Hello, still stuck in Minneapolis a beautiful midwestern town built between lakes and woods by those who felt right at home there, Germans and Scandinavians still make up almost halve of its 400,000 citizens. The Minneapolis park system has been called the best-designed, best-financed, and best-maintained in America. The city's Chain of Lakes, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (84 km) route of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway. Public transport is well supported and it's one of the cleanest cities on the planet.
It has a very culture minded populace , the region is second only to New York City in live theater per capita and is the third-largest theater market in the U.S. after New York City and Chicago. Many performing arts groups and art museums/galleries. The man usually known as Prince the towns most famous musical progeny lights up it's music scene. It really is a very cultured city.... hence Republicans play second fiddle despite the presence of many affluent white citizens. Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community. More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest such percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States.
Today's artists unlike many of their underground contemporaries, played "heart-on-the-sleeve" rock songs that combined Westerberg's "raw-throated adolescent howl," with self-deprecating lyrics. They were a notoriously wayward live act, part of the mystique of todays artists was the fact that the audience never knew until the start of a concert if the band would be sober enough to play and it was not uncommon for the group to play entire sets of cover versions . . ....N'Joy
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The Replacements' history began in Minneapolis in 1978 when nineteen-year-old Bob Stinson gave his eleven-year-old brother Tommy Stinson a bass guitar to keep him off the streets. That year Bob met Mars, a high school dropout. With Mars playing guitar and then switching to drums, the trio called themselves "Dogbreath" and began covering songs by Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Yes without a singer.
After being impressed by the band's performance, Westerberg regularly listened in after work. Dogbreath auditioned several vocalists, Westerberg joined the band, Dogbreath often drank and took various drugs during rehearsals, playing songs as an afterthought. In contrast to the rest of the band, the relatively disciplined Westerberg appeared at rehearsals in neat clothes and insisted on practicing songs until he was happy with them. After the band members discovered first-generation English punk bands like The Clash, The Jam, The Damned and The Buzzcocks, Dogbreath changed its name to The Impediments and played a drunken performance without Tommy Stinson at a church hall gig in June 1980. After being banned from the venue for disorderly behaviour, they changed the name to the Replacements.
In their early days, they sounded quite similar to Hüsker Dü, the leaders of the Minneapolis punk scene. However, The Replacements were wilder and looser than the Hüskers and quickly became notorious for their drunken, chaotic gigs. After they built up a sizable local following the Minneapolis Jesperson signed them, he was the manager of Oar Folkjokeopus, a punk rock record store in Minneapolis, and had also founded Twin/Tone Records with a local recording engineer named Paul Stark. With the agreement of Stark and the rest of the band, the Replacements signed to Twin/Tone Records in 1980. Jesperson's support of the band was welcomed, and they asked him to be their manager after their second show.
When the band's first album, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, finally appeared in August 1981, it received positive reviews in local fanzines. Option's Blake Gumprecht wrote, "Westerberg has the ability to make you feel like you're right in the car with him, alongside him at the door, drinking from the same bottle." The album contained the band's first single, "I'm in Trouble", Westerberg's "first truly good song".[18] Sorry Ma included the song, "Somethin to Dü", a homage to another Minneapolis punk band Hüsker Dü. The Replacements had a friendly rivalry with the band, which started when Twin/Tone chose the Replacements over Hüsker Dü, interestingly the Replacements began playing faster and became more influenced by Dü's hardcore punk. Despite this, the band did not feel part of the hardcore scene.
Sometime in late 1981, the Replacements played a song called "Kids Don't Follow". Jesperson was convinced the song sounded like a hit and pleaded with the Twin/Tone co-owners Stark and Hallman, "I will do anything to get this out. I will hand-stamp jackets if I have to." The partners agreed to fund the recording, but Jesperson and virtually everyone he knew had to hand-stamp ten thousand white record jackets The band recorded eight tracks within a week, with Jesperson as producer. Their "balls-to-the-wall hardcore punk attempt", their first EP Stink, containing "Kids Don't Follow" and seven other songs, was released in June 1982, six months after the Chicago show.
The Replacements began to distance themselves from the hardcore punk scene after the release of Stink. "We write songs rather than riffs with statements," Westerberg later stated. Inspired by other rock subgenres, he had been writing songs that incorporated a wide range of musical styles. He even wrote an acoustic ballad, "You're Getting Married One Night", but when he played it to the rest of the band, it was met with silence. "Save that for your solo album, Paul," Bob Stinson said. "That ain't the Replacements". The track remained unreleased for years. Westerberg realized his toughest audience was the band itself, later saying, "If it doesn't rock enough, Bob will scoff at it, and if it isn't catchy enough, Chris won't like it, and if it isn't modern enough, Tommy won't like it."
With a batch of new songs, the Replacements entered a warehouse in Roseville, Minnesota, to record their next album, with the Twin/Tone co-owner Stark engineering. Westerberg wrote songs in stops and starts, so it took several sessions of recording to finish the album. Hootenanny, the band's second studio album, was released in April 1983. Hootenanny saw Westerberg expand his songwriting capabilities, In songs such as "Willpower", with echoed vocals and a sparse arrangement, and "Within Your Reach", which features Westerberg on all instruments, he revealed a more sensitive side. It was a much more mature album than Stink and Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash. Hootenanny was played on over two hundred radio stations across the country, with critics acclaiming the album.
