Post by allshookup on May 30, 2006 10:53:53 GMT -5
The REPLACEMENTS AMG Discography
Pleased to Meet Me
Bob Stinson was kicked out of the Replacements after Tim, allegedly because he was unwilling to make the musical leap forward necessary for Pleased to Meet Me. With Stinson left the band's hardcore roots, leaving behind the conflicting desires of Paul Westerberg's wish to be a serious singer/songwriter and for the group to become either the Faces or Big Star. That conflict is played out throughout Pleased to Meet Me, and it isn't helped by the stultifying clean and detailed production by Jim Dickinson. Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson are reigned in tighter than ever before, giving most of the songs a strangled, distanced feel which isn't helped by Dickinson's canned guitar sounds and the odd production flourishes, including the occasional sax and keyboard. The full-blown production works on the horn- and string-drenched "Can't Hardly Wait," but it makes mindlessly rocking filler like "Shooting Dirty Pool" and "Red Red Wine" irritating. For the most part, Westerberg's songs make the clean sound tolerable, particularly on the Stonesy "I.O.U.," the suicide sketch of "The Ledge," the power pop of "Never Mind" and "Valentine," and the lovely acoustic "Skyway." But the fan love letter "Alex Chilton" reveals more than necessary -- even though Westerberg is shooting for stardom, he has more affinity for the self-styled loser, which means he never wants to make the full leap to the mainstream. And that can only hurt a record like Pleased to Meet Me, which has stardom in its sights.
- I.O.U.
Paul Westerberg came across as such an intensely personal songwriter in the Replacements' glory days that longtime fans simply assumed that every song on every one of his albums was a completely sincere cri de coeur. It's hard not to make that assumption with the spitting mad "I.O.U.," which sounds like a middle-finger salute to the hipster-cred faction of the band's audience, the folks who thought that the Replacements died when (pick one) they fired Bob Stinson, they signed with a major label, or they released the ultra-poppy "I Will Dare." Singing with barely contained fury over a calamitous racket, Westerberg tears into his unnamed antagonists with undisguised glee, from a muttered "You're all fucked" at the end of the first verse to the song's end, where Westerberg sings, over and over with increasing vituperation, "Want it in writing/I owe you nothing." Besides the lyrical and vocal fury, producer Jim Dickinson provides a ferocious, guitar-heavy sound more polished than Steve Fjelstad's early lo-fi roar but with all the bite that's missing from Tommy Erdelyi's too-polite Tim.
- Alex Chilton
A homage to Paul Westerberg's underdog songwriting hero, "Alex Chilton" succinctly captures Big Star fans' feelings about that band's music with one simple line: "I'm in love with that song." For Jim Dickinson, the producer of the Replacements' album Pleased to Meet Me (1987) that features the tribute, the song must have felt like coming full circle. Though he had already put together an impressive resumé -- with gigs working with the Rolling Stones, among others -- Dickinson had also produced Big Star's shambolic, arty masterpiece Third/Sister Lovers in 1974 at Ardent Studios, where the Replacements made the pilgrimage to record their album. As if acknowledging that it would take an alternate world for a scenario where, "Children by the millions/Sing for Alex Chilton/When he comes 'round," Westerberg begins the song's imaginative lyric with: "If he was from Venus/Would he feed us with a spoon?/If he was from Mars, wouldn't that be cool?" But in Westerberg's mind, as with many other fans, the breathtaking indifference that greeted the classic Big Star records is simply astounding. As with Westerberg's other subjects and protagonists, Chilton serves as the ultimate outsider. In the view of Westerberg and other fans, Chilton's intelligent power pop anthems and gorgeous ballads should have resulted in rock stardom for him and his band, where those "millions" did flock to see him. The beauty of the writing is that the author can create such a wishful scenario, even if it is only imagined. Alas, the similarly influential Replacements also enjoyed precious little commercial success and, like Big Star, never really graduated beyond cult-band status, while those directly influenced by them reaped far more rewards. Obviously, this is one reason Westerberg identified with Chilton. "I never travel far/Without a little Big Star." Dickinson layers the track with multiple acoustic and electric guitar tracks with part-specific precision -- explosive, overdriven small-amp sounds and driving Keith Richards-esque riffs. Instead of guitars getting more huge on the chorus, Dickinson has the band singing a pad of harmony "ooh"s as Big Star themselves might have on their earlier, more Anglophile albums. Also included is a percussive cowbell and handclaps during the chorus. One annoying element of the production is sample-like '80s giant snare drum sound, which may have been right for the arena sound of Brian Adams, but not for bar band heroes the Replacements. Live versions of the song were usually performed closer to the band's well-known full-tilt abandon. While he retains the Replacements' edge, especially with the inherent raw vocals of Westerberg, Dickinson brought the band to the closest thing they had to a radio hit. And the catchy single surely influenced more than a few curious fans to investigate some Chilton/ Big Star music.
