Tonight I'll be doing pull-ups on the toilet POLL - Artist Poll #104 - THE REPLACEMENTS Voting Thread

https://images2.imgbox.com/92/e4/fMm6ZL3k_o.jpg

For a while The Replacements were provisionally sketched in for poll #55. #104 will have to do.

You are invited to submit any or all of the following:

(a) TOP REPLACEMENTS TRACKS - up to 30, ranked or unranked
Any track released under the Replacements name.

(b) TOP SOLO / SIDE-PROJECT TRACKS - up to 20, ranked or unranked
Tracks released by any member solo, or in other projects where they were credited with a central creative or songwriting role.

(c) TOP ALBUMS - up to 5
I'm inclined to allow any Replacements album or associated solo project, etc.

Ballots to vaticanroulette AT gmail DOT com, with your username. A Replacements-related subject line would also be helpful for ease of identification.

Provisional deadline: October 4th though a small extension seems almost inevitable with these things.

ALSO:

Thanks Chris L for the thread title!

I propose familiar "40, 36, 33, 30, 28..." weightings for ranked tracks, and "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" for ranked albums. Unranked ballots use a flat 17, 22 and 3 points for a, b and c respectively.

Here's a no doubt flawed list of commercially-released Replacements recordings to get you started:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JgVyVO_-eKgs5qrYs5SEsmhYi4tLkf4w8qQp65I0h6E/edit?usp=sharing

thanks for starting a new poll Nag! Nag! Nag!, we needed someone to do it.

i have owned three of their albums but don't know them inside and out. i'm going to try my best to vote in this.

i used that same concept except i started at 50, 46, 43 ect...

update the voting thread, some people have that bookmarked for such an occasion.

Oh yeah. Thanks!

Unranked as a flat 17, 5 and 3 points respectively.

I don't think I've encountered that one--does that mean 17 for first 10, 5 for middle 10, 3 for the last 10? I often needlessly complicate polls by coming up with my own scoring system (but I like that one fine if I'm reading it right).

your not, 17.5 for the mail poll and 3 points for the albums part...

although i never got an albums ballot that was untranked, that would be strange.

Perhaps not the clearest paragraph there. Just "17, 17, 17, 17..." 30 over times for a 30-track ranked ballot. And 10 5's, and 5 3's for polls b and c. [XPOST. Yeah, what Bee OK said. :) Not counting on unranked albums, but I always get some surprises.]

Is there any completely new material (as in not on any older reissues or comps) on the Pleased to Meet Me deluxe set that’s out on October 9? Not that I see it making much difference in the poll, but for completist’s sake...

Xpost: Whoops, "30-track UNranked ballot"

Okay--so we get 510 points for the song poll.

I'll be back.

i even read that wrong, 17 each for the main poll, i got 17.5 for some reason but 17 makes sense as it works with the math. again i increase it by 10 points for each but this works too.

Yeah, you get a bonus 7 points (totals of 517 vs 510) if you rank your 30 tracks. :)

That's an interesting point re the PTMM deluxe thingy. There are maybe a dozen demos with titles that don't ring any bells for me:

https://store.rhino.com/pleased-to-meet-me-deluxe-edition-placemat.html

i'm here for it! working on my shortlist now. there's extra stuff i want to dig in from all eras, so i can't wait!

I don't know whether I should be makin' this list drunk or sober. May try to split it up and compare in both states.

i'm going to do a little of both. actually a lot of both

*checks news*
*checks calendar*

yes, this is a good time to begin an intense study of the replacements

I haven't slept since Monday night, and I'm only drinking enough tonight to get me to pass out for a few solid hours of dream-quality sleep (hopefully) before returning to the office tomorrow to finish what I couldn't finish as a zombie today. So yeah, this is the perfect headspace for knocking my ballot out tonight, thank you ILM

:)

Just had a bit of a dig around. At least five of the PTMM era compositions with no prior commercial release have been bootlegged in some form. Mostly intriguing.

Time is Killing Us
Run For the Country
Learn How to Fail
Trouble on the Way
Lift Her Skirt

That leaves "Awake Tonight", "Hey Shadow" and "Even If It’s Cheap" remaining wholly elusive AFAICT. Until Oct 9, I guess.

yeah so my mats list is shaping up pretty much the way I'd always expected it to, but

my Paul solo list is lookin a little weird, mostly due to how he formatted (or didn't) the 49:00 album, which I LOVE. any suggestions?

Only Lie Worth Telling
Gun Shy
As Far As I Know
(49:00: Something in My Life is Missing - Terry, Who You Gonna Marry? - Visitor’s Day - Outta My System)
My Daydream
Got You Down
Making Me Go
What About Mine
We May Be the Ones
No Place for You
Best Thing That Never Happened
Love You in the Fall
My Dad
Lookin’ Up in Heaven
World Class Fad

if this poll is worth it’s salt it’ll go ahead and cancel two results in bc its too drunk to continue

also hells yes I will be doing a ballot


https://www-rollingstone-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/THeReplacements-1.jpg?resize=1800,1200&w=1800

^ so great pic! also never seen the OG post pic. wow tommy so smol! I mean knew he was a smol but still

yeah, that is unbelievable. i knew he was young when they started, but holy shit

its good that they were easy on the eyes

https://alloverthesilence.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/tumblr_mztp6iftrc1qzezj5o3_1280.jpg

https://www.twintone.com/mats-scrapbook/ttpromo/mats8504.jpeg

xxpost: Maybe 49:00 could be one track? Does a definitive list of distinct songs even exist?

Maybe one track with notes, if you like.

Might be worth noting preferred versions on ballots too, come to think of it. Not least for things like the Dead Man's Pop stuff. I'll combine votes in the final tally, but am happy to keep track of differing versions where a distinction is made.

another one of vv baby Tommy

https://images.publicradio.org/content/2014/09/09/20140909_the-replacements_33.jpg

that's not tommy, that's tina weymouth's daughter

If anyone has or can link to a good post-PTMM list of their work it’d be appreciated.

*Eno voice* - “Their third record sold adequately, but everyone who heard it unfortunately became aware of Kiss.”

i don't even know - what are the early period consensus favorites? watching something like this, from 1981, the whole show is brilliant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBE7o_WWsI

xxpost well i learned something today

if this poll is worth it’s salt it’ll go ahead and cancel two results in bc its too drunk to continue

<3

I listened to Tim last night and realized most if not all of it will be on my ballot

Same. And weirdly, I could only come up with one Don't Tell A Soul song that I would definitely put on my ballot, and three from All Shook Down...but I feel like I prefer DTAS as an album. Which doesn't make any sense. I have some relistening to do.

yep

I feel obligated to participate in this one but I dont' really wanna.

you w-w-w-w-on't?

I went through their discography on Wikipedia and jotted down the 16 easy picks for me. So I'll push my ballot to 20 songs--I don't like to fill out lists with songs I like but don't love.

Does a 20-song ballot get 340 points then?

just picked 16 songs from the big three albums, gotta reacquaint with the rest.

pretty positive I already know what my number one is, though

Anyone considering Dead Man's Pop instead of Don't Tell a Soul? (assuming either would have made your top 5)

Haven't but certainly would pick the one over the other.

Does a 20-song ballot get 340 points then?

An unranked one does, yes. A ranked ballot gets significantly more as 21-30 get the tiniest weightings.

