The Replacements
Tim
»
The Replacements
Tim
Sire, 1986
RiYL: Alex Chilton, R.E.M., Weezer, Sugar |
Tim, featuring probably the band's best group performances, is buried in major label-enforced "accessible" production. Everything afterwards, despite Paul Westerberg's constantly improving songcraft, is marred by the departure of Bob Stinson.
But they got real close. It's hard to suggest that Tim might have been one of the greatest albums ever made if it had been recorded for Twin/Tone, because it's more or less impossible to analyze the 'Mats' career logically. The Replacements always proceeded fueled more by emotion (and beer) than nonsense like "artistic development."
In any case, despite the echo-y vocals, criminally subdued Stinson guitar raunch, and artificially tightened arrangements, Tim is a fine record, its brash guitar rockers heartbreakingly contrasted by the stunning ballads "Swingin Party" and "Here Comes A Regular." "Left Of The Dial" is a song that makes rock critics weep, with a priceless Westerberg vocal and the only Stinson lead on the whole record that really bursts through and seizes the listener by the throat.
Elsewhere, loping rockers like "I'll Buy" and "Bastards Of Young" show how the band managed to find itself on a major label, and the obnoxious "Waitress In The Sky" shows why they probably shouldn't have.
Like Let It Be, Tim's songs constantly contradict each other -- the honest blue-collar sentiment and blue-eyed soul of tunes like "Kiss Me On The Bus" sounds nothing like the band that produced the cock-rock anthems "Dose Of Thunder" and "Lay It Down Clown." Westerberg can't make up his mind whether he's actually got any hope of success, although closing things out with the tearjerking "Regular" indicates he could probably sense even then that stardom was not on the 'Mats' agenda.
But like the '80s' other major indie rock lost cause, the Pixies, it might have been Westerberg's vain hope of commercial success that kept The Replacements great. Both Westerberg and Frank Black's post-breakup records have sounded like formulaic retreads of their old bands, with all the posturings but none of the spirit.
Like Lou Reed and Big Star's Alex Chilton before them, Westerberg and Black have reacted to their old bands' status as unprofitable but vastly influential forebears in the worst way possible, going through the musical motions and scowling like the world owes them something. Maybe the world does, but it would feel much better about paying up if Eventually and The Cult Of Ray hadn't already been inflicted upon it.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.