rock. Westerberg grapples with issues of adolescent and post-adolescent sexuality on these records, obviously the main theme of "Androgynous." Addressing an otherwise casual social observation about fashion trends that show " Dick, he's wearing a skirt/Here comes Jane/Y'know she's sporting a chain," with witty turns of phrase, "Same hair, revolution/Same build, evolution," arriving at the simple conclusion, "Tomorrow who's gonna fuss." Westerberg turns in some classic lines in the song, like, "Don't get him wrong and don't get him mad/He might be a father, but he sure ain't a dad," and, "Mirror image, see no damage/See no evil at all/Kewpie dolls and urine stalls/Will be laughed at/The way you're laughed at now." It is perhaps a broad stroke, but nevertheless true to recall that such lines resonated for a whole slew of alienated teenagers and young adults in the conservative Reagan-era '80s, which at times felt like a time warp of the Eisenhower '50s. Westerberg's songs always communicated a knowing pathos; he had been there, as the narrator in his ballad "Sixteen Blue" seemed to say.
- Unsatisfied
Opening with the "Maggie May"-like jangle of a 12-string acoustic guitar, "Unsatisfied" soon loses a bit of its folk lilt. A reverberating electric slide guitar swoops up, and the band kicks in. But it is Replacements leader Paul Westerberg's impassioned howls, his ragged voice delivered fill-tilt from the get-go, that takes a Rod Stewart-like, warm and seasoned rasp to a howling punk folk-rock extreme. Even with the volume pedal work of guitarist Bob Stinson offering plaintive, steel guitar-like wails with the slide, the chiming textures and melancholy chord progression can not keep Westerberg's frustration in check. It is a bit of a twist on the usual Replacements dynamic; where the singer's sweet melodies and intelligent lyrics were usually juxtaposed against a loose-cannon rhythm section and a caterwauling electric guitar or three, on "Unsatisfied" Westerberg is the one ranting and raving while the band keeps it pretty much contained. It is yet another pretty melody, but Westerberg realizes that these lyrics can not simply be delivered, they must be acted and lived. Not far into the arrangement, from Let It Be (1984), the singer is screaming, "Look me in the eye and then tell me/That I'm satisfied/Are you satisfied?...I'm so, I'm so unsatisfied." This is not a cheeky, winking Mick Jagger coyingly bemoaning his lack of "girly action." Rather, this is the sound of a man venting pent-up rage and frustration from his very depths, dismayed by the state of his relationships and his life in general. He sounds stymied and helpless. The song became an anthem for a large segment of a generation, a disaffected group of young adults -- caught in the depth of the dark Reagan years -- who felt lost and unable to figure out why or how to change. Westerberg simmers on the verses, "Everything goes/Well, anything goes/All of the time/Everything you dream of/Is right in front of you/And everything is a lie." The target is not clearly defined; though it begins in the microcosmic world of a personal relationship, Westerberg represents many when he seems overwhelmed by larger cultural and societal trends: a lack of integrity, sincerity, compassion, and so on. The song is almost all chorus, the refrain a mantra for the narrator, as if merely repeating the primal-scream complaint will help alleviate some of his suffering. He rails continuously on the chorus lines, taking only two breathers for the relatively calm country-rock (perhaps a bit of Tom Petty influence) verses. The acoustic and hard-edged electric guitar combination takes a classic rock configuration and keeps it alive for a post-punk generation. The band shows ambition to texture and layer their arrangements. The production straddles rootsy pop and punk rock, and along with the nakedly aching emotional lyrical content, influenced a generation of bands to follow in the Replacements' wake.
- Gary’s Got A Boner
After Bob Stinson was kicked out of the Replacements, Paul Westerberg disowned the hardcore throwback songs on Let It Be and Tim as filler tunes he'd written so that Stinson would have something to do in the band. While that's probably true, the goofy intensity of a song like "Gary's Got a Boner" is a big part of what makes Let It Be one of the defining albums of the '80s. Besides being a thoroughly rocking piece of New York Dolls-style trash (and indeed, Stinson does go absolutely nuts on his solos), the lyrics are moderately impressive for the way in which the title figure is the one singled out for mockery, a refreshing change from the casual misogyny of a lot of hardcore punk. "Gary's Got a Boner" may not be one for the ages, like the next track on the album, the gorgeous "Sixteen Blue," but it's essential nonetheless. Incidentally, the band thoughtfully gave Ted Nugent a co-writing credit, since the song blatantly rips off the main riff from the Nuge's "Cat Scratch Fever."