- I Don’t Know
Quite possibly the funniest song the Replacements ever recorded, "I Don't Know" is both a colossal joke -- it starts with the sound of a cheap rhythm box that was lying around producer Jim Dickinson's studio, overlaid with the sound of the band guffawing rudely at the tacky sound -- and a tart-tongued state of the band address. The verses are call and response, consisting of Paul Westerberg shouting questions at his bandmates with hardcore-style passion, to which Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars diffidently mumble "I don't know" in a drunk-sounding slur. Besides a hilarious swipe at the kind of off-stage scrapes the band was by this point already legendary for ("Our lawyer's on the phone/How much are you in for?/What did we do now?"), the song's chorus is a key part of the Replacements' self-mythology: "One foot in the door/The other one in the gutter" is the perhaps too-romantic view the bandmembers seemed to hold of themselves at the time. Musically, however, the song is an absolute corker, finishing off with an out-of-nowhere saxophone solo that recalls both Captain Beefheart and Fun House.
- The Ledge
A controversial song about teen suicide (MTV refused to air the video without a disclaimer) "The Ledge" courted outrage because Paul Westerberg's first-person lyrics, in the voice of a confused teenager crouching outside a high downtown window, don't take a strong stance against teen suicide. (Indeed, the final high-pitched squeal of the closing chorus is undoubtedly supposed to suggest that the kid has jumped.) "The Ledge" is not a pro-suicide song by any means, however; Westerberg's lyrics are merely sympathetic to the kind of emotional traumas that lead to such drastic measures. Musically, "The Ledge" is the hardest-rocking song on the Replacements' otherwise quite poppy Pleased To Meet Me, a dark-toned, Stonesy groove featuring some of Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson's most insistent rhythm section work, and the overall effect is more cathartic than depressing.
- Never Mind
An underappreciated gem from side two of the Replacements' often underrated Pleased to Meet Me, "Nevermind" is an excellent example of the more mature songwriting style Paul Westerberg began developing in earnest with this album. And yet, it still has a bit of the bratty punk in it as well, as Westerberg struggles to explain a conflicted state of mind in the verses, only to figuratively throw up his hands in the chorus. Musically, it's a bit spare; Bob Stinson's guitar would have fleshed out the (assumedly deliberately) hesitant main riff, but that would have changed the character of the song so thoroughly that it would detract. Overall, Westerberg was in the middle of such a songwriting streak in the mid-'80s that even an obviously second-tier song like "Nevermind" is far more interesting than it would otherwise be.
- Skyway
As influential as the Replacements were -- one of the major links between hard-edged punk rock and the more traditionally pop-song-oriented alternative rock of the '90s -- their impact is perhaps felt the most on their acoustic ballads, like "Skyway" from 1987's Pleased to Meet Me. Though they were a rough-hewn garage band at heart, the Replacements were tender at heart, not afraid to show their soft-song side, influenced by other rock bands with a significant acoustic component like Big Star, the Rolling Stones, and Neil Young. Bands like the Lemonheads and the Goo Goo Dolls used this rough-edged, punk rock-troubadour blueprint to the kind of mainstream recognition and/or commercial success that the Replacements could only dream about. A sort of tribute to his hometown, Paul Westerberg uses the famous downtown Minneapolis skyway -- an enclosed walkway linking buildings that was engineered with the notoriously frigid Minneapolis winters in mind -- as a tableau for a lonely nocturnal tale of longing, another near-miss at a personal connection. It is a place where he has walked countless times before, and a place where he has looked up from the street to see this woman who has caught his eye. The skyway serves to physically keep the narrator warm, but ultimately serves as a place that traps him, helpless to make contact with the woman: "In my stupid hat and gloves at night I lie awake/Wondering if I'll sleep/Wondering if we'll meet out in the street...skyway/It's got bums when its cold like any other place/It's warm up inside." It is a place where the narrator awaits his ride until, "one day/I saw you walking down that little one-way...There wasn't a damned thing I could do or say up in the skyway." This warm shelter becomes a metaphor for personal walls; way up in the skyway, away from the hustle and bustle of the street, above it all, dislocated from the race -- perhaps by choice. The two-minute ballad is almost haiku-like in its brevity, its evocation of the location and season, and its poignancy. With a little audible sniff at the top of the track, a couple of folky acoustic guitar tracks, a melodic bass guitar, and a quiet Mellotron string sample, the melancholy atmosphere of the track serves to underpin the aching desire in Westerberg's remarkably expressive voice. He sings the gorgeous melody with a plaintive and intimate delivery.