By Hootenanny's release, The Replacements had begun to attract a following outside of Minneapolis. The band embarked on its first tour of the U.S. in April 1983, Tommy Stinson dropped out of tenth grade to join the rest of the band on tour. The Replacements toured venues in the East Coast of the United States. The band supported R.E.M. on an eight-date tour later that summer, deciding that they should alienate the audience as much as possible. It was not a successful tour; by the end, various members had threatened to leave The Replacements. Band morale was low, and Westerberg later stated, "We'd much rather play for fifty people who know us than a thousand who don't care.
For the recording of their next studio album, The Replacements decided to return to Blackberry Way Studios in late 1983. The band considered R.E.M.'s guitarist Peter Buck as producer, but when they met him in Athens, Georgia, they did not have enough material to begin recording. Instead, Jesperson and Steve Fjelstad co-produced the album. The new material placed more of a focus on songwriting and the music was influenced by heavy metal, arena rock and Chicago blues. Instruments such as piano, twelve-string guitar and mandolin featured throughout the album. The new album included songs such as "I Will Dare", which featured Buck playing lead guitar, "Androgynous", with Westerberg on piano, and "Unsatisfied", where, according to writer Michael Azerrad, Westerberg "had hit upon a moving new way to declare that he can't get no satisfaction." Let It Be was released in October 1984 to critical acclaim.
It's release attracted attention from the major record labels, and by late 1984 several had expressed an interest in signing the band. Financially, the band was not doing well; they were not selling enough records to recoup their expenses, and money from shows went to recording costs, hotels, travel and instrument repairs. Twin/Tone was not being paid reliably by distributors and the sales of Let It Be were not high enough to justify extra promotion. "It was time for a major label to take over," according to the label's co-owner Stark. The band was close to a major label contract, but often alienated label representatives by intentionally performing badly in concert; their 1985 live album, The Shit Hits the Fans, was an example of their concert performances at the time.
One label, the Warner Bros. Records subsidiary Sire Records, eventually signed The Replacements. The band admired the label head Seymour Stein, who had managed the Ramones. The Replacements' first major-label album, Tim, was scheduled to be produced by Westerberg's idol, Alex Chilton, but the sessions fell through; the album was produced by former Ramone Tommy Erdelyi. Upon its release in 1985, Tim garnered rave reviews that equalled those for Let It Be. Though the band was poised for a popular breakthrough, they were unsure about making the leap into the mainstream. As a result, they never let themselves live up to their full potential. The Replacements landed a spot on Saturday Night Live, but they were roaring drunk throughout their performances and Westerberg said "f*ck" on the air. Their concerts had became notorious for such drunken, sloppy behavior. Frequently, the band was barely able to stand up, let alone play, and when they did play, they often didn't finish their songs. The Replacements also refused to make accessible videos -- the video for "Bastards of Young" featured nothing but a stereo system, playing the song -- thereby cutting themselves off from the mass exposure MTV could have granted them.
After the tour for Tim, the Replacements fired Bob Stinson, partly for being unwilling to play the band's "less rocked-out" material, and partly for being too drunk to try. They also fired Jesperson the same year. "It was like being thrown out of a club that you helped start," Jesperson later commented. The Replacements recorded their next album as a trio in Memphis, TN, with former Big Star producer Jim Dickinson. The resulting album, Pleased to Meet Me, was more streamlined than their previous recordings. Again, the reviews were uniformly excellent upon its spring 1987 release, but the band didn't earn many new fans. During the tour for Pleased to Meet Me, guitarist Slim Dunlap filled the vacant lead guitarist spot and he became a full-time member after the tour.
Two years later, the band returned in the spring of 1989 with Don't Tell a Soul, The Replacements' last bid for a mainstream audience. The bandmembers had cleaned up, admitting that their years of drug and alcohol abuse were behind them, and were now willing to play the promotional game. Don't Tell a Soul boasted a polished, radio-ready production and the group shot MTV-friendly videos, beginning with the single "I'll Be You." Initially, the approach worked -- "I'll Be You" became a number one album rock track, crossing over to number 51 on the pop charts. However, Don't Tell a Soul never really took off and failed to establish the band as a major commercial force.
Defeated from the lackluster performance of Don't Tell a Soul, Paul Westerberg planned on recording a solo album, but Sire rejected the idea. Consequently, the next Replacements album, All Shook Down, was a solo Westerberg record in all but name. Recorded with a cast of session musicians as well as the band, All Shook Down was a stripped-down, largely acoustic affair that hinted at the turmoil within the band. Chris Mars left shortly after its fall 1990 release, claiming that Westerberg had assumed control of the band; he would launch a solo career two years later. The Replacements toured in support of All Shook Down, with Steve Foley, formerly of the Minneapolis-based Things Fall Down, as their new drummer. Neither the tour nor the album were successful, and The Replacements quietly disbanded in the summer of 1991.
Tommy Stinson quickly followed his time in The Replacements with the short-lived but fan favorite bands Bash & Pop and Perfect. He has been the bass guitarist for Guns N' Roses since 1998, replacing the original member Duff McKagan. In 2004, he released a solo CD, Village Gorilla Head, followed in 2011 by One Man Mutiny. Dunlap released a solo album in 1993. Bob Stinson died February 15, 1995, from a drug overdose. Westerberg began a solo career slowly, releasing two songs on the Singles ("Dyslexic Heart," "Waiting for Somebody") soundtrack in 1992; he also scored the film. He released his debut solo album, 14 Songs, in the summer of 1993 to mixed reviews. Paul Westerberg's second solo album, Eventually, was released in the spring of 1996.