- Sixteen Blue
The Replacements, like their Twin Cities neighbors Hüsker Dü, were one of the few bands of the 1980s who transitioned and finessed hardcore punk rock into post-punk and what became known as " alternative" rock. Like the Hüskers' Zen Arcade, the Replacements' Let It Be straddled the band's harder-edged underground background and their pop ambitions; both bands seemed to let their guards down to open up and display their acknowledged roots influences and songwriting prowess. Main songwriter Paul Westerberg melds the shambolic spirit of his band's early garage punk records with his love of the rock and pop traditions from the 1950s to the '70s. On the ballad "Sixteen Blue," one can even hear lyrical echoes of "Growing Pains," an old Fields and Schwartz song that was recorded by Tony Bennett and the Count Basie Orchestra back in 1959: "Your age is the hardest age/Everything drags and drags/You're looking funny/You ain't laughing, are you?" ( Westerberg) "You can't explain it/But you're one solid hurt" ( Fields/ Schwartz). The lyrical concern is timeless, empathizing with someone going through what the singer has already gone through; or perhaps he is even singing to himself. Westerberg's lyric cuts a little more to the chase: "Everything's sexually vague/Now you're wondering to yourself/If you might be gay." This is a theme that Westerberg also explores on the album's "Androgynous." "Sixteen Blue"'s slightly out of tune and fuzzy guitars playing a sweet classic pop major to minor chord progression make the piece feel like a younger, slightly troubled sibling to prom themes like oldie "Sixteen Candles." Perhaps it is suitable that the 1989 movie Heathers took place in a high school named Westerberg High, in homage to Paul Westerberg.
- Answering Machine
Paul Westerberg often railed against the coldness and distance-enhancing aspects of modern conveniences and technology. Witness: "Skyway" from the Replacements' album Tim (1987), their anti-video video for "Bastards of Young," and "Answering Machine." It seemed almost quaint later on when such devices became omnipresent. But in the early to mid-'80s, answering machines were not deemed as essential to daily life. Westerberg, though, is onto something larger than his problems with the machine; that just masks a larger truth. As with most of his almost-Luddite and contrarian songs, the starting point for "Answering Machine" is one of life's small details that comes to represent a gaping divide between people who wall themselves off from each other, oftentimes deliberately. He sings: "Try to breathe some life into a letter/Losing hope, never gonna be together/My courage is at its peak/You know what I mean/How do say you're OK to/An answering machine? How do you say good night to/An answering machine?" Over a raging solo and heavily affected electric guitar, Westerberg's ravaged voice sounds genuinely frustrated and desperate, singing as if through gritted teeth. The solo arrangement is highly effective; it conjures a picture of Westerberg alone, alienated, enraged after finally working up the courage to call across time zones (another gulf to transverse) only to reach the machine: "How to do you say 'I miss you' to/An answering machine?" With a full band, the hard rock approach might have seemed overly heavy, the lyrical nuances plowed over. But the driving guitar on its own is hard enough to give the song an edgy and furious tone, while allowing Westerberg's ever-expressive voice to cover the rest of the emoting with gut-wrenching passion. The maddening sense of frustration is heightened as the song draws to a close with a looped recording of an operator's voice and noisy, rattling percussion. On a live version from the limited-edition EP Inconcerated Live (1989), the rhythm section kicks in for the final measures, driving the song over the wall. While he had always shown signs of a songcraftsman behind his and his band's punk rock posture, Westerberg really started coming into his own as a songwriter on Let It Be (1984). He peppers the lyrics with ambitious and cutting lines like, "Try to free a slave of ignorance/Try and teach a whore about romance." The tension-release play between the verse and chorus themes of "Answering Machine" betray a writer with an ear for melody, whose musical abilities clearly transcend the Replacements' humble garage/ bar band origins, ranking him among the best songwriters of the '80s and '90s. Against the emotional context of this song, one ponders the significance of the band's name; Westerberg seems to fear that answering machines are serving as replacements for human contact. If nothing else, the band was always about heart, sincerity, and integrity. With songs like "Answering Machine" and "Unsatisfied," Westerberg seems to feel stifled in a world that places decreasing value on such qualities.