- Can’t Hardly Wait
This is the one of the songs that link the raw garage days of the Replacements to Paul Westerberg's more ambitiously crafted and finely produced, post- Replacements solo career. Featuring a quiet and simple circular guitar riff, the instrumentation is made up mostly of horns and strings, and Memphis legend Jim Dickinson's reigned-in production is crisp and clean. Clearly the group was aiming for the sort of bright, early-'70s AM-radio sounds of songs like B.J. Thomas' "Hooked on a Feeling." It was as if Westerberg realized that his gifts as a songwriter were enough to let his melodies and lyrics shine through without the din of distortion and edgy performances for which his band had been known. During his tenure with the band, Westerberg guided them from pure garage rock raucousness to nuanced, soulful songwriting and a more focused production standard. And he probably looked at his record collection, as many artists do, and realized that he did not listen exclusively to punk rock and heavy-guitar music; that, in fact, his tastes probably ran toward the well-crafted and high-production-values side of Big Star, the Beatles, and the Stones. In the process, however, many such artists forget the fact that many of the same elements of their own music, which they may feel they are outgrowing, are often times precisely the aspects that make them unique as artists. One can not blame Westerberg for feeling like he had achieved all he could with the Replacements' formula; he obviously wanted to move on and challenge his fans to grow along (in the same direction) as him -- to accept his art on new terms. The question is, however: Did the songwriter leave behind that which made him great as a performer? Undoubtedly, "Can't Hardly Wait" sports some of the bearings of a great Replacements song: a catchy guitar line, a memorable melody, and a unique turn of phrase or two. But one can't help but think the song as performed in its incarnation 1987's Pleased to Meet Me sounds simply too controlled. If the band had played the same song on or before Let it Be (1984), it might have teetered on the verge of collapse -- as the bandmembers themselves often did. But it was precisely this style of pop music, played with a dangerous edge and reckless joy, that was one of the main attractions of the band, and by extension, Westerberg as a songwriter. In fact, the song was originally recorded prior to Bob Stinson's departure, during the sessions for Tim (1985) -- which was tellingly included in lieu of the Pleased to Meet Me version on the collection All for Nothing/Nothing for All (1997) -- and it rocks like the band used to, with '70s punk rock-influenced guitars like the Ramones, the Clash, Blondie, and the dual attack on the Rolling Stones' 1978 Some Girls. Westerberg's vocal delivery of a rough draft of the lyrics is appropriately passionate: sneering, raspy, and breathless, as if he was propelled by the band. During the Tim-era, the Replacements walked a perilously fine line between their rowdy days of old and the crafted, polished direction of the future; it was a perfect balance. The production, by ex- Ramone Tommy Erdelyi, is timeless-sounding, unlike Dickinson's (ironically) decidedly '80s sounds. Without blaming the band for having to move on -- lacking the raw soul of the dysfunctional, kicked-out Bob Stinson and also as a result of the band's choosing to clean up their act a little -- "Can't Hardly Wait" is merely a good, not great song, executed soundly, albeit lifelessly. As such, it does not have much to distinguish itself from a whole pack of other post- Big Star, pop revival songs -- being the sort of cute pop song that earned it a spot on the soundtrack for the teenie movie that took its name from the song, Can't Hardly Wait (1998). And this merely good version of the Replacements is what disappointed their fans; they were spoiled by all the absolutely great pop/rock songs the band had tossed off over the years. They may have always been lovable losers, but they were never "cute."