On April 22, 2008, Rhino released re-mastered deluxe editions of the band's four Twin/Tone albums with rare bonus tracks. On September 24, 2008, Rhino similarly released the four Sire albums as deluxe editions. On October 3, 2012, it was announced that The Replacements had reformed and that Westerberg and Tommy Stinson were in the studio recording an EP containing song cover versions. Titled Songs for Slim, the EP was sold in a 250-copy edition of 10" vinyl and auctioned online to benefit former bandmate Dunlap, who had suffered a stroke. The Replacements played their first shows in 22 years at Riot Fest in Toronto (24–25 August 2013), Chicago (13–15 September) and Denver (21–22 September). Dave Minehan, guitarist/vocalist, and drummer Josh Freese rounded out the line-up for these shows.
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All things considered, Tim was an easy transition to the majors for the Replacements, at least as far as the making of the album goes: things went wrong after the release, as the band botched big showcases like its Saturday Night Live spot, leading up to the dismissal of Bob Stinson at the conclusion of the Tim tour. The dust hadn't settled when the 'Mats headed down to Memphis to record Pleased to Meet Me with producer Jim Dickinson at Ardent Studios -- or to phrase it in Alex Chilton-speak, to record with Big Star's 3rd producer at the studio where all three Big Star albums were made. All this fanboy worship perhaps naturally led to a full-blown mash note to Paul Westerberg's idol, who also turned up to play a couple of licks on a finally finished "Can't Hardly Wait," which initially was attempted with Chilton as a producer before Tim, but Pleased to Meet Me didn't resemble either the crystalline pop of #1 Record or the narcissistic black hole of 3rd. Dickinson gave the Replacements a full-blooded, muscular production, cranking up guitars, hauling out an upright bass for Tommy Stinson, and bringing in horns -- even strings -- to flesh out Westerberg's songs. This was the Replacements as professionals and, ever the contrarians, they strained against it -- albeit only sporadically and underneath the surface -- with Westerberg's outsider stance calcifying into the invigorating bitterness of "I.O.U." and "I Don't Know." These two proto-slacker anti-anthems -- quite the inverse of the call to arms of "Bastards of Young" and "Left of the Dial" -- are the only times the group's self-sabotage surfaces here, as the bandmembers pretty much give themselves over to Dickinson's studio savvy, leading to the ominous pulse of "The Ledge" and the brilliant, shining power pop of "Never Mind," "Alex Chilton," and "Valentine," along with such left-field twists as the mock jazz of "Nightclub Jitters."
This kind of colorful, almost cinematic production -- even the greasy rocker "Shooting Dirty Pool" is enhanced by the sound of breaking glass -- was unheard of on a Replacements record and it all came to a head on "Can't Hardly Wait," which was glossed over with swelling strings and the Memphis Horns. All these fancy accoutrements would seem like the antithesis of the Replacements' spirit, but Dickinson's grand production merely blows the 'Mats up to epic scale, leaving their essence intact: Westerberg even gets a lovely fragile acoustic moment in "Skyway" and there are down-and-dirty rockers like "Shooting Dirty Pool" and "Red Red Wine" that feel like throwaways, but are necessary to the spirit of the record. the Replacements never sounded better with a bigger production than they did on Pleased to Meet Me, so it's hard not to see it as the one that got away, the record that should have been the breakthrough, especially in the year when fellow American underground rockers R.E.M. leaped into the Top Ten (but, it's also true that "The Ledge" may not have been the best single choice, as songs about suicides don't often provide entry into the Top 40). Then again, the Replacements don't make sense as a success story, so the failure of the gleaming, glistening Pleased to Meet Me winds up making its polish kind of heart-rending. As it turns out, this was the last time they could still shoot for the stars and seem like their scrappy selves and, in many ways, it was the last true Replacements album.
The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me (flac 202mb)
01 I.O.U. 2:57
02 Alex Chilton 3:12
03 I Don't Know 3:19
04 Nightclub Jitters 2:44
05 The Ledge 4:04
06 Never Mind 2:47
07 Valentine 3:31
08 Shooting Dirty Pool 2:20
09 Red Red Wine 2:59
10 Skyway 2:04
11 Can't Hardly Wait 3:02
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Two albums into their major-label contract and the Replacements had yet to have a hit -- they racked up some respectable sales but they were still a cult college band, never coming close to the Top Ten success R.E.M. had with Document. This lack of hits certainly weighed heavily on the band's label, which exerted a slightly heavier pressure than the chorus of fans and critics lamenting the group's lack of success, but all of this pressure from supporters and suits led the band to place a big bet on Don't Tell a Soul, a highly lacquered dilution of the 'Mats that is as misguided a crossover attempt as can be imagined. Matt Wallace's enormous, bottomless production -- as fathomless and dull as a muddy lake -- is merely a symptom of the illness that infected the Replacements during the making of Don't Tell a Soul, an illness that left the bandmembers with little sense of themselves. Blame for this can't be placed on the shoulders of Slim Dunlap, a Minneapolis rock fixture belatedly replacing Bob Stinson almost four years after his departure, as the guitarist is an easy, comfortable fit, lending nice country grace notes to ballads and goosing rockers with understated leads. So, does the blame for Don't Tell a Soul lay at the feet of Paul Westerberg? In part, yes, but not because the lead Replacement comes up with a set of substandard songs. Yes, a couple of his worse numbers are here -- none more egregious than the bewildering ham-fisted funk of "Asking Me Lies," and the muddled anthem "We'll Inherit the Earth" isn't far behind -- but so are a couple of his finest, including the lovely "Achin' to Be," the haunted "Rock 'n' Roll Ghost," the sweetly self-mythologizing "Talent Show," and "I'll Be You," whose urgency masks its melancholy.
