I Ain't Nothin' but a Customer

The Replacements' debut album came out 40 years ago last week, and The Ringer rightfully wants to talk about it:

Minnesotans ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bob Dylan to the Coen brothers have long excelled in depicting the fleeting pleasures and sundry humiliations involved with climbing the slippery ladder of American success. In many ways, Westerberg is rock ’n’ roll’s Fitzgerald—a chronic and careful curator of his own mythology whose main themes revolve around the ethically armored but inherently self-sabotaging commitment to mistrusting acceptance of any kind.

“I think it was very hard for Paul to play the game,” Jesperson says, “because if he really was trying hard and failed, he thought he would look ridiculous. Whereas if he could sort of try, but look as if he didn’t give a shit, somehow that preserved his integrity.” 

At its core, this is what makes the Replacements a source of fascination four decades after their debut. While their petulance could be aggravating, it nevertheless represented a genuinely nuanced attempt at threading the needle between self-actualization and brazen ambition, at a moment when notions of rebellion in music, art, and politics were rapidly being colonized into a high-gloss consensus-building machine. 

Here's a few of my thoughts from 2008:

1) It's basically an album of singles; 18 great, rocking cuts that if presented to you as a 45 you'd listen and think "wow, that's great!" There's not a non-single feeling song in the whole bunch. So much so that I've never understood why "I'm in Trouble" was chosen as the actual single. It's a great song, but a quick look at the track listing puts it as only my 8th or 9th favorite cut on the album.

2) The bass playing is staggering; it's almost impossible to believe a 14 year-old played it. Unlike most rote bass playing in punk bands, the bass here runs wild and is all over the place. And for some reason out in front a lot of the time. It's great.

3) In what would become a pattern (I think) for the band, the album is back-loaded rather than the customary front-loaded. The last six songs (and last three in particular) end the album with a flurry of great numbers, a la dont ask why/somethin to du/im in trouble/love you till friday/shut up/raised in the city.

And, of course, the liner notes are the best of any record ever. Lookin forward to hearing all the reissues.