Pleased to Meet Me
Bob Stinson was kicked out of the Replacements after Tim, allegedly because he was unwilling to make the musical leap forward necessary for Pleased to Meet Me. With Stinson left the band's hardcore roots, leaving behind the conflicting desires of Paul Westerberg's wish to be a serious singer/songwriter and for the group to become either the Faces or Big Star. That conflict is played out throughout Pleased to Meet Me, and it isn't helped by the stultifying clean and detailed production by Jim Dickinson. Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson are reigned in tighter than ever before, giving most of the songs a strangled, distanced feel which isn't helped by Dickinson's canned guitar sounds and the odd production flourishes, including the occasional sax and keyboard. The full-blown production works on the horn- and string-drenched "Can't Hardly Wait," but it makes mindlessly rocking filler like "Shooting Dirty Pool" and "Red Red Wine" irritating. For the most part, Westerberg's songs make the clean sound tolerable, particularly on the Stonesy "I.O.U.," the suicide sketch of "The Ledge," the power pop of "Never Mind" and "Valentine," and the lovely acoustic "Skyway." But the fan love letter "Alex Chilton" reveals more than necessary -- even though Westerberg is shooting for stardom, he has more affinity for the self-styled loser, which means he never wants to make the full leap to the mainstream. And that can only hurt a record like Pleased to Meet Me, which has stardom in its sights.
- I.O.U.
Paul Westerberg came across as such an intensely personal songwriter in the Replacements' glory days that longtime fans simply assumed that every song on every one of his albums was a completely sincere cri de coeur. It's hard not to make that assumption with the spitting mad "I.O.U.," which sounds like a middle-finger salute to the hipster-cred faction of the band's audience, the folks who thought that the Replacements died when (pick one) they fired Bob Stinson, they signed with a major label, or they released the ultra-poppy "I Will Dare." Singing with barely contained fury over a calamitous racket, Westerberg tears into his unnamed antagonists with undisguised glee, from a muttered "You're all fucked" at the end of the first verse to the song's end, where Westerberg sings, over and over with increasing vituperation, "Want it in writing/I owe you nothing." Besides the lyrical and vocal fury, producer Jim Dickinson provides a ferocious, guitar-heavy sound more polished than Steve Fjelstad's early lo-fi roar but with all the bite that's missing from Tommy Erdelyi's too-polite Tim.
- Alex Chilton
A homage to Paul Westerberg's underdog songwriting hero, "Alex Chilton" succinctly captures Big Star fans' feelings about that band's music with one simple line: "I'm in love with that song." For Jim Dickinson, the producer of the Replacements' album Pleased to Meet Me (1987) that features the tribute, the song must have felt like coming full circle. Though he had already put together an impressive resumé -- with gigs working with the Rolling Stones, among others -- Dickinson had also produced Big Star's shambolic, arty masterpiece Third/Sister Lovers in 1974 at Ardent Studios, where the Replacements made the pilgrimage to record their album. As if acknowledging that it would take an alternate world for a scenario where, "Children by the millions/Sing for Alex Chilton/When he comes 'round," Westerberg begins the song's imaginative lyric with: "If he was from Venus/Would he feed us with a spoon?/If he was from Mars, wouldn't that be cool?" But in Westerberg's mind, as with many other fans, the breathtaking indifference that greeted the classic Big Star records is simply astounding. As with Westerberg's other subjects and protagonists, Chilton serves as the ultimate outsider. In the view of Westerberg and other fans, Chilton's intelligent power pop anthems and gorgeous ballads should have resulted in rock stardom for him and his band, where those "millions" did flock to see him. The beauty of the writing is that the author can create such a wishful scenario, even if it is only imagined. Alas, the similarly influential Replacements also enjoyed precious little commercial success and, like Big Star, never really graduated beyond cult-band status, while those directly influenced by them reaped far more rewards. Obviously, this is one reason Westerberg identified with Chilton. "I never travel far/Without a little Big Star." Dickinson layers the track with multiple acoustic and electric guitar tracks with part-specific precision -- explosive, overdriven small-amp sounds and driving Keith Richards-esque riffs. Instead of guitars getting more huge on the chorus, Dickinson has the band singing a pad of harmony "ooh"s as Big Star themselves might have on their earlier, more Anglophile albums. Also included is a percussive cowbell and handclaps during the chorus. One annoying element of the production is sample-like '80s giant snare drum sound, which may have been right for the arena sound of Brian Adams, but not for bar band heroes the Replacements. Live versions of the song were usually performed closer to the band's well-known full-tilt abandon. While he retains the Replacements' edge, especially with the inherent raw vocals of Westerberg, Dickinson brought the band to the closest thing they had to a radio hit. And the catchy single surely influenced more than a few curious fans to investigate some Chilton/ Big Star music.
