mostly stolen: the Replacements HOOTENANNY poll

"color me impressed" is one of my favorite rock songs of the '80s, so this is kind of easy for me. but i do love this record.

"within your reach" always sort of cracked me up, because i was in a lousy high-school rock band at the time and the guitarist used his flanger way too much (to be fair, he only had two pedals and that was one of them), and we made homemade tapes that sounded a lot like that. except for not being great songs, obv.

I love three songs--"Color Me Impressed," "Within Your Reach," and "Hayday"--and can't really remember a thing from the rest of the LP. I voted for "Color Me Impressed."

Lovelines is a fun novelty toss-off.

I think "Color Me Impressed" is gonna walk this - need to listen to the album again to decide my choice, tho

You guys kidding? TREATMENT BOUND.

"treatment bound" is great. the album's kind of evenly split between "real" songs and goof-offs (with a few things like "run it" somewhere in between). as far as the goof-offs go, i love "mr. whirly" and "lovelines."

Love this record but one obvious song stands out..

I adore the synth sound on "Within Your Reach." "Color Me Impressed" is a close second (I've got a CD-R on which the next song, Debbie Gibson's "Out of the Blue," is a perfect answer).

This is my favorite 'Mats record. Went with "Color Me Impressed", but I truly love this whole record and could think of a reason to pick anything except maybe "Hayday".

"within your reach" is so gutsy in its way. using a synthesizer and drum machine was like an act of rock betrayal at the time. and the kid-in-his-basement home-recording vibe is exactly what that kind of half-embarrassed love song needs. the form sort of becomes the content. ("answering machine" does something similar i guess.)

i like this description of the album from some blog:

This is a concept album of sorts.

The concept is: the four members of this band are assholes, and they don't care if you're in on the jokes or not, they are just going to get drunk and play anything and everything that they want, and present it to you, warts and all.

and here's the source material for the cover:

http://www.wirz.de/music/antholog/grafik/hoot14.jpg

"within your reach" is so gutsy in its way. using a synthesizer and drum machine was like an act of rock betrayal at the time.

I wonder how true this is. I suppose if I take X's "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" seriously, I'd assume that only Brits used synthesizers.

i think in punk circles especially there was an awful lot of hostility toward synthesizers and the whole new wave thing. (which included a lot of barely-concealed homophobia, among other things. real men don't play synths, etc.)

Don't think Bob Stinson was too happy about "Within Your Reach" when he heard it for the first time

yeah isn't the deal that paul knew the other guys would hate it, so he just did it himself?

"Color Me Impressed" was the first song the Mats played — complete with false start — when I saw them for the first time (back in '85, I believe), so that.

"Hospital," easy.

Treeeeeatment Bound

whoah never seen that cover source before - awesome

i think in punk circles especially there was an awful lot of hostility toward synthesizers and the whole new wave thing. (which included a lot of barely-concealed homophobia, among other things. real men don't play synths, etc.)

I think it was more of a "bloated prog rockers play synths, so we don't" thing. The anti-New Wave look (skinny ties, flashy colors, "fashion") was the homophobic part.

well wow - this is really hard, 'cause it was such a 'touchstone' rekkid for me in H.S. - I'm gonna be all weird and pick 'willpower' - that song gets in my head at the most appropriate times. Love the screamin' 'Willllllpoooooowerrrrr - cha---ange my mind (MY LIFE!)' callout...

Great album. Very tough to pick, tough to pick one kernel from the, um, cob.

I thought that this album should have been mentioned on this thread

Hearing the alternate lyrics of Lovelines on the reissue is pretty interesting, because he obviously nailed it on the album version. It's funny how some random lyrics can be so much better than others.

I was skimming that Mats "oral history" book in the library yesterday

The one by Jim Walsh. In which the first half is a Bennetton Army of people around the world telling how they first heard the 'Mats and it changed their lives?

"I was skimming that Mats "oral history" book in the library yesterday"
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius)

It surprises me that anyone from that time could remember anything.

You shouldn't be. If Bob Stinson had left a Little Bit Of Bob in your mayonnaise jar, you'd probably remember it for a long time too.

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