Taken as an overall set of tunes, though, the songs on Don't Tell a Soul reveal a writer who is becoming self-conscious of his role as a writer, over-thinking his constructions and rewriting too carefully, dampening the over-spilling emotion that was always one of his finest characteristics; he's writing with his reputation in mind. Perhaps such overly considered songs deserve an overly considered production, but Wallace's inflated renderings of Westerberg's fussy tunes are absurdly large, pointing out that Westerberg's ballads always were endearing because they were fragile, an element acutely missing from Don't Tell a Soul. But what's really missed here is any sense that this is the work of a band: this is a record that's been assembled track to track, lacking any spark or spontaneity. This is what the Replacements would sound like if they weren't a rock & roll band, something that is painfully evident on the one straight-ahead rocker, the stiff and embarrassing "I Won't," a tune that the 'Mats could have tossed off with abandon at any other time. "I Won't" is one of only a handful of songs with a sprightly tempo, as the rest of the record ranges from anonymous album rock to mannered writerly ballads. The other fast one is, of course, "I'll Be You," the song that did manage to crawl into modern rock charts and pop up on MTV, but it failed to bring the record any further up the charts. Ultimately, that's the saddest thing about Don't Tell a Soul: it's a transparent sellout that failed to sell.
The Replacements - Don't Tell A Soul (flac 246mb)
01 Talent Show 3:29
02 Back To Back 3:18
03 We'll Inherit The Earth 4:15
04 Achin' To Be 3:40
05 They're Blind 4:32
06 Anywhere's Better Than Here 2:46
07 Asking Me Lies 3:37
08 I'll Be You 3:25
09 I Won't 2:36
10 Rock 'N' Roll Ghost 3:20
11 Darlin' One 3:39
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Battered and broken from the debacle of Don't Tell a Soul -- the album's failure to take off, followed by a disastrous tour supporting Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -- the Replacements were on their last legs when it came time for 1990's All Shook Down, so worn down that the band ceased to exist for most intents and purposes. Paul Westerberg even began recording the album as a solo project with R.E.M. producer Scott Litt, gradually turning it into the final Replacements album. It may bear the band's name, but All Shook Down never quite shakes the feeling of a solo album; above all, it's a writers album, with the focus placed entirely on the songs. To a certain extent, that was true of the ballad-heavy Don't Tell a Soul, but that felt over-thought from its conception to execution, where there is a light touch to All Shook Down, despite its plethora of guest musicians, including John Cale's viola on "Sadly Beautiful," Heartbreaker Benmont Tench, Terry Reid, and a duet with Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano on "My Little Problem." Instead of aiming for a crossover hit, Westerberg has now resigned himself to his status as an also-ran, even embracing it to some extent, so there are no sops to rock radio aside from "My Little Problem," whose bluster is jarring amidst the nimble folk-pop of the rest of the record.
All the acoustic guitars and skipping electric guitars push All Shook Down far outside of the nascent Zeitgeist of grunge, or the sound of college rock in 1990; although Westerberg would soon be back in the thick of things with his Singles soundtrack -- sounding not too dissimilar to this record -- this finds him retreating from the rat race, reflecting on what he's been through. All Shook Down is designed as a coda to the Replacements' career, with Westerberg looking back to "When It Began," pleading that "Someone Take the Wheel" and wrapping the whole thing up with "The Last," as self-aware a final song as the Beatles' "The End." Westerberg balances these self-referential slices of autobiography with his self-deprecation and heartbreak, but all this melancholy never feels heavy, not even when he dips into thick sorrow on "Sadly Beautiful" or the disembodied spookiness of "All Shook Down." There's a palpable sense of relief to All Shook Down, as if Westerberg realized he dodged a bullet by not becoming a true rock star. This lightness is appealing, especially as it surfaces in his writing, which is surely more considered than it was even on Pleased to Meet Me, but it has an offhand quality, recalling the casual virtuosity of Let It Be and Tim -- it's the same guy, only older but maybe not too much wiser. And as it's true to that spirit, All Shook Down winds up being a note-perfect denouement to the Replacements' career, even if it's quiet and careful in a way the band never was at its peak.
The Replacements - All Shook Down ( flac 258mb)
01 Merry Go Round 3:36
02 One Wink At A Time 3:02
03 Nobody 3:08
04 Bent Out Of Shape 3:42
05 Sadly Beautiful 3:14
06 Someone Take The Wheel 3:37
07 When It Began 3:05
08 All Shook Down 3:14
09 Attitude 2:43
10 Happy Town 2:52
11 Torture 1:51
12 My Little Problem 4:00
13 The Last 2:54
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An extra for the fans lovely leftovers..
Tracks 1-4 "All Shook Down" outtakes, TRack 5 "When The Shit Hits The Fan" Cassette, Tracks 6-15 single B-sides and outtakes
The Replacements - Beat Girl ( flac 377mb)
01 Kissing In Action 2:58
02 Ought To Get Love 3:02
03 Satellite 3:46
04 Like A Rolling Pin 3:13
05 Can't Hardly Wait 15:51
06 Date To Church 4:02
07 If Only You Were Lonely 2:42
08 Nowhere Is My Home 4:12
09 Route 66 3:03
10 Election Day 3:06
11 Tossin' And Turnin' 2:26
12 Jungle Rock 2:41
13 Cool Water 2:44
14 Cruella DeVille 2:18
15 20th Century Boy 3:29
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It has a very culture minded populace , the region is second only to New York City in live theater per capita and is the third-largest theater market in the U.S. after New York City and Chicago. Many performing arts groups and art museums/galleries. The man usually known as Prince the towns most famous musical progeny lights up it's music scene. It really is a very cultured city.... hence Republicans play second fiddle despite the presence of many affluent white citizens. Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community. More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest such percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States.