- I Don’t Know
Quite possibly the funniest song the Replacements ever recorded, "I Don't Know" is both a colossal joke -- it starts with the sound of a cheap rhythm box that was lying around producer Jim Dickinson's studio, overlaid with the sound of the band guffawing rudely at the tacky sound -- and a tart-tongued state of the band address. The verses are call and response, consisting of Paul Westerberg shouting questions at his bandmates with hardcore-style passion, to which Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars diffidently mumble "I don't know" in a drunk-sounding slur. Besides a hilarious swipe at the kind of off-stage scrapes the band was by this point already legendary for ("Our lawyer's on the phone/How much are you in for?/What did we do now?"), the song's chorus is a key part of the Replacements' self-mythology: "One foot in the door/The other one in the gutter" is the perhaps too-romantic view the bandmembers seemed to hold of themselves at the time. Musically, however, the song is an absolute corker, finishing off with an out-of-nowhere saxophone solo that recalls both Captain Beefheart and Fun House.
- The Ledge
A controversial song about teen suicide (MTV refused to air the video without a disclaimer) "The Ledge" courted outrage because Paul Westerberg's first-person lyrics, in the voice of a confused teenager crouching outside a high downtown window, don't take a strong stance against teen suicide. (Indeed, the final high-pitched squeal of the closing chorus is undoubtedly supposed to suggest that the kid has jumped.) "The Ledge" is not a pro-suicide song by any means, however; Westerberg's lyrics are merely sympathetic to the kind of emotional traumas that lead to such drastic measures. Musically, "The Ledge" is the hardest-rocking song on the Replacements' otherwise quite poppy Pleased To Meet Me, a dark-toned, Stonesy groove featuring some of Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson's most insistent rhythm section work, and the overall effect is more cathartic than depressing.
- Never Mind
An underappreciated gem from side two of the Replacements' often underrated Pleased to Meet Me, "Nevermind" is an excellent example of the more mature songwriting style Paul Westerberg began developing in earnest with this album. And yet, it still has a bit of the bratty punk in it as well, as Westerberg struggles to explain a conflicted state of mind in the verses, only to figuratively throw up his hands in the chorus. Musically, it's a bit spare; Bob Stinson's guitar would have fleshed out the (assumedly deliberately) hesitant main riff, but that would have changed the character of the song so thoroughly that it would detract. Overall, Westerberg was in the middle of such a songwriting streak in the mid-'80s that even an obviously second-tier song like "Nevermind" is far more interesting than it would otherwise be.
- Skyway
As influential as the Replacements were -- one of the major links between hard-edged punk rock and the more traditionally pop-song-oriented alternative rock of the '90s -- their impact is perhaps felt the most on their acoustic ballads, like "Skyway" from 1987's Pleased to Meet Me. Though they were a rough-hewn garage band at heart, the Replacements were tender at heart, not afraid to show their soft-song side, influenced by other rock bands with a significant acoustic component like Big Star, the Rolling Stones, and Neil Young. Bands like the Lemonheads and the Goo Goo Dolls used this rough-edged, punk rock-troubadour blueprint to the kind of mainstream recognition and/or commercial success that the Replacements could only dream about. A sort of tribute to his hometown, Paul Westerberg uses the famous downtown Minneapolis skyway -- an enclosed walkway linking buildings that was engineered with the notoriously frigid Minneapolis winters in mind -- as a tableau for a lonely nocturnal tale of longing, another near-miss at a personal connection. It is a place where he has walked countless times before, and a place where he has looked up from the street to see this woman who has caught his eye. The skyway serves to physically keep the narrator warm, but ultimately serves as a place that traps him, helpless to make contact with the woman: "In my stupid hat and gloves at night I lie awake/Wondering if I'll sleep/Wondering if we'll meet out in the street...skyway/It's got bums when its cold like any other place/It's warm up inside." It is a place where the narrator awaits his ride until, "one day/I saw you walking down that little one-way...There wasn't a damned thing I could do or say up in the skyway." This warm shelter becomes a metaphor for personal walls; way up in the skyway, away from the hustle and bustle of the street, above it all, dislocated from the race -- perhaps by choice. The two-minute ballad is almost haiku-like in its brevity, its evocation of the location and season, and its poignancy. With a little audible sniff at the top of the track, a couple of folky acoustic guitar tracks, a melodic bass guitar, and a quiet Mellotron string sample, the melancholy atmosphere of the track serves to underpin the aching desire in Westerberg's remarkably expressive voice. He sings the gorgeous melody with a plaintive and intimate delivery.
