One Foot in the Door …still.
The Replacements — Now and Forever
Music
The Replacements — Now and Forever
As all eyes are on Minneapolis for the next month or two, I thought it was a good time to shake the tree and remind people about The Replacements.
The perennially forgotten band by most of the music cognoscenti, despite almost every album being universally acclaimed.
But The Replacements never tried to appeal to the cognoscenti; their target market was people. Just people.
I think that makes the band one of the most important rock and roll bands in recent history.
The ‘mats are a straight-ahead rock and roll band …and about as welcoming a band as you could hope for …as long as you like songs about alienation with a heavy dose of sarcasm, snark, rebellion, and of course love.
“Jesus rides beside me, he never buys any smokes.”
If you’ve heard The Replacements and don’t understand them by now, you never will. And if you’ve never heard them? Well …
As the news is awash with coverage and updates on the Derek Chauvin trial, it should be noted that Minnesota has given us three of the greatest songwriters spanning two generations.
Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan)
Prince Rogers Nelson (Prince)
Paul Westerberg (Paul Westerberg).
Listening to Paul Westerberg grow from the wise-ass punk of Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, to the pure pop powerhouse wordsmith he became is one of the greatest rewards in music. Seriously.
To listen to the hilarious “I Hate Music” (it’s got too many notes) off Sorry Ma …to the sweet “Skyway” off Pleased to Meet Me is transcendent. Even in an era that exploded with phenomenal songwriters like fellow golden gopher Bob Mould, and R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty, Westerberg’s wordplay stands out:
Well, you wish upon a star
That turns into a plane
And I guess that’s right on par
Who is left to blame?
“Valentine” — off 1987’s Pleased to Meet Me
If being afraid is a crime
We hang side by side
“Swinging Party” — off 1985’s Tim
Look me in the eye
And tell me that I’m satisfied
Were you satisfied?
Look me in the eye
Then, tell me that I’m satisfied
And now are you satisfied?
“Unsatisfied” — off 1984’s Let it Be
The ones, love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones love us least are the ones we’ll die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them
“Bastards of Young” — off 1985’s Tim
And these prescient lyric’s from “Androgynous” on 1984’s Let it Be:
Here comes Dick, he’s wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, you know she’s sporting a chain
Same hair, revolution
Same build, evolution
Tomorrow who’s gonna fuss
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
Well, you get the idea.
The Maslow Impact
The Replacements were never the drunken rubes they played up. They were much smarter and more clever than they ever let on. They were also one of the few self-actualized bands …ever.
They knew exactly who they were. Need proof? Listen to “I Don’t Know” from Pleased to Meet Me. The album that followed the self-immolation of the Tim tour.
Do we give it up? (I don’t know)
Should we give it hell? (I don’t know)
Are you makin’ a fortune? (I don’t know)
Or don’t you wanna tell? (I don’t know)
Should we give it up? (I don’t know)
Or hang around some more? (I don’t know)
Should we buy some beer? (I don’t know)
Can I use your hairspray?
One foot in the door, the other one in the gutter
They Are Legend
The stories of the band’s drunken debauchery are the stuff of legend. But history proves The Replacements played straight more than they played drunk. They may not have been good, but that wasn’t always attributable to booze or drugs. Sometimes they were just tired of being on the road and/or bored, so an entire set of Glen Campbell songs livened them up.
The Replacements are more than just the folklore of drunken debauchery. They’re more than Tommy Stinson’s foray playing bass for Guns-n-Roses.
They’re more than Paul Westerberg’s self-imposed exile in his basement.
They’re more than Chris Mars paintings and artwork.
They’re more than Bob Stinson’s death.
They’re more than Slim Dunlap’s stroke.
They’re more than their history, real or embellished.
If you’ve ever felt alone, alienated, or like an outsider, the odds are, you’ll understand The Replacements. Not ALL of the songs, but a big chunk of them.