A few polls back I toyed with giving 'shorter' unranked ballots approximately the same number of total points as a ranked one of the same length, but it meant deciding on a different value per entry for each ballot length, and ever longer explanations. Given that folks overwhelmingly (i) opt for a ranked ballot and (ii) torture themselves for ages over what to leave out, it felt like I was thinking too hard about a 'problem' that barely seems to arise. :)

Okay--I'll add up what #1-20 would get on a full ballot and work something out (I generally like to rank the top five songs and then cluster the rest in groups).

sorry ma, forgot to take out the trash kind of rules! it's a little inconsistent, but kick your door down, customer, takin' a ride, shutup...

i am not a replacements live footage connoisseur, but i thought this video was great too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBE7o_WWsI

there's a second set, too

Seeing as I didn't explain it very well up top in English, the proposed scoring in is now in the spreadsheet in the second post. Just to the right of the tracks list. And I changed the side-project weights such that they follow the same basic pattern as the main tracks poll.

Clemenza: just confirming, the total points in a ranked list of twenty is 452, so take that as your total if you want go with bespoke weightings.

Sent mine in earlier--20 songs, 452 points.

Some of the Sorry Ma tracks that stick with longest after listening are ones that depart a little from the, er, formula. "Kick Your Door Down", "Johnny's Gonna Die", "Otto", etc. And "Go" on Stink... which is kinda amazing. The wimpy tracks, probably, LOL.

Oh, *three* ballots in already, in fact. Nice. Wasn't going to bother checking that mailbox for a few days yet.

Go" on Stink... which is kinda amazing.

so far, "go" has been my biggest "discovery" of this poll, it is fantastic.

also, i've always thought of pleased to meet me as a step down from tim and let it be, but i'm really loving it this morning. "the ledge" sounds like a guest spot from kurt cobain, at times

another connection/influence i didn't pick up on until recently was fogerty/CCR, down to sometimes pronouncing r's as w's. it seems like an overt nod at some times ("huwwy up! huwwy up!" in can't hardly wait) but other times, in live shows and stuff, it seems to bleed through as part of his dna.

i dunno, i might be overreading all that

“Go” is incredible, and PTMM might be — some days — my favourite ‘Mats record.

Stoked for this poll!

i think the slightly slicked up production on PTMM used to bother me a little more. even today, i think i like the rougher alternate version of Can't Hardly Wait on the expanded PTMM better than the album version (i like the slowed down acoustic version on the expanded Tim most of all).

but for the most part, especially the first side and the last couple on the other, it's so good!

for some reason it was "i don't know" that slapped me on the head, this morning. i didn't even remember that song. i can't figure out if it's an extremely simple song or if it's actually very strange - it makes me feel like an aggressive 1930s detective on amphetamines, and i'm not even sure what that means.

I was going to submit an album list--I could rank their albums compared to each other--but the truth is, I don't care for at least a third to a half of every one of them. The one album of theirs I almost uniformly love is the Rhino compilation, Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?. 20 songs, just like my ballot, and the overlap is 13 songs.

I don't think they were very good at telling great from good from mediocre--or, more likely, they just didn't care. And I totally realize that that was intrinsic to why they were so great. They didn't fuss a lot trying to make a Perfect Album.

Please! I say these things as a huge fan (one of my ten favourite bands for sure--not top five). I'm not trying to be a downer on this thread. Picking out my 15 favourite songs took approximately a minute, those songs are so good.

I didn’t get into The Replacements until the last 10 years or so. I knew Paul’s solo songs from the Singles soundtrack which I liked, but never dug any deeper or even came across any Replacements through friends or radio

Which is a weird regret I have, just in terms of knowing how much I would have dug them if I had come across them in high school or college, they are just so completely my bag as far as lyrics/music goes.

Confession: playing/singing “Alex Chilton” on Rockband was when the floodgates opened & I bought their whole discography in like a week

Can one vote for the All Shook Down demos in the album category? They were released on the 2008 expanded edition but never on their own, afaict. It's a toss-up between that and Dead Man's Pop for the #5 slot, for me.

Confession: playing/singing “Alex Chilton” on Rockband was when the floodgates opened & I bought their whole discography in like a week

same deal with me and steely dan's "do it again" on guitar hero. as i was learning the solo and hearing it over and over (and drinking heavily), i gained a new appreciation for the vibe of the song that i never understood before

Can one vote for the All Shook Down demos in the album category?

This is tricky. I'm inclined to say no, given they weren't packaged as a standalone entity. Dead Man's Pop seems way less problematic. Seems slightly unfortunate for the ASD material: if they did transform it into a Dead Man's Pop-like package a year from now I guess I would be saying it was eligible. :(

Somewhat related: any objections to Stink being treated as an album for these purposes?

Wait, someone doesn’t consider Stink an album?!

Haha. It's just that it's *checks* 14:24 minutes long and frequently listed as an EP. Thought I best raise it now to eliminate any possibility of "wait, we were allowed to vote Stink?" during the rollout. I may even vote for it myself!

Fun fact: 7 ballots so far. 72 distinct Replacements tracks and 30 solo/side-project tracks have appeared.

I knuckled down & did some homework this weekend; now have 30 tracks locked & loaded...

ballot should be forthcoming this wk

Rhino may put together a disc of demos or alternates for All Shook Down like they did with Pleased to Meet Me, but I doubt they'll do a brand-new, full-on remix like they did with Dead Man's Pop - that was a special case because not only were they unhappy with the final result, Westerberg and Matt Wallace discussed in detail what a remix would entail many times over a long period of time and they had the original rough mixes as physical foundation. Tommy Stinson actually believes All Shook Down is their best album, so he definitely would not see a need to "fix" it.

Re: the Replacement's imperfect construction of their albums, I agree with this to a limited extent. I wish Bob Stinson hadn't vetoed "You're Getting Married" from Hootenanny, the circulating full-band outtake is a great, lost track, but otherwise there's nothing I'd change about any of the Twin/Tone records, I love them all and would listen to them start-to-finish. Even "If Only You Were Lonely" feels perfect as a left-field B-side gem rather than an album track.

It's only the Sire years where it gets a little frustrating for me, but the reissues have more or less rectified any problems with track selection. On Tim, I swapped out "Dose of Thunder" and "Lay It Down Clown" with "Nowhere Is My Home" and "Can't Hardly Wait" (from All for Nothing/Nothing for All). On Pleased to Meet Me, to avoid redundancy I swapped out the horns-and-strings "Can't Hardly Wait" for "Birthday Gal" (again from All for Nothing/Nothing for All) - I do wish "P.O. Box (Photo)" progressed beyond demo form, that would've been great to add. And thankfully we now have Dead Man's Pop to go with "Portland," "We Know the Night" and "Wake Up," so with some adjustments, those first three Sire albums now hang together for me from end-to-end. Some songs are better than others, but I still find plenty to like about the "lesser" tracks.

It seems particularly insane that the likes of "Portland" and "Wake Up" were discarded circa DTAS. Both of those, plus the aforementioned "Nowhere Is My Home" and "P.O. Box (Photo)" remain on my shortlist...

Yeah, but it sounds like they were scared shitless on what to put out next because their career was very much on the line. If the two prior Sire albums had, say, easily gone gold within a year (i.e. doubled their modest sales), I wonder if that would've taken off enough pressure for them to be much more comfortable with where they wanted to go musically-speaking.

trying to figure out what i think of don't tell a soul and dead man's pop?

i keep going back forth on 'talent show' - again, i hear the springsteen influence and can't tell if it's supposed to be an homage or not (the verse melody of 'dancing in the dark' runs throughout it, and he hums it at times after the choruses)

Solo-wise, will be fun to review what I have (most all of Paul's cd/digital stuff, Tommy's Perfect and first Bash & Pop, though no Chris, Slim or Bob albums). Pretty sure "Good Day" will be my number one. That and "Sunrise Always Listens" have been great cushions over the years.

Reading this thread is a good spur to pre-order the PTMM set.

i liked the Paul & Juliana Hatfield collab album from a few years ago (2016? 2014?) .. released as The I Don’t Cares

the tracks where they harmonize together are the highlights for me

i love Good Day by Tommy! i will def be votong for that

voting even

oooo, first poll that's lured me back in in a while. I will definitely vote. On the solo stuff I need to go back to those Chris Mars albums, haven't listened in a while.

