For anyone who spends too much time reading books and magazines about rock and roll, it can be difficult to hear the Replacements beyond the myth. Whether it was cultivated by the band or foisted upon them by journalists, the "Beautiful Loser" archetype was made for these guys, and it's been an inseparable part of their persona since the first shipment of Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash left the Twin-Tone offices.
The Replacements were the perfect band for a certain breed of American rock critic. They started out vaguely punk, but nothing about them was threatening, political, or arty; they were regular guys-- scruffy, Midwestern, anti-fashion and anti-pop; they hid an emotional vulnerability beneath cases of beer and fuck-up hijinks; they should've been huge, but the record-buying public and the New York suits never figured out what they had. Etc.
You can sense that the myth is starting to fade a bit. A slew of spotty Paul Westerberg solo albums, generally shoddy treatment of the back catalog, and indie rock's trending away from their trad brand of rock have caused the Replacements to slip from view relative to many of the bands they came up with in the 1980s. Of the bands in Michael Azzerad's essential Our Band Could Be Your Life, the Replacements seem particularly distant from what's happening now.
In some quarters fans are trying to shore up The Replacements position by talking about influence. Nirvana is often mentioned, which makes some sense at first because they played loud rock and Kurt Cobain had a scratchy voice. The Replacements even had a song called "Nevermind". But the comparison doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Cobain was enamored of capital-a Art and all its pretensions; he thought of himself as a feminist and obsessed over childhood. Westerberg thought "art" was short for "Arthur" and values in his songs were traditional. Now Goo Goo Dolls and Ryan Adams, on the other hand...
So if the myth is fading and the influence is questionable, all we're left with are the records. And Westerberg's best songs still resonate. This set collects 18 from the Replacements' original days and adds two recent songs cut with the surviving members. It's the first compilation to include tracks from both Twin-Tone (84 and before, indie) and Sire (85 and after, major), and is thus fated to replace the Sire-only singles and rarities two-fer All for Nothing/Nothing for All.
The selection and sequencing of Don't You Know Who I Think I Was is generally smart, hitting most of the agreed-upon highs. The various albums are represented in their proper proportions based on quality, with Tim getting the most songs (four) and Stink and All Shook Down getting the fewest (one each). It's set up more like a mix-tape than a survey, leading to a couple of strange juxtapositions. Leading off the Tim selections with "Here Comes a Regular" is jarring; if any song was meant to be an album closer, it's this. With its crawling pace and downcast mood, it throws up a huge speedbump when listening to this comp straight through.
Something else happens when "Alex Chilton" introduces the Pleased to Meet Me selections, as the booming drums seem to come from another world than the dinky snare of the Tommy Ramone-produced Tim. The Replacements never could figure out what sort of production worked with Westerberg's songs. Tim was a thin and trebly disaster, which was most apparent on rockers like "Bastards of Young", while Pleased to Meet Me and Don't Tell a Soul were overproduced in different ways. Their best-sounding stuff by far is the Twin-Tone material, which is too bad since Westerberg generally improved as a songwriter with each record. "Skyway" is one of the sharpest and most affecting ballads of the college rock era, and "I'll Be You" might be Westerberg's peak, with an entire world of feeling held inside the opening word "If".
Oh yeah, two new songs. "Message to the Boys" essentially finishes writing the music to Westerberg's skeletal solo debut "Waiting for Somebody" from the Singles soundtrack. Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal described it as a loyal farewell rather than a new beginning, and that seems exactly right. It's warm and nostalgic and not trying too hard. "Pool and Dive" is almost as good, sounding more like a channeling of the Big Star influence, the brash power-pop side of the Replacements given room to breathe. Bands reuniting for new songs to stick on a best-of always puts fans on the edge of their seats, braced for embarrassment. But the Replacements get out quickly with dignity intact.
Hearing the 18 songs from the band's original run, the consistency of Westerberg's themes stands out. He built his own little world brick-by-brick, populated it with original characters, and wrote some very catchy tunes about what goes on there. He was like an indie-rock Springsteen, relentlessly chronicling adolescence and early adulthood. In his world everyone is 17, 18, 19 or 20, the grown-ups sound like Charlie Brown's teacher, people gossip, the jobs stink, boredom is rampant, and escape is possible through music and love. Given the aching familiarity of this landscape and Westerberg's eye for detail, the Replacements will always be around.