Obviously, what makes The Replacements significant is the music, the songs. The names of bands they have influenced is ridiculously long and ever-growing.
When people who have never heard The Replacements, I’ll ask:
“You know the Goo Goo Dolls?”
Invariably it’s a yes.
Then I follow with: “That’s The Replacements.”
That’s not a slag on the Goo’s; I like them too. But they had the career I think Sire Records majordomo, Seymour Stein, wanted for The Replacements. But for a host of reasons, and many of them by the band’s own doing, it wasn’t meant to be.
But for the fans, The Replacements connected with, they connected. And the true beauty in being a ‘mats fan is that whenever you meet one, you know that they’re a kindred spirit.
Having that kind of intrinsic connection with fans is not something a band or artists can force. It’s either there, or it’s not. I don’t want to sound all Drew Barrymore, but it’s magical where it exists. And for The Replacements and their fans, it existed.
Begrudgingly, they embraced the beer-swilling jocks and the angry punks; they were easy enough to satisfy. But the people they played to were the fans sitting in the back shouting “Skyway” — I was one of those.
The Replacements never had big album sales, but somehow that seems on-brand for the band. They played the 80s record company game …but played using their own improvised rulebook.
Their major-label debut, Tim (produced by Tommy Ramone), had a lot of heat behind it. It was 1985, and radio was king, pop culture was experiencing peak MTV, and there was the burgeoning “college rock” scene.
Wanna guess how this played out for the band? They snarled at commercial radio, and in their own way, embraced “college radio.” But video? That was not their jam. At all.
The video for Tim’s single, “Bastards of Young,” was a single unbroken shot of a speaker. At the end of the song, the speaker is kicked in by the person who was listening. Oh, and it was in black and white.
You can only imagine how that played in the era of Duran Duran videos.
The suits at Sire Records and the boys at MTV didn’t much like that video. At all. I don’t feel it’s because they hated the video (well, they did), and the band was universally adored, but everyone agreed that The Replacements were the kind of band that could define a generation — if only they would get out of their own way.
Even today, that video still makes me laugh. Its beauty is the irony and the absurdity.
While promoting Tim, the band landed a plum gig on Saturday Night Live. That did not go so well. The performance was good-ish. Their backstage behavior? Not so much. Lorne Michaels was so angry that he put them on the same “banned for life” list as Elvis Costello.
Fortunately for The Replacements, 1984 was the dawn of what was fast being recognized as “college rock” — a story for another time. It was cleverly immortalized on the song “Left of the Dial” off Tim.
Today that may seem a dumb title, but in 1984, it was significant. Before the digital era, you actually had to turn a dial to tune in to a radio station …and college stations were always way down on the FM broadcast band. And it was how a lot of these bands kept track of each other:
And if I don’t see ya, in a long, long while
I’ll try to find you
Left of the dial
Even if MTV and AOR radio stations wouldn’t play the band, college radio embraced the band the same way they embraced Husker Du, R.E.M., The Minutemen, Black Flag, XTC, etc. (see Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991 for a good explanation of this era.)
And maybe The Replacements didn’t come to define a generation as everyone had hoped.
They did something better.
They influenced generations (and continue to do so):
Kurt Cobain, who sang as though he had listened to “Bastards of Young” on a loop.
Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong: “If it wasn’t for [them] I might have spent my time playing in bad speed-metal bands.”
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy before launching into a cover of the ‘mats “Color Me Impressed”: “Everything we are is because of The Replacements.”
Why do The Replacements matter? They’re not good-looking. They have a reputation for being prickly. When they toured, they were far from a perfect live act; they’re not superstars. Of course, it’s the songs. It’s always the songs. They were never afraid to spit in the face of authority or wear their heart on their sleeves. They never shied away from their foibles and missteps and oftentimes embraced them.
So, what is it then that makes them matter?
They’re real.
They’re honest.
They’re human.
They’re me.
They’re you.
They’re The Replacements.