Pleased To Meet Them

Jim Walsh's Replacements: All Over But The Shouting (Voyageur) should be a cause for celebration. The Replacements in their prime were Rock 'N' Roll like you want to remember it: messy, scruffy and daring. Told as an oral history the bio had the opposite effect on me. I found myself saddened by the whole Replacements history. By the time they dumped their last 2 major label albums they had shot their load. Lead 'Mat Paul Westerberg had lost what had made his songs so memorable in their mid-80's peak, and the rest of the band (what was left of it) were bored with courting the mainstream. You come away wishing they had sold the units that their soundalike's did later on. The Replacements are fondly remembered. Peter Buck thinks they should be in the RRHOF. I've got no problem with that. But it's a legacy unfulfilled. Paul Westerberg's DOA solo career doesn't help their cause, either. But a glorious stomp it was.