- Can’t Hardly Wait
This is the one of the songs that link the raw garage days of the Replacements to Paul Westerberg's more ambitiously crafted and finely produced, post- Replacements solo career. Featuring a quiet and simple circular guitar riff, the instrumentation is made up mostly of horns and strings, and Memphis legend Jim Dickinson's reigned-in production is crisp and clean. Clearly the group was aiming for the sort of bright, early-'70s AM-radio sounds of songs like B.J. Thomas' "Hooked on a Feeling." It was as if Westerberg realized that his gifts as a songwriter were enough to let his melodies and lyrics shine through without the din of distortion and edgy performances for which his band had been known. During his tenure with the band, Westerberg guided them from pure garage rock raucousness to nuanced, soulful songwriting and a more focused production standard. And he probably looked at his record collection, as many artists do, and realized that he did not listen exclusively to punk rock and heavy-guitar music; that, in fact, his tastes probably ran toward the well-crafted and high-production-values side of Big Star, the Beatles, and the Stones. In the process, however, many such artists forget the fact that many of the same elements of their own music, which they may feel they are outgrowing, are often times precisely the aspects that make them unique as artists. One can not blame Westerberg for feeling like he had achieved all he could with the Replacements' formula; he obviously wanted to move on and challenge his fans to grow along (in the same direction) as him -- to accept his art on new terms. The question is, however: Did the songwriter leave behind that which made him great as a performer? Undoubtedly, "Can't Hardly Wait" sports some of the bearings of a great Replacements song: a catchy guitar line, a memorable melody, and a unique turn of phrase or two. But one can't help but think the song as performed in its incarnation 1987's Pleased to Meet Me sounds simply too controlled. If the band had played the same song on or before Let it Be (1984), it might have teetered on the verge of collapse -- as the bandmembers themselves often did. But it was precisely this style of pop music, played with a dangerous edge and reckless joy, that was one of the main attractions of the band, and by extension, Westerberg as a songwriter. In fact, the song was originally recorded prior to Bob Stinson's departure, during the sessions for Tim (1985) -- which was tellingly included in lieu of the Pleased to Meet Me version on the collection All for Nothing/Nothing for All (1997) -- and it rocks like the band used to, with '70s punk rock-influenced guitars like the Ramones, the Clash, Blondie, and the dual attack on the Rolling Stones' 1978 Some Girls. Westerberg's vocal delivery of a rough draft of the lyrics is appropriately passionate: sneering, raspy, and breathless, as if he was propelled by the band. During the Tim-era, the Replacements walked a perilously fine line between their rowdy days of old and the crafted, polished direction of the future; it was a perfect balance. The production, by ex- Ramone Tommy Erdelyi, is timeless-sounding, unlike Dickinson's (ironically) decidedly '80s sounds. Without blaming the band for having to move on -- lacking the raw soul of the dysfunctional, kicked-out Bob Stinson and also as a result of the band's choosing to clean up their act a little -- "Can't Hardly Wait" is merely a good, not great song, executed soundly, albeit lifelessly. As such, it does not have much to distinguish itself from a whole pack of other post- Big Star, pop revival songs -- being the sort of cute pop song that earned it a spot on the soundtrack for the teenie movie that took its name from the song, Can't Hardly Wait (1998). And this merely good version of the Replacements is what disappointed their fans; they were spoiled by all the absolutely great pop/rock songs the band had tossed off over the years. They may have always been lovable losers, but they were never "cute."