So if I'm reading this right, Chinese Democracy qualifies as a Replacements project, right?

Solo projects was easy for me. I've listened to Westerberg's twin albums Stereo & Mono far, far more than anything else they've done outside of the band, and that was pretty much my list. I still remember when it came out and Westerberg did those in-store appearances (including Virgin in Chicago, where a fan handed him a lyric sheet when he forgot a 'Mats classic mid-song).

Ha, my first off-the-top-of-my-head cull gave me exactly 30 songs. Probably leaving some out tho.

So if I'm reading this right, Chinese Democracy qualifies as a Replacements project, right?

I changed that "central creative or songwriting role" sentence up the top a comical number of times. It initially ended with "(so possibly not G'n'R or Soul Asylum, etc)" or similar. Stinson definitely gets a few songwriting credits on Chinese Democracy so... maybe?! Let your conscience be your guide...

Make sure to give Bash & Pop's first album a spin before you submit a ballot full of Westerberg solo trax.

I kind of have Can't Hardly Wait like this.
1. Horns and Strings PTMM
2. Blistering TSHTF version
3. Tim-acoustic take

14 Songs is for the most part such a dreary affair.

xp

what is TSHTF?

i only knew of the horns and strings PTMM, Tim-acoustic, and Tim-electric

TSHTF = The Shit Hits The Fans, a cassette-only release in 1985. When I was 12, my grandmother took me to the mall one day and said I could pick out one tape to buy. I really wanted TSHTF, but was fairly certain there was no way she'd let me buy it. Now it's fucking $40 on discogs.

cassette-only live release, I should say

haha, that's great. do you remember what you got instead?

Was it Television, The Blow Up?

Or The Buzzcocks, Lest We Forget?

Or maybe even Precise Modern Lovers Order?

"here kid - have this worthless old record that doesn't even have a label on it, just says velvet underground and dolph or something

btw - apologies if this was covered upthread, but will votes for different song versions (e.g., 'can't hardly wait') be combined? replacements seem to have several songs like that with several excellent but very different versions. i'm cool with either way, just wanted to know before voting

"here kid - have this worthless old record that doesn't even have a label on it, just says velvet underground and dolph or something

frick! I forgot to include this in my paul solos. oh well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tAoDUG92n4

Kudos on the poll title! I'm not going to vote, my interest drops precipitously in anything they did once they left Twin/Tone, and I feel like I'd be doing the later albums a disservice by ignoring them. Having just reread Trouble Boys though my interest in reading about those songs is high, greater than actually hearing them.

I suspect the age demographics of ILM will tend to skew voting toward the later albums.

I got on the bus (sans kisses) with Hootenanny and got off after Tim ... before voting I'm going to check out the later albums, some of which I've never heard, but I'm sure my ballot will be Twin/Tone heavy.

I'm not sure how many pre-Let it Be tracks will make my ballot, to be honest. Aside from some scattered moments on Sorry Ma, I never cared much for those.

"Kids Don't Follow" from Stink is like a dream collaboration with the wipers sound from the same exact era, it's blistering

legend has it if you listen really closely to the cops breaking up the party at the beginning, you can hear 11-year-old Winona Horowitz doing a drug

"within your reach" seems like a song that could have been amazing with just like, 2 more hours practice on it

i think it's mainly the one finger one take keyboard part - i'd love to hear a remix that just removes it

but i get that it's part of the hootenanny experience, that's just how it goes at hootenannies

there's one beautiful moment near the end of 'left of the dial' where the bass does a little descending walking line and you want the song to continue like that for at least another minute (like what bruce does in 'thunder road') but it only happens once and then the song ends 10 seconds later.

haha, that's great. do you remember what you got instead?

sorry ma, forgot to take out the trash kind of rules! it's a little inconsistent, but kick your door down, customer, takin' a ride, shutup...

oh god, sorry ma is damn near perfect. let it be is my fave six days a week but at least one day week i can convince myself they were a shining example of a band that started out at their peak and every subsequent album is just a little worse than the one before, no exceptions, until don't tell a soul and all shook down, where they decided to hurry up and get worse that much faster.

shit hits the fans is the best live album in the history of rock prove me wrong

(i mean, yes, i will acknowledge that live at the apollo is better, but otherwise...)

am i crazy for thinking that "i don't know" reminds me a bit of the b-52s?

I’d have liked a B-52s version better!

stink and sorry ma fucking rule so hard

a real "upper mississippi shakedown" if you will

ums I bet when you hear Paul's "go" in "anyway I ain't got nowhere else to go" from Hangin' Downtown, it probably just sounds like a normal "go" to you and not the monophthongal /oʊ/ linguistic curiosity that it actually is

and I for one will not try and prove anyone wrong about Shit Hits the Fans being the best live album of all live albums. if you're in a rock band and there's not a recording of you shambling belligerently through a series of halfway-finished impromptu classic rock piss-takes, are you even really in a rock band?

...but will votes for different song versions (e.g., 'can't hardly wait') be combined?

Yeah, will combine votes. Definitely add a parenthetical note or whatever if you strongly favour a particular version. I've been recording that stuff. Particularly good idea if you wish to highlight a less widely heard take. (Which I guess in most cases means anything other than versions on the original issues of the conventional studio albums.)

if you're in a rock band and there's not a recording of you shambling belligerently through a series of halfway-finished impromptu classic rock piss-takes, are you even really in a rock band?

correct. except about the belligerence. some of those halfway finished piss-takes are acts of pure, unfiltered, unrehearsed love.

oh for sure, I guess I meant more the "belligerent" synonymous with "hammered"

:)

Ballot sent! :D

I didn't end up with a lot of Stink or Sorry Ma, but Hootenanny nearly lands as many as tracks for me as the big ones.
though I'm probably the only Otto voter.

I included a ridiculous number of Hootenanny tracks myself. Didn't really see that coming.

The number of ballots is safely into double digits already, with, er, *checks* 80 Replacements tracks and 37 'other' tracks getting the nod.

Incidentally, for anyone with niggling ballot regrets, amendments are no problem at all.

the burrito that defined a generation at 6:32 22 Sep 20

ums I bet when you hear Paul's "go" in "anyway I ain't got nowhere else to go" from Hangin' Downtown, it probably just sounds like a normal "go" to you and not the monophthongal /oʊ/ linguistic curiosity that it actually is

...haha yeah I mean. being from MN I have a lot of complex feelings about the Replacements but I mean, there's a connection that I feel really deeply even in times I'm not that into them.

i think ended up w 3 tracks from Sorry Ma and 3 from Hootenanny ... it was a v sad game of lifeboat, culling the master list :/

aside from "Gary's Got a Boner" as the clear number one, it's hard to rank them

Before I made my final cuts I had it down at the bottom of my draft ballot in the Novelty Nods section along with Buck Hill and Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out. Slept on it and ultimately chose the one true right-feeling wrong best song.

was so happy when they did Tommy Got His Tonsils Out at the big show at Midway Stadium in St Paul... playing a big last hometown show at a minor league baseball stadium that was about to be torn down is pretty much perfect

super cool you saw that! I'm still holding out hope for maybe one more pass-through of my town (and if I'm extra lucky, maybe even a Last Train to Clarksville)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFHghaktIno

Bash & Pop's Tiny Pieces is a little bit fabulous. And it's been repeatedly re-entering my head since the weekend. Hooray for discovering things 27 years late.

there's one beautiful moment near the end of 'left of the dial' where the bass does a little descending walking line and you want the song to continue like that for at least another minute (like what bruce does in 'thunder road') but it only happens once and then the song ends 10 seconds later.