Today's artists unlike many of their underground contemporaries, played "heart-on-the-sleeve" rock songs that combined Westerberg's "raw-throated adolescent howl," with self-deprecating lyrics. They were a notoriously wayward live act, part of the mystique of todays artists was the fact that the audience never knew until the start of a concert if the band would be sober enough to play and it was not uncommon for the group to play entire sets of cover versions . . ....N'Joy
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The Replacements' history began in Minneapolis in 1978 when nineteen-year-old Bob Stinson gave his eleven-year-old brother Tommy Stinson a bass guitar to keep him off the streets. That year Bob met Mars, a high school dropout. With Mars playing guitar and then switching to drums, the trio called themselves "Dogbreath" and began covering songs by Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Yes without a singer.
After being impressed by the band's performance, Westerberg regularly listened in after work. Dogbreath auditioned several vocalists, Westerberg joined the band, Dogbreath often drank and took various drugs during rehearsals, playing songs as an afterthought. In contrast to the rest of the band, the relatively disciplined Westerberg appeared at rehearsals in neat clothes and insisted on practicing songs until he was happy with them. After the band members discovered first-generation English punk bands like The Clash, The Jam, The Damned and The Buzzcocks, Dogbreath changed its name to The Impediments and played a drunken performance without Tommy Stinson at a church hall gig in June 1980. After being banned from the venue for disorderly behaviour, they changed the name to the Replacements.
In their early days, they sounded quite similar to Hüsker Dü, the leaders of the Minneapolis punk scene. However, The Replacements were wilder and looser than the Hüskers and quickly became notorious for their drunken, chaotic gigs. After they built up a sizable local following the Minneapolis Jesperson signed them, he was the manager of Oar Folkjokeopus, a punk rock record store in Minneapolis, and had also founded Twin/Tone Records with a local recording engineer named Paul Stark. With the agreement of Stark and the rest of the band, the Replacements signed to Twin/Tone Records in 1980. Jesperson's support of the band was welcomed, and they asked him to be their manager after their second show.
When the band's first album, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, finally appeared in August 1981, it received positive reviews in local fanzines. Option's Blake Gumprecht wrote, "Westerberg has the ability to make you feel like you're right in the car with him, alongside him at the door, drinking from the same bottle." The album contained the band's first single, "I'm in Trouble", Westerberg's "first truly good song".[18] Sorry Ma included the song, "Somethin to Dü", a homage to another Minneapolis punk band Hüsker Dü. The Replacements had a friendly rivalry with the band, which started when Twin/Tone chose the Replacements over Hüsker Dü, interestingly the Replacements began playing faster and became more influenced by Dü's hardcore punk. Despite this, the band did not feel part of the hardcore scene.
Sometime in late 1981, the Replacements played a song called "Kids Don't Follow". Jesperson was convinced the song sounded like a hit and pleaded with the Twin/Tone co-owners Stark and Hallman, "I will do anything to get this out. I will hand-stamp jackets if I have to." The partners agreed to fund the recording, but Jesperson and virtually everyone he knew had to hand-stamp ten thousand white record jackets The band recorded eight tracks within a week, with Jesperson as producer. Their "balls-to-the-wall hardcore punk attempt", their first EP Stink, containing "Kids Don't Follow" and seven other songs, was released in June 1982, six months after the Chicago show.
The Replacements began to distance themselves from the hardcore punk scene after the release of Stink. "We write songs rather than riffs with statements," Westerberg later stated. Inspired by other rock subgenres, he had been writing songs that incorporated a wide range of musical styles. He even wrote an acoustic ballad, "You're Getting Married One Night", but when he played it to the rest of the band, it was met with silence. "Save that for your solo album, Paul," Bob Stinson said. "That ain't the Replacements". The track remained unreleased for years. Westerberg realized his toughest audience was the band itself, later saying, "If it doesn't rock enough, Bob will scoff at it, and if it isn't catchy enough, Chris won't like it, and if it isn't modern enough, Tommy won't like it."
With a batch of new songs, the Replacements entered a warehouse in Roseville, Minnesota, to record their next album, with the Twin/Tone co-owner Stark engineering. Westerberg wrote songs in stops and starts, so it took several sessions of recording to finish the album. Hootenanny, the band's second studio album, was released in April 1983. Hootenanny saw Westerberg expand his songwriting capabilities, In songs such as "Willpower", with echoed vocals and a sparse arrangement, and "Within Your Reach", which features Westerberg on all instruments, he revealed a more sensitive side. It was a much more mature album than Stink and Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash. Hootenanny was played on over two hundred radio stations across the country, with critics acclaiming the album.
By Hootenanny's release, The Replacements had begun to attract a following outside of Minneapolis. The band embarked on its first tour of the U.S. in April 1983, Tommy Stinson dropped out of tenth grade to join the rest of the band on tour. The Replacements toured venues in the East Coast of the United States. The band supported R.E.M. on an eight-date tour later that summer, deciding that they should alienate the audience as much as possible. It was not a successful tour; by the end, various members had threatened to leave The Replacements. Band morale was low, and Westerberg later stated, "We'd much rather play for fifty people who know us than a thousand who don't care.