― i got a homogenic björk wine farmer permabanned (voodoo chili), Tuesday, September 22, 2020 5:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes

Sent my list in, pretty easy since they only have one good album and it is an EP

Bob’s trainwreck solo at about 00:50 on “We’re Comin’ Out”, open strings and all, is the greatest Replacements moment of all time (for today)

Bob is one of my favorite "outside" rock guitarists.

there's one beautiful moment near the end of 'left of the dial' where the bass does a little descending walking line and you want the song to continue like that for at least another minute (like what bruce does in 'thunder road') but it only happens once and then the song ends 10 seconds later.

You know I tend to think of Westerberg's solo career as a series of diminishing returns, but I've got close to 30 tracks without even getting into 49:00, which I think is brilliant. Admittedly, I love all the Grandpaboy stuff, Dead Man Shake in particular.
BTW Caryn Rose has a great piece on Salon about the 49:00 period: https://www.salon.com/2015/04/11/the_best_paul_westerberg_songs_you_never_heard_a_journey_through_his_surprise_2008_solo_gems/

Might there be appetite for additional slots on the solo/other ballot? Ten slots is kinda cramped for the volume of material, and many of you clearly know big chunks of it well. Happy to stretch it out to 20 if folks could use it...

Voted Replacements + Albums. wonder why my text wrapped above?
I'd appreciate an extra 10 on solo material, and think it could help the Bash+Pop and Chris Mars releases.

Should have had a top 10 replacements sound alike tracks

that's so meta

*touches nose*

Should have had a top 10 replacements sound alike tracks

or you could just start a goo goo dolls poll

nirvana

goo goo dolls sounded like all shook down and don't tell a soul. nirvana often resembled the twin/tone years, sometimes in their singles but also in the goofier incesticide stuff

or at least, listening to a lot of the twin/tone stuff with fresh ears, that's what i often think

"i'm worse at what i do best" is so westerberg it hurts

haha, yep

also, i truly have no idea how to handle the albums/releases part of this poll. 4-way tie for first?

hearing them play "darlin' one" live before dtas came out, i was convinced it was pretty much the greatest pop song ever written, an epic soft-rock masterpiece that could be played on AM radio and alt-rock radio alike for the rest of time, a signal of a new way forward for a band that would finally, for real this time, have actual hits, or, at the very least, it would be the song i could use to complain for the rest of my life about how the big bad world doesn't recognize real talent. christ was i disappointed when i actually heard it again, on record. there were entire sections of the song in my memory that seemed to have gone missing. hooks that only i remembered, and that i would soon forget. the production was just, oy. there was no sparkle. still a damn good chorus though.

do the alternate mix or live milwaukee '89 version on Dead Man's Pop come close to what you remember?

sadly, no. i've gone thru various versions over the years in search of what i thought i heard and no dice. my rosebud version was from 1987 tour.

*dream sequence*
*terrence malick whispers*

...they said it was the perfect performance...

lol

haha, i know what you mean though. i think i have only one example, though. secret machines opened for trail of dead on the source codes tour (in STL), and they did this AMAZING set, one song, with a huge godspeed-of-that-very-same-era style buildup and release. that's all, and then they were done. i thought they were this new hotshit post-rock band, but then every single release of theirs i've ever heard has been not that song, and nothing like that song. my friends who were there say the exact same thing, though. collective dream sequence

yup, that's a different version of the same exact feeling. trying to decide if "songs you thought you heard but you didn't" should be a thread, an album or a genre.

Make a thread. Or I will. I have one.

opposite feeling: first time i heard "i will dare," the first placemats song i'd ever heard. i felt like i'd heard it a thousand times before even though i ever had. it was like i'd been waiting for that exact album my whole life without knowing it. like i'd already written and recorded the entire album in my dreams and was just waiting for someone else to actualize it.

(xp) make it!

(xp to me) even though i *never* had, d'oh!

Okay, I'll make it official: feel free to submit UP TO 20 SELECTIONS IN THE SOLO/OTHER CATEGORY.

If you already voted, you are very welcome to submit additional tracks.

I'll have word with the one voter who went with an unranked ballot in that category, seeing as that has implications for scoring...

Um, bold would have been better!

UP TO 20 SELECTIONS IN THE SOLO/OTHER CATEGORY

The title “I Will Dare” always seemed to want more of an anthem than the song it’s actually attached to is.

^this
also the rubbishy Peter Buck solo, or "solo" even

goo goo dolls sounded like all shook down and don't tell a soul. nirvana often resembled the twin/tone years, sometimes in their singles but also in the goofier incesticide stuff

― Karl Malone, Thursday, September 24, 2020 3:02 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

funny you say this, I was listening to the early 'Mats stuff more thoroughly than ever before the other day and even though there were a lot of tunes I really liked, my primary takeaway was that I'd rather be listening to Bleach or Incesticide. Kurt was just a better melodist, and the music just feels more explosive and combustible.

the early Goo Goo Dolls stuff on Metal Blade is way more raw and I think in a lot of ways more indebted to early Soul Asylum than the Mats

https://youtu.be/yUfHVVjGrOQ

also they formed in 86 first album in 87 and had 3 albums before All Shook Down was out

I so often get fixated on outtakes in these things. In that spirit, here's where I say that "Perfectly Lethal" from the LIB era is fine ear-candy (no idea what he's getting at, lyrically) which kinda sorta invents Dinosaur Jr. (Or not. Maybe it's just that I can so easily hear J Mascis singing "no-one toooold youuuuu")

i haven't listened to any of the recent reunion replacements show stuff...until NOW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOWWqmPkhTc

honestly i'm kind of really impressed! he still looks and sounds great. gonna keep that in mind in case coronavirus ever ends and i go to a rock n roll show again

xp i love 'perfectly lethal', and i had never heard it before last week! it'll definitely be on my ballot (which i hope to submit tonight - i'm narrowing it down now)

SENT and i already feel terrible about my choices

Maybe you should find an outlet for those feelings like, say, trashing an RV.

Fun fact: 16 voters so far; 88 Replacements tracks and 40 'other' tracks have appeared on ballots.

That feels like a fair, er, sample size already. There's still another week to skew the numbers slightly towards your POV, if you've not yet done so...

Er, 50 'other' tracks was what I thought I typed earlier. One day I'll construct a post with no typos in it.

Girlfriend in high school had Don't Tell because her older brother saw them on Lettermen and liked the song. Thought it was a pretty boring record.

The first I bought was Hootenanny, during my Pavement/Guided By Voices/Thinking Fellers college years a bit later, looking for that sloppy/random/classic rock pisstake melange. It was hit or miss but unlike most punk bands trying to be funny I felt the humor was spot on. Smart midwestern kids being dumb. Loved the songs, variety and arrangement choices on Let it Be especially the stiff rhythm of I Will Dare somehow swinging so hard against that modern sounding rhythm guitar riff (like, is the root chord an A7? It feels like it's not resolving) and the over-emotive maxi-minimalism of Androgynous and Answering Machine. Felt Pleased was pretty sub par except for the two songs with the worked over production (Alex Chilton, Can't Hardly Wait) which were both fantastic if suddenly aiming for a completely different vibe and audience than before, like reaching for Elvis Costello and Crowded House fans but still hoping not to lose their old fans by leaving in Shooting Dirty Pool and Red Red Wine - satisfying neither type of fan.

Little enthusiasm to track down Tim for some reason, was getting into weird reissues by that point (Krautrock, Tropicalia, Serge/Yeye, Anthology of Folk, etc) and was starting to feel this band was generic springsteeny/petty-y white schlubs who were only briefly weird enough for me to like. Copied Tim from a library at some point and was really (colored) impressed, it was much better than Pleased, although I think the high points on the latter were still higher. I get what they were trying to do with Alex and Can't and can imagine Hold My Line and Bus being given that sort of high definition bug budget style, although of course it's better that they weren't, the album is much more cohesive as a sort of rockers-n-ballads first-two-big-star-records sounding thing if not quite as good but maybe a tad more rockin'.

The two early punk records never really grabbed me apart from Johnny and If Only You Were Lonely. (Yes Stink is a short album like Slates or Golden Showers, not an EP it's not an extended 7" single.) I read a spirited defense of them by Bob Odenkirk a few years ago that sort of helped them gel - he talked about how songs like God Damned Job just perfectly encapsulated that 80s feeling of being an outsider dreading the idea of a crap career like your dad's. But I never play them, I like lots of super catchy singalong punk from before that era that they remind me a bit of and some hardcore from that era (minor threat, misfits, DKs, huskers) but these sound a bit too generic for me still. I liked that comment above how Kids Don't Follow has a Wipers vibe, that's an interesting thought. Their best hardcore songs from Hoot/Let it Be like Hospital and We're Comin' Out are much more vivid to me than the early ones, I hear some innovation and confidence bordering on mastery creeping in if only on a few songs.

The Don't Tell A Soul remix album was a noble effort and more projects like that (and the sadly quite boring Let It Be Naked) should exist especially where the production lacks teeth that could be brought out a with a little judicious distortion and letting rhythm section have some loud parts - I'm thinking of Talking Heads 77, the 2nd Au Pairs record, Television's Adventure, Undertone's Hypnotised, The Smiths' debut, etc. But who would agree one what and how to meddle in this way. Anyway I couldn't imagine considering these later songs or performances, even quite pretty ones like Achin' to Be, the equal of the better songs from the their classic period.

Wow, good post.

oh yes, fantastic post. i like the early punk ones more than you do, mig, and achin to be less than you do, but that's some super insightful writing. the unlikely swing of i will dare, yes. i'd add i.o.u. as a major song from please to meet me. that's the one where i think they really figured out how to marry their punk roots with their jones for big production. i wish they'd gone further down that particular road.

"I Don't Know" and "Nightclub Jitters" have pretty nifty arrangements too. "Never Mind" is also great.

This is where I seize the excuse to lobby for "Photo (PO Box)" which probably would've made side two stronger. (The Youtube comments agree!)

Why did they abandon "Photo (PO Box)"? They cut at least two takes as a "studio demo," but it doesn't seem to have been recorded during the actual album sessions. A shame, even though it sounds like they weren't quite finished with it yet, it's very close to a great and fully-realized song, they just needed to work on it a little bit more.

Really digging the cruddy tone on Westerberg's "Crackle & Drag". (And the non-cruddy sequel, for that matter.)

** Last days. Everything must go, etc, etc. **

Well, not quite. Plenty of time. But if you can get ballots in by end of Sunday in the very last timezone (between Alaska and New Zealand or wherever) that would be fabulous.

I think we're a whisker under 20 ballots at the moment, and there are a bunch of tied scores around the #40 mark in the main poll. Numbers are pretty tight all round really. Any one vote can still shake things up!

Mine is going to be so boring I almost don't want to bother. Mostly Hootenanny through Tim stuff.

My main problem with putting together a ballot for this is that my Replacements fandom was, for so many years, centred almost entirely around a single album: Pleased to Meet Me. I like most of Tim, some of Sorry Ma and Let It Be and one later single ("I'll Be You"), but I feel like that if I were to really rank their songs according to my level of enthusiasm, I'd have most of PtMM ("Nightclub Jitters" is the only thing on the record that I don't like at all) and then a handful of other songs. This doesn't necessarily have to be a problem--my Hendrix ballot was equally unbalanced in favour of Are You Experienced--but it makes putting a ballot together a bit less fun than it might be for other artists (even with Janet, I had five solid albums and some assorted singles to play with).

i felt a bit intimidated given how deep some of the fandom runs itt but the fun of the ballot & poll is that once you get out of your head, there’s no wrong answers

I feel like I used to be pretty big fan, but I just don’t care enough– just like The Replacements!

It's all good!

Funnily enough, I'm in the habit of running polls where I don't have a complete grasp of the oeuvre in question and have been in the mood for immersion. Don't tell anyone but a whole bunch track titles from even the most acclaimed records were drawing a blank until recently. I'm actually a way bigger fan than I was in, say, July. LOL.

Folks on Twitter pointed out that the Replacements lost ground in the new Rolling Stone 500 albums thingy, suggesting certain types of rock music are broadly falling from favour.

Previously
137 - Tim
241 - Let It Be

Now
156 - Let It Be

I did unranked it’s like picking your children

Here's the one I'm lobbying you all for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgm5GL38FiE

would like to suggest "One more chance to poll it all wrong" for the results thread title

Noted! :)

I guess THIS helps explain why "Swingin' Party" is easily the most streamed Replacements song, on Spotify at least. I had no idea.

I quite hope the work before LIB isn't ignored. Often ""Color Me Impressed" and "Kids Don't Follow" sound like my favorite songs.

You should definitely submit a ballot with them at #1 and #2 IMHO.

Gotta love the big key change in "Trouble on the Way". And that's Tommy singing apparently?! Soooo much discarded stuff from this era! [xxpost]

I have a ballot ready to go, just need to meditate on it a little longer

I knew I wasn't likely to choose many tracks from Pleased to Meet Me or All Shook Down but I was surprised how much I enjoyed Don't Tell a Soul

none of those albums will be in my top five

"Trouble" - yep, one of Tommy's.

Just remembered that it and the rest of the PtMM re-issue will be out next week!

wait, really?? shit! yeah!

Crypto you should vote, PTMM needs you :)

i felt a bit intimidated given how deep some of the fandom runs itt but the fun of the ballot & poll is that once you get out of your head, there’s no wrong answers

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, September 29, 2020 8:41 PM (yesterday)bookmarkflaglink

I feel like I used to be pretty big fan, but I just don’t care enough– just like The Replacements!

― Erdős-szám 69 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, September 29, 2020 9:12 PM (yesterday)bookmarkflaglink

It's all good!

Funnily enough, I'm in the habit of running polls where I don't have a complete grasp of the oeuvre in question and have been in the mood for immersion. Don't tell anyone but a whole bunch track titles from even the most acclaimed records were drawing a blank until recently. I'm actually a way bigger fan than I was in, say, July. LOL.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Tuesday, September 29, 2020 9:35 PM (yesterday)

fwiw i think this is a great thing! when we did the b-52's poll recently, i was only familiar with the first two albums + love shack. but by the end, i felt like i had a solid grasp on just about everything, and when deerhoof slides into the Song for a Future Generation on their recent (and awesome) Love-Lore suite of cover songs, it was so great to immediately recognize it and know it!

music: it's pretty cool sometimes

I'm at 23 on solo tracks and struggling to make a cut, if I send that in what happens to the tracks over 20?

Don't tell anyone but a whole bunch track titles from even the most acclaimed records were drawing a blank until recently.

I can tell. :-p

LOL. That occurred to me just after I posted.

To be fair, I've had all but the final two records around the house in some form for at least a decade. (Might even have been late 90s that I procured PTTM from the Salvation Army.) Casually picked them up and definitely listened to them a good few times. But sometimes at long intervals such that the finer details were a little hazy. :)

Dead Man's Pop piqued my interest anew!

in the weird position of knowing my top two but being at a complete loss at how to rank the other 28 lol

xxxpost re solo/other tracks: I guess I could keep adding tracks beyond 20 with the same weightings as the main poll. Unless someone objects? Anyone? Anyone?

Would happily add amendments if early voters want to join in too.

That side poll arguably needs more votes really so I'm hesitant to say no. LOL. Haven't added as many ballots there this week as I did early on.