For the recording of their next studio album, The Replacements decided to return to Blackberry Way Studios in late 1983. The band considered R.E.M.'s guitarist Peter Buck as producer, but when they met him in Athens, Georgia, they did not have enough material to begin recording. Instead, Jesperson and Steve Fjelstad co-produced the album. The new material placed more of a focus on songwriting and the music was influenced by heavy metal, arena rock and Chicago blues. Instruments such as piano, twelve-string guitar and mandolin featured throughout the album. The new album included songs such as "I Will Dare", which featured Buck playing lead guitar, "Androgynous", with Westerberg on piano, and "Unsatisfied", where, according to writer Michael Azerrad, Westerberg "had hit upon a moving new way to declare that he can't get no satisfaction." Let It Be was released in October 1984 to critical acclaim.
It's release attracted attention from the major record labels, and by late 1984 several had expressed an interest in signing the band. Financially, the band was not doing well; they were not selling enough records to recoup their expenses, and money from shows went to recording costs, hotels, travel and instrument repairs. Twin/Tone was not being paid reliably by distributors and the sales of Let It Be were not high enough to justify extra promotion. "It was time for a major label to take over," according to the label's co-owner Stark. The band was close to a major label contract, but often alienated label representatives by intentionally performing badly in concert; their 1985 live album, The Shit Hits the Fans, was an example of their concert performances at the time.
One label, the Warner Bros. Records subsidiary Sire Records, eventually signed The Replacements. The band admired the label head Seymour Stein, who had managed the Ramones. The Replacements' first major-label album, Tim, was scheduled to be produced by Westerberg's idol, Alex Chilton, but the sessions fell through; the album was produced by former Ramone Tommy Erdelyi. Upon its release in 1985, Tim garnered rave reviews that equalled those for Let It Be. Though the band was poised for a popular breakthrough, they were unsure about making the leap into the mainstream. As a result, they never let themselves live up to their full potential. The Replacements landed a spot on Saturday Night Live, but they were roaring drunk throughout their performances and Westerberg said "f*ck" on the air. Their concerts had became notorious for such drunken, sloppy behavior. Frequently, the band was barely able to stand up, let alone play, and when they did play, they often didn't finish their songs. The Replacements also refused to make accessible videos -- the video for "Bastards of Young" featured nothing but a stereo system, playing the song -- thereby cutting themselves off from the mass exposure MTV could have granted them.
After the tour for Tim, the Replacements fired Bob Stinson, partly for being unwilling to play the band's "less rocked-out" material, and partly for being too drunk to try. They also fired Jesperson the same year. "It was like being thrown out of a club that you helped start," Jesperson later commented. The Replacements recorded their next album as a trio in Memphis, TN, with former Big Star producer Jim Dickinson. The resulting album, Pleased to Meet Me, was more streamlined than their previous recordings. Again, the reviews were uniformly excellent upon its spring 1987 release, but the band didn't earn many new fans. During the tour for Pleased to Meet Me, guitarist Slim Dunlap filled the vacant lead guitarist spot and he became a full-time member after the tour.
Two years later, the band returned in the spring of 1989 with Don't Tell a Soul, The Replacements' last bid for a mainstream audience. The bandmembers had cleaned up, admitting that their years of drug and alcohol abuse were behind them, and were now willing to play the promotional game. Don't Tell a Soul boasted a polished, radio-ready production and the group shot MTV-friendly videos, beginning with the single "I'll Be You." Initially, the approach worked -- "I'll Be You" became a number one album rock track, crossing over to number 51 on the pop charts. However, Don't Tell a Soul never really took off and failed to establish the band as a major commercial force.
Defeated from the lackluster performance of Don't Tell a Soul, Paul Westerberg planned on recording a solo album, but Sire rejected the idea. Consequently, the next Replacements album, All Shook Down, was a solo Westerberg record in all but name. Recorded with a cast of session musicians as well as the band, All Shook Down was a stripped-down, largely acoustic affair that hinted at the turmoil within the band. Chris Mars left shortly after its fall 1990 release, claiming that Westerberg had assumed control of the band; he would launch a solo career two years later. The Replacements toured in support of All Shook Down, with Steve Foley, formerly of the Minneapolis-based Things Fall Down, as their new drummer. Neither the tour nor the album were successful, and The Replacements quietly disbanded in the summer of 1991.
Tommy Stinson quickly followed his time in The Replacements with the short-lived but fan favorite bands Bash & Pop and Perfect. He has been the bass guitarist for Guns N' Roses since 1998, replacing the original member Duff McKagan. In 2004, he released a solo CD, Village Gorilla Head, followed in 2011 by One Man Mutiny. Dunlap released a solo album in 1993. Bob Stinson died February 15, 1995, from a drug overdose. Westerberg began a solo career slowly, releasing two songs on the Singles ("Dyslexic Heart," "Waiting for Somebody") soundtrack in 1992; he also scored the film. He released his debut solo album, 14 Songs, in the summer of 1993 to mixed reviews. Paul Westerberg's second solo album, Eventually, was released in the spring of 1996.
On April 22, 2008, Rhino released re-mastered deluxe editions of the band's four Twin/Tone albums with rare bonus tracks. On September 24, 2008, Rhino similarly released the four Sire albums as deluxe editions. On October 3, 2012, it was announced that The Replacements had reformed and that Westerberg and Tommy Stinson were in the studio recording an EP containing song cover versions. Titled Songs for Slim, the EP was sold in a 250-copy edition of 10" vinyl and auctioned online to benefit former bandmate Dunlap, who had suffered a stroke. The Replacements played their first shows in 22 years at Riot Fest in Toronto (24–25 August 2013), Chicago (13–15 September) and Denver (21–22 September). Dave Minehan, guitarist/vocalist, and drummer Josh Freese rounded out the line-up for these shows.