I'm going to have to vote on tracks and albums but not on solo tracks, I don't know any of that material

a fun sub-poll might have been Top 5 Covers of Other Artists by the Replacements

I had to do some research to discover that "Run for the Country" is a cover

their worst cover might be "Black Diamond" for being awesome and thus contributing to the misapprehension that Kiss is a good band

I had to do some more research to discover that "Run for the Country" is actually not a cover, my mistake

I love their Black Diamond cover & included it on my ballot. Kiss *are* terrible but they are fun & playing Kiss songs is a rock n roll rite of passage

I agree, and that might make my ballot if I end up getting around to it. Like Brad C. I would leave out solo material since I never got too much out of it or dug to deep and don't feel like doing so now.

ha, i didn't know Black Diamond was a kiss song! it just missed my ballot, i do like their version quite a lot (not sure i've ever heard more than 1 or 2 kiss songs in a row)

James Redd, your characterization upthread of Bob Stinson as an "outside" guitarist is otm and helps me understand why I enjoy tracks like "Black Diamond" and "We're Comin' Out" more in 2020 than I did when the albums were comin' out ... what I used to hear as sloppy and sardonic now sounds more fierce and free

this is why the post-Bob Placemats have never quite done it for me

I think Let It Be by the Replacements would be better if you took off "Black Diamond" and put their cover of "Temptation Eyes" on its place. However, that's perhaps another thread topic.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Sunday, August 15, 2004 2:01 AM

I see what you did there and I like that one as well, but not nearly as much as "Black Diamond."

Sent in my albums/songs ballot last week. Today I’ve begun reviewing all the solo stuff...it surprised me when I realized how many solo Westerberg albums I had actually went to the record store to buy and are still with me. It wasn’t until the 49:00 project (only learned of its existence due to this thread) that he fell off my radar. At this point “Mr. Rabbit” will take 1st place, the rest are all kind of samey.

Talking about PTMM, it’s such an odd duck: big budget production combined with the absence of Bob (R.I.P. king) seemed to have had the effect of turning their 3rd tier rockers (or, filler, kind of) like Valentine and I Don’t Know and Red Red Wine into straight up duds. I feel like those songs’ equivalents on Tim, “Shooting Dirty Pool”, “Lay It Down Clown” highlight this dynamic: gussy them up and remove Bob (or at least, their Bobness via Paul’s imitation of him) and they too would cross over from classic to dud.

“Dose of Thunder” not “Shooting Dirty Pool”. Drugs, and songs about drugs: caramba!

Heck, I got turned away at the door for that secret Maxwell’s show back in the day so maybe I need to vote in this poll after all.

Hell, I love "Valentine." I think Slim himself lobbied heavily to get it on the album (and unbeknown to him, the label was also telling them the album was too short at ten songs under 30 minutes) - it was more or less his sole contribution to Pleased to Meet Me because they were already done recording by the time he joined the band. And I like "I Don't Know" for that matter too, but I have a slight preference for the raw studio demo that was a hidden track on All for Nothing/Nothing for All.

"Red Red Wine" definitely feels like filler, nothing special, but it's still catchy and goes down easy.

I had no idea anyone had anything against "Valentine" until just now. It'll be high up on my ballot.

Yeah "Valentine" is fine IMHO. It feels almost like it's all bridge, building anticipation for transition to the next section. (Or something. I'm no musicologist.)

You know what other vaguely wistful mid-paced track doesn't seem to have come up at all here? "Sixteen Blue". I really should give that more points somehow...

put together most of a ballot from their big three albums but i need to listen to the rest of their discog a few more times, i've never really spent much time with it until now. probably controversially i've found don't tell a soul to be much more enjoyable than its reputation would suggest and have found their pre-let it be stuff to be just too punk for my tastes.

are there any b-sides/outtakes/other non-album stuff that are must listens?

perfectly lethal mentioned upthread, but i like that one a lot too

Oooh. I reckon "Portland", from the DTAS era is pretty great. Amongst actual b-sides, the first one, "If Only You Were Lonely" is memorable. (And not even vaguely related to hardcore.)

Also: the two pre-LIB tracks Alfred mentioned should possibly be on every ballot. (Full disclosure: they're high on my own. LOL)

"Portland" will be on my ballot.

Is there truth to the legend that they/mgmt were trying to get Rod Stewert to record 'Sixteen Blue?'

Is there no love for Replacements For Sale here? I think it's become my favourite Replacements LP.

Ha, I like it a lot but somehow wasn't considering voting for it until you just said that.

Yet another version of "Can't Hardly Wait"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWkZ7lMBm4w

For Sale will be on my ballot, I haven't played it much yet but I could see it becoming my go-to Replacements album

I might need to do a deep dive in the next few days to contribute. My relationship with these guys has always been a little weird, since I was first introduced via that All For Nothing/Nothing for All comp which focused only on Tim and after, then in my first job out of college my boss would occasionally put on Don't Tell A Soul when we were working late. It wasn't really until about 2005 or so that I finally went back to anything earlier and was finally blown away by Let It Be.

Valentine is top-tier Westerberg, probably in a lot of people's top 10s, top 5 for me.

Also voted in the solo tracks poll. Which meant revisiting all of Paul's releases except for the soundtrack work, and a couple of Chris Mars solo releases-which are fun but not memorable.

Stereo/Mono really dwarfs his entire solo catalog, just an amazing collection of songs and he sounds like he's having fun to boot, so maybe that made putting up with his middling major label releases worth it? Probably ended up with something like this on the solo albums.
Stereo/Mono
14 Songs
Eventually
49:00
Folker
Dead Man Shake

Suicaine Gratification is fairly terrible, but Eventually and 14 Songs are fine sequels to All Shook Down. Voted for one track off of 49:00 which works better as a piece IMO.

don't know if I've got time to vote, but yes, Replacements for Sale un-jaded my ears. Really well recorded, captures great performances of almost all my favorite songs (I have very few post-Tim.)

shit, i haven't even heard that! gonna fix that right now

although i hear that Replacements '65 is even better

B-b-but what about Replacements VI?

are you kidding? Replacements VI is arguably the worst UK version of a US Replacements release!

Somebody's forgotten Bastards of Young...And Old. All about the bartender cover!

Are you the kind of completist, Karl, that also owns The Replacements Story?

Replacements'

i am not, but i have to leave something for old man malone to discover when i'm 90 years old!

I love Stereo and Mono very much. You got your clear-toned burning candle emo ballad thing going on Stereo, and then he Chris Gaines it into Keith Richards mode as the Grandpaboy alter-ego for a cruddy-toned (well put, Nag!) thing with Mono. I think it was seeing him on Letterman in full-on Grandpaboy mode with his dangling-glove accoutrement that first got me to take a closer look at this Paul fellow and his Replacements of yore. I would come to learn interesting facts about the performance such as: on drums is Michael Bland from the New Power Generation, and on bass of course is Joey Buttafuoco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i2mNLb8-oA

this documentary from around that time, 2001-2003 or so, features a great many other bold fashion choices and other cool aging punk weirdo behavior like smoking cigars or laying on the ground backstage in the fetal position for a few minutes before getting up to gargle and go play a super loose and sloppy version of "High Time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEipqtk-gLc

This is reminding that maybe I should vote for that Adam Horovitz favorite Replacements Going Steady.

i have that first Grandpa Boy 45 that was released about 5 years before stereo/mono, sad to see it is not going for much on discogs

oh yeah that one! the guy had a knack for single-shot music videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPEbFkrrLN0

I think it was seeing him on Letterman in full-on Grandpaboy mode with his dangling-glove accoutrement

LOL, I saw that when it aired back in the day. Great to see again, especially when Paul puts his hat on Letterman.