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All things considered, Tim was an easy transition to the majors for the Replacements, at least as far as the making of the album goes: things went wrong after the release, as the band botched big showcases like its Saturday Night Live spot, leading up to the dismissal of Bob Stinson at the conclusion of the Tim tour. The dust hadn't settled when the 'Mats headed down to Memphis to record Pleased to Meet Me with producer Jim Dickinson at Ardent Studios -- or to phrase it in Alex Chilton-speak, to record with Big Star's 3rd producer at the studio where all three Big Star albums were made. All this fanboy worship perhaps naturally led to a full-blown mash note to Paul Westerberg's idol, who also turned up to play a couple of licks on a finally finished "Can't Hardly Wait," which initially was attempted with Chilton as a producer before Tim, but Pleased to Meet Me didn't resemble either the crystalline pop of #1 Record or the narcissistic black hole of 3rd. Dickinson gave the Replacements a full-blooded, muscular production, cranking up guitars, hauling out an upright bass for Tommy Stinson, and bringing in horns -- even strings -- to flesh out Westerberg's songs. This was the Replacements as professionals and, ever the contrarians, they strained against it -- albeit only sporadically and underneath the surface -- with Westerberg's outsider stance calcifying into the invigorating bitterness of "I.O.U." and "I Don't Know." These two proto-slacker anti-anthems -- quite the inverse of the call to arms of "Bastards of Young" and "Left of the Dial" -- are the only times the group's self-sabotage surfaces here, as the bandmembers pretty much give themselves over to Dickinson's studio savvy, leading to the ominous pulse of "The Ledge" and the brilliant, shining power pop of "Never Mind," "Alex Chilton," and "Valentine," along with such left-field twists as the mock jazz of "Nightclub Jitters."
This kind of colorful, almost cinematic production -- even the greasy rocker "Shooting Dirty Pool" is enhanced by the sound of breaking glass -- was unheard of on a Replacements record and it all came to a head on "Can't Hardly Wait," which was glossed over with swelling strings and the Memphis Horns. All these fancy accoutrements would seem like the antithesis of the Replacements' spirit, but Dickinson's grand production merely blows the 'Mats up to epic scale, leaving their essence intact: Westerberg even gets a lovely fragile acoustic moment in "Skyway" and there are down-and-dirty rockers like "Shooting Dirty Pool" and "Red Red Wine" that feel like throwaways, but are necessary to the spirit of the record. the Replacements never sounded better with a bigger production than they did on Pleased to Meet Me, so it's hard not to see it as the one that got away, the record that should have been the breakthrough, especially in the year when fellow American underground rockers R.E.M. leaped into the Top Ten (but, it's also true that "The Ledge" may not have been the best single choice, as songs about suicides don't often provide entry into the Top 40). Then again, the Replacements don't make sense as a success story, so the failure of the gleaming, glistening Pleased to Meet Me winds up making its polish kind of heart-rending. As it turns out, this was the last time they could still shoot for the stars and seem like their scrappy selves and, in many ways, it was the last true Replacements album.
The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me (flac 202mb)
01 I.O.U. 2:57
02 Alex Chilton 3:12
03 I Don't Know 3:19
04 Nightclub Jitters 2:44
05 The Ledge 4:04
06 Never Mind 2:47
07 Valentine 3:31
08 Shooting Dirty Pool 2:20
09 Red Red Wine 2:59
10 Skyway 2:04
11 Can't Hardly Wait 3:02
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Two albums into their major-label contract and the Replacements had yet to have a hit -- they racked up some respectable sales but they were still a cult college band, never coming close to the Top Ten success R.E.M. had with Document. This lack of hits certainly weighed heavily on the band's label, which exerted a slightly heavier pressure than the chorus of fans and critics lamenting the group's lack of success, but all of this pressure from supporters and suits led the band to place a big bet on Don't Tell a Soul, a highly lacquered dilution of the 'Mats that is as misguided a crossover attempt as can be imagined. Matt Wallace's enormous, bottomless production -- as fathomless and dull as a muddy lake -- is merely a symptom of the illness that infected the Replacements during the making of Don't Tell a Soul, an illness that left the bandmembers with little sense of themselves. Blame for this can't be placed on the shoulders of Slim Dunlap, a Minneapolis rock fixture belatedly replacing Bob Stinson almost four years after his departure, as the guitarist is an easy, comfortable fit, lending nice country grace notes to ballads and goosing rockers with understated leads. So, does the blame for Don't Tell a Soul lay at the feet of Paul Westerberg? In part, yes, but not because the lead Replacement comes up with a set of substandard songs. Yes, a couple of his worse numbers are here -- none more egregious than the bewildering ham-fisted funk of "Asking Me Lies," and the muddled anthem "We'll Inherit the Earth" isn't far behind -- but so are a couple of his finest, including the lovely "Achin' to Be," the haunted "Rock 'n' Roll Ghost," the sweetly self-mythologizing "Talent Show," and "I'll Be You," whose urgency masks its melancholy.
Taken as an overall set of tunes, though, the songs on Don't Tell a Soul reveal a writer who is becoming self-conscious of his role as a writer, over-thinking his constructions and rewriting too carefully, dampening the over-spilling emotion that was always one of his finest characteristics; he's writing with his reputation in mind. Perhaps such overly considered songs deserve an overly considered production, but Wallace's inflated renderings of Westerberg's fussy tunes are absurdly large, pointing out that Westerberg's ballads always were endearing because they were fragile, an element acutely missing from Don't Tell a Soul. But what's really missed here is any sense that this is the work of a band: this is a record that's been assembled track to track, lacking any spark or spontaneity. This is what the Replacements would sound like if they weren't a rock & roll band, something that is painfully evident on the one straight-ahead rocker, the stiff and embarrassing "I Won't," a tune that the 'Mats could have tossed off with abandon at any other time. "I Won't" is one of only a handful of songs with a sprightly tempo, as the rest of the record ranges from anonymous album rock to mannered writerly ballads. The other fast one is, of course, "I'll Be You," the song that did manage to crawl into modern rock charts and pop up on MTV, but it failed to bring the record any further up the charts. Ultimately, that's the saddest thing about Don't Tell a Soul: it's a transparent sellout that failed to sell.
The Replacements - Don't Tell A Soul (flac 246mb)
01 Talent Show 3:29
02 Back To Back 3:18
03 We'll Inherit The Earth 4:15
04 Achin' To Be 3:40
05 They're Blind 4:32
06 Anywhere's Better Than Here 2:46
07 Asking Me Lies 3:37
08 I'll Be You 3:25
09 I Won't 2:36
10 Rock 'N' Roll Ghost 3:20
11 Darlin' One 3:39
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Battered and broken from the debacle of Don't Tell a Soul -- the album's failure to take off, followed by a disastrous tour supporting Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -- the Replacements were on their last legs when it came time for 1990's All Shook Down, so worn down that the band ceased to exist for most intents and purposes. Paul Westerberg even began recording the album as a solo project with R.E.M. producer Scott Litt, gradually turning it into the final Replacements album. It may bear the band's name, but All Shook Down never quite shakes the feeling of a solo album; above all, it's a writers album, with the focus placed entirely on the songs. To a certain extent, that was true of the ballad-heavy Don't Tell a Soul, but that felt over-thought from its conception to execution, where there is a light touch to All Shook Down, despite its plethora of guest musicians, including John Cale's viola on "Sadly Beautiful," Heartbreaker Benmont Tench, Terry Reid, and a duet with Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano on "My Little Problem." Instead of aiming for a crossover hit, Westerberg has now resigned himself to his status as an also-ran, even embracing it to some extent, so there are no sops to rock radio aside from "My Little Problem," whose bluster is jarring amidst the nimble folk-pop of the rest of the record.
All the acoustic guitars and skipping electric guitars push All Shook Down far outside of the nascent Zeitgeist of grunge, or the sound of college rock in 1990; although Westerberg would soon be back in the thick of things with his Singles soundtrack -- sounding not too dissimilar to this record -- this finds him retreating from the rat race, reflecting on what he's been through. All Shook Down is designed as a coda to the Replacements' career, with Westerberg looking back to "When It Began," pleading that "Someone Take the Wheel" and wrapping the whole thing up with "The Last," as self-aware a final song as the Beatles' "The End." Westerberg balances these self-referential slices of autobiography with his self-deprecation and heartbreak, but all this melancholy never feels heavy, not even when he dips into thick sorrow on "Sadly Beautiful" or the disembodied spookiness of "All Shook Down." There's a palpable sense of relief to All Shook Down, as if Westerberg realized he dodged a bullet by not becoming a true rock star. This lightness is appealing, especially as it surfaces in his writing, which is surely more considered than it was even on Pleased to Meet Me, but it has an offhand quality, recalling the casual virtuosity of Let It Be and Tim -- it's the same guy, only older but maybe not too much wiser. And as it's true to that spirit, All Shook Down winds up being a note-perfect denouement to the Replacements' career, even if it's quiet and careful in a way the band never was at its peak.
The Replacements - All Shook Down ( flac 258mb)
01 Merry Go Round 3:36
02 One Wink At A Time 3:02
03 Nobody 3:08
04 Bent Out Of Shape 3:42
05 Sadly Beautiful 3:14
06 Someone Take The Wheel 3:37
07 When It Began 3:05
08 All Shook Down 3:14
09 Attitude 2:43
10 Happy Town 2:52
11 Torture 1:51
12 My Little Problem 4:00
13 The Last 2:54
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An extra for the fans lovely leftovers..
Tracks 1-4 "All Shook Down" outtakes, TRack 5 "When The Shit Hits The Fan" Cassette, Tracks 6-15 single B-sides and outtakes
The Replacements - Beat Girl ( flac 377mb)
01 Kissing In Action 2:58
02 Ought To Get Love 3:02
03 Satellite 3:46
04 Like A Rolling Pin 3:13
05 Can't Hardly Wait 15:51
06 Date To Church 4:02
07 If Only You Were Lonely 2:42
08 Nowhere Is My Home 4:12
09 Route 66 3:03
10 Election Day 3:06
11 Tossin' And Turnin' 2:26
12 Jungle Rock 2:41
13 Cool Water 2:44
14 Cruella DeVille 2:18
15 20th Century Boy 3:29
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3 comments:
Hi - If possible, could you re-up these? Thanks in advance.
Todd
Hi,
thanks for these great records! The link for Don't Tell A Soul points to Beat Girl, btw. Would be great if you could correct it.
Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year!
Hello Chrisz, that was sloppy but not to worry Don't Tell A Soul has been re upped correctly now..N-Joy
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