“Loose Ends” from Tommy’s band Bash & Pop is love at first audition here. I happened to catch them at their Long Beach, CA debut way back early 90’s but not til now am I listening to their albums.

TroubleBoys, I am liking this band better than I remembered. Something about that Stinson Brothers bass and guitar blood harmony still gets through. Cf. Instances where you can't separate the art from the artist. vs. instances where you can.

Think that’s the last time I use “cf.” as I have been recommended not to.

I have my tracks list together, need to think a bit on the solo stuff. I'm not sure I have 20 tunes I like enough to vote for, so I'll just put whatever I can muster enough enthusiasm for. Pretty much every Westerberg album that I've heard post-14 Songs — which is most but not all of them — I have found pleasant but undistinguished. Literally don't remember anything from Stereo/Mono except the Flesh for Lulu cover.

My 31st track was "God Damn Job," which I hated to cut. Hope someone votes for it!

I might vote for it. Is horsetrading votes on this thread kosher though?

This rando’s pointless assessment of all the solo stuff and what my ballot will look like:
#1-10: “Mr. Rabbit”, “Postcards From Paradise”, 8 of my favorite tracks from Friday Night Is Killing Me (Bash & Pop)

#10-20: a couple other stand-outs from Stereo/Mono era, maybe 3? from Open Season (nice surprise!), like 1 or 2 from 90’s major label Paul, one from The I Don’t Care, and just because I respect the gesture of it, at #20: (49:00).

putting two covers and a bunch of that Bash & Pop pap above this is wacky to me, but you do you rattle, you do you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VPvjkZbFoM

Amongst actual b-sides, the first one, "If Only You Were Lonely" is memorable

a perfect song. i love the sad drunken paul acoustic countryish subgenre and i love that they doled 'em out sparingly and reluctantly (and sometimes a little plugged in and a little more drunken, shoutout "treatment bound"). they were really good at sequencing and strange collisions, especially in the early days. (shoutout also, obviously, "never talking to you again," which is much more sober and clear-headed, much less country and not a replacements song but, otherwise, same thing).

Xpost: Best to be somewhat respectful of one another's voting decisions, I think. *Everyone's* ballot is completely and utterly wrong. Especially mine. Goes without saying really. :)

I've enjoyed me some Bash & Pop in the course of this exercise. Embarrassingly I'd not knowingly heard any of it before and a brisk sampling would probably have suggested I wouldn't like it much, but I ended up throwing some points their way. Mr Stinson is onto something there methinks.

I quite like the look of the 'other' side-poll now. 72 distinct tracks have appeared on ballots and the distribution of the votes has pleasing curvature to it. Meanwhile, I think a little over 100 Replacements tracks have been given the nod.

Hell they didn't have many more than that, did they?

That rough list at the top suggests 180+ distinct compositions with a commercial release. But that includes the 20-odd TSHTF covers. And the dozens of posthumously-released outtakes. Pretty sure there are still a few conventional album tracks that haven't attracted a vote yet either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UJcXZ3NrCQ

10/16/83 opening for X in Minneapolis

Cool, thanks.

Re the solo/other ballot:

Not sure how many people need to know this but I think it might be necessary to present both a score for 49:00 as an integrated whole AND scores for constituent parts. And y'all can decide for yourselves which final ranking feels right at rollout time. Some of its individual sections/songs seem popular and at least one re-appears on a different release. I can make the votes already received work both ways.

Any future voters for 49:00 as a whole are encouraged to keeping noting, where applicable, constituent songs one would have voted for as standalone tracks.

I specifically left 49:00 off my solo/other list b/c I thought it would be too hard to tabulate. I remember being kinda miffed when it and the other 5:05/3oclockcreep releases came out at the time - 'why does this songwriter continually self-sabotage his career' thoughts. Paul gonna Paul.

I wonder about Westerberg's financial situation. He obviously has done some things "for the money" over the years but also a lot of times has seemed indifferent to it. I have no idea what kind of income something like the Replacements catalog generates on an annual basis. I assume not tons, but maybe enough?

I think he's doing fine, and it probably helps that he lives a pretty modest lifestyle in an area with an average cost of living. (I think Minneapolis is pretty much at the median. A city like Chicago is noticeably more expensive, and then cities like San Francisco or New York City would be significantly more than double in cost.)

FWIW, it was mentioned briefly, but when they did the reunion tour, he had just gotten divorced which likely put some financial strain on him. But it's likely his long inactivity helped keep his financial obligations relatively low (assuming any decision or settlement was based on his income from that same stretch), and the reunion probably shored up his finances to meet those obligations.

(Possibly too) late lobbying post: the originally UK-only track "Nowhere Is My Home" from (approximately) the Tim era was already mentioned early in the thread (by birdistheword, I think) but here's a Youtube link to reinforce the crucial, crucial message!

I am aware of that track and have listened a few times- it was on some comp or other over here, maybe the one called something like All Or Nothing At All but it never hooked me.

Word. It seems to be on expanded Tim issues too these days.

I could almost vote for a 10 second excerpt of the lead guitar hook alone. LOL.

Is that song called "Nowhere Is Near My Home"?

I've seen it with and without the 'near'.

Okay this song is pretty Bob-tastic and I will consider voting for it.

I couldn't find the earlier reference upthread, did it mention that the were playing it on reunion shows and Paul was doing some pretty good lead playing?

:)

He was talking broadly about improving the listening experience of the Sire records.

I noticed they also played "Wake Up" in reunion shows. (Which, again, the audience may have known largely from All For Nothing?!?) I think I kept that one on my ballot too, so this has suddenly mutated into de facto lobbying post. LOL. Last one!

It’s actually not on All for Nothing, “Nobody” is. It was on some UK only thing called Boink!!

So many songs where Bob totally takes over either the entire latter half with a solo and then fills or at the very least the outro.

i love Good Day by Tommy! i will def be voting for that
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, September 22, 2020

I'm belatedly checking a few things, like: where does one locate a recording of this?

I'm acquainted with Westerberg's "Good Day", reputedly inspired by *Bob* S, but a Tommy track is proving elusive. Might I be overlooking an alias?

Will try to finish up today. One question: in the OP you mention ranking for songs but not for albums. Is that intentional?

Just sloppiness. :) Ranked or unranked is fine, though most, if not all, have ranked them.

I was reflecting on the incredible 1983-era video above, and thinking that perhaps what the Replacements represent is one of music's great could have beens. Paul (at least) always distances himself from the punk scene in interviews, but the guitar interplay on display in that video is simply frightening. Television's Friction chased with Jack Daniels and spit back out into a freezing Minneapolis night.

xposts to Nag!: ugh i am a dumb i meant light of day by Tommy not good day sorry

https://youtu.be/awtxkRwqKeY

Aha! Awesome. Thanks.

I was reflecting on the incredible 1983-era video above, and thinking that perhaps what the Replacements represent is one of music's great could have beens. Paul (at least) always distances himself from the punk scene in interviews, but the guitar interplay on display in that video is simply frightening. Television's Friction chased with Jack Daniels and spit back out into a freezing Minneapolis night

It does make me wonder how this would have played out had Bob remained in the band and presuming Paul wrote those later songs in the same way. In many of those later songs there were clearly delineated differences between ‘rhythm’ and ‘lead’ - to the extent that a lot of the rhythm was ‘only’ acoustic guitars - so I do wonder how Bob would’ve responded as lead guitarist

Voted!

That takes it to 24 voters so far. And exactly 100 distinct Replacements tracks, 79 'other' tracks. (I slightly overestimated at least one of those a couple of days ago.)

:D

Tomorrow’s the official deadline, right?

EXTEND

^^

I will likely be able to get a ballot together monday

voted

Alright, I'll check how things are going at the end of Monday. (Alaska time or, you know, that the very last timezone a little after that.)

My ballot will arrive today, just sorting out solo tracks.

Thinking about my issues with PTMM prompted me to make a playlist which remedied all said issues with some re-sequencing and a couple of, uh, yup I’m gonna say it: Replacements.

1. IOU
2. Alex Chilton
3. Photo
4. Cruella DeVille
5. Nightclub Jitters
6. I Don’t Know
7. Never Mind
8. The Ledge
9. Red Red Wine
10. Skyway
11. Can’t Hardly Wait

This side one flows better for me. “I Don’t Know” always sounded too soon and out of place, but as an opener on side 2 I think it’s perfect. “Cruella DeVille” has a certain energy that deserves a side one placement and why not make it right before the similarly swinging “Nightclub Jitters”? “Photo” though (which I only heard recently) was the linchpin that made this possible; I think it’s good enough and similar in feel enough to follow Chilton. “Valentine” has a good melody, my problem with it has more to do with the context in which it appears in the original. Thank God for modern playlist technology!

This poll led me to go back and load this video clip of "First Steps" from a Tommy solo show at a record store here a few years ago. He got up on the countertop for the encore. The audience, as you can see, is exactly who'd expect.

https://youtu.be/Wojo4IKHsDY

OMG

I couldn't hang around after the show, but one of my friends did and ended up buying Tommy drinks at the bar next door.

My ballot is in btw.

Buying him drinks and giving him a lift back to his hotel, actually.

I voted.

I will be surprised if mine's not the ballot heaviest on Don't Tell A Soul.

My breakdown: Sorry Ma (2), Stink (1), Hootenanny (3), Let It Be (6), Tim (6), PTTM (7), DTAS (2), All Shook Down (2), non-album (1). HOWEVER, the album with the most tracks only placed one in my top 10.

I voted.

I will be surprised if mine's not the ballot heaviest on _Don't Tell A Soul_.

Oh but I wasn’t intending on ranking, maybe I should rethink

Interesting, looks a lot like mine: All Shook Down 2, DTAS 3, PTMM 7, Tim 5, Let It Be 6, Hootenanny 4, Sorry Ma, Stink-1 Each, Live/Cover-1.
two from my top album in the top 10. I was hoping the years passing might shed some light on whether All Shook Down is good or not, but I still don't really know what to make of it. I think it mostly makes me sad, that's a dude in a dark place.

I guess I got all the CD re-issues whenever those came out, and while there are some interesting extras, nothing I felt particularly strongly about. Nowhere is My Home and Portland are probably the best, but they didn't beat out low-20s tracks for me like Go. I guess I tended to like his re-writes better, Portland=Talent Show, and You're Getting Married feels like an earlier, less mature (read-meaner) version of Little Mascara or Nobody.

A couple of the All Shook Down tracks that I remembered as highlights did not really hold up for me. That album is so betwixt and between. I actually prefer 14 Songs.

The audience, as you can see, is exactly who'd expect.

I feel seen.

Lol.

If I was walking by and saw that crowd I might not have walked in.

Almost about to hit send. Track ranking is really somewhat arbitrary, although album ranking follows an obvious pattern.

To be clear, I fit in very comfortably with that crowd too.

Yeah, me too but Grouch Marx etc.

Reminds me of the first time I thought of going to a crossword puzzle contest, which was then a block from my house. I had already registered but I saw some dude going in with a record bag over his shoulder and just couldn't do it, at least not that time.

Ballot sent.

A bunch of ballots in my mailbox, I see. Nice. That must be 30-something in total now.

So should we now stop posting and go into deep hibernation cover on the incognito tip until the rollout?

ballot sent!

i didn't submit a solo/side projects ballot 'cause i couldn't come up with anywhere near 20 of those, but for anyone who hasn't voted yet and is still contemplating, can i lobby for this fantastic tune westerberg co-wrote and recorded with the leatherwoods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mebxXIPPMs

I didn’t submit that part either so that is actually going to be one of the more interesting aspects of the roll-out.

I should probably mention that if I haven't acknowledged receipt of your ballot over the last two weeks something has possibly gone awry. Typically within 8 hours or so. (Though I always say this and no irregularities ever seem to emerge, so...)

Up to 34 voters now.

And almost as many solo/other tracks as Replacements tracks cited, from a significantly smaller pool of participants. Might attempt a *complete* playlist of every solo/other track raised seeing as quite a few will surely miss the formal rollout.

Intel suggests that it's well into Monday east of the international dateline. So, if those requesting a little more time can submit ballots in the next 18 hours or so that would be immensely pleasing.

nag3, it's your man on the inside, reporting in. central time is 10:19am, i repeat, CST is one zero one nine, alpha mike

I will!

just voted

I bought a headache.

LOL @ Karl Malone.

Another 12-ish hours...

I have to say that doing this poll was kind of a nice distraction. The default Replacements vibe of "everything sucks, but oh well" is timely.

OTM

agree

I think voters have been overwhelmingly in the USA for this poll. A bit more so than my previous poll collating experiences, anyway. So I'll think I'll try first-thing-the-morning (my time, Melbourne, AEDT) for this rollout. I'll try to spread it out bit more too and hopefully place it around noon to early evening for most of the Americas.

Starting with albums perhaps...17 hours from now.

So, yeah, obviously get ballots in soon if you intend to submit one. :)

Also: I've been totes digging that Leatherwoods track. Thanks ffc!

fcc, even.

Just submitted!

I'll see about a tracks-only ballot shortly...this ended up not being a good time to binge-listen for me.

ffs

'Nag!3' - my bad - I just realized in my original ballot, I accidentally pasted a 'draft' from another text file. What I just sent you is my preferred 'ranked' 'Category One' list. If it's too late, and 'Never Mind' gets an extra vote skew - 'Never Mind' I guess!

lol this deadline feels v punk rock now

https://s3.amazonaws.com/Clinton_Swag/JhWEZOsBUT/swag.png

I've been totes digging that Leatherwoods track

glad you like. that whole leatherwoods album -- they only made one -- is really good!

ffs

works for me, kinda like a rolling pin.

SENT!

Okay, I'll close this thing now to finalise the albums and solo/other stats. I'll begin the rollout with those, hopefully in the morning (my time), perhaps 10 hours from now.

Though if anyone sneaks in a last minute submission for the main tracks poll while I sleep I'm hardly going to exclude it from the tally. :)

wait for me!

sent!

*thumbs up*

I would think you'd get a lot of voters in that one--at least 40.
― clemenza, Friday, September 18, 2020

Pretty close, it turns out: 38

XXXPOST:
If it's too late, and 'Never Mind' gets an extra vote skew - 'Never Mind' I guess!

I meant to mention that. I removed the duplicate at the time and intended ask whether you wanted to substitute something else in. Sorry!

Anything you want, I’ll Nag! Nag! Nag!

38 votes, nice! i'm excited for all of this.

re: albums you know it's not that I think PTMM is exponentially greater than any of the records from the classic run. I just think for really the only time in Paul's career solo or otherwise, they found a perfect producer where the whole ends up being more than the sum of the parts.

Ha, that is definitely clear from listening to all their albums back to back. They were recorded and mixed badly in many different ways! Although I don't mind the murk on Let It Be, it suits the album.

38 votes, nice! i'm excited for all of this.

When I listened on LPs the messed up recording could bother me a bit, but now with streaming/remastering/listening through earbuds there is kind of a flattening effect.

Hell-o-o?

nag3, it's your man on the inside, reporting in. central time is 2:28pm, i repeat, CST is four teen two eight, charlie mike

Haha. Okay, I think I'm ready....

wow, almost exactly 10 hours later!!

tbh, such punctuality seems at odds with the spirit of the replacements, but still, i'm here for it

I hate ILoveMusic, it's got too many POLLS - Artist Poll #104 - THE REPLACEMENTS - RESULTS