The Replacements | Pleased to Meet Me
Apparently not everyone appreciated the negativity of my last review. Well, tough titties, that album sucks. Having said that, I was possibly unfairly influenced by listening to a string of albums that just kept disappointing. So today I’ve decided to clear the slate by intentionally examining something that I’ve loved since I was diapers. Or at least since it wasn’t weird for me to be in diapers. But that is neither here nor there, this is about music and not my sexual fetishes. Let’s talk about the The Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me.
While the previous two albums (Let It Be and Tim) are also iconic and wonderful in their own right, 1987’s Pleased to Meet Me is a great example of how a band can veer away from their sound while still making a great record. Even on the songs that sound like nothing they ever released, it still feels like it comes from same band. For example, “Nightclub Jitters” is a slow moving jazz number with some sexy saxophone, but it still sounds like Paul Westerberg trying to be sultry. And weirdly it’s not bad. It is immediately followed on the album by the dark 80s rocker “The Ledge” that deals with ignoring the adoration from people in your life and contemplating suicide. Hey, even life as a rock star can tough. But this album isn’t about sadness, or really any one concept. They jump across subject matter and genre pretty dramatically which can make Pleased to Meet Me feel more like a collection of songs, but at least they are for the most part great fucking songs.
They experiment with a goofy chorus and heavy dose of brass on “I Don’t Know” and get soft and folky on “Skyway”, while songs like “I.O.U.” and “Red Red Wine” are much less of a departure from the brash punkish roots of their early work. “Nevermind” and particularly “Valentine” are solid straightforward rocks songs that give the middle some depth, but the strongest songs involve contributor Alex Chilton. This album not only features the man himself playing guitar on the still awesome“Can’t Hardly Wait” but contains another one of the Replacements’ best tracks ever: the song named after him. For a band that can make you want to cry with songs like “Unsatisfied”, “Alex Chilton” is just good old fashioned fun. It’s also one of the best songs to play on Rock band, which has to count for something (but not really). Finally, while writing this I found out the Chilton was the vocalist for the The Box Tops who recorded the song “The Letter” almost 50 years ago and it’s still one of my favorite songs. This guy deserves more songs written about him.
Pleased to Meet Me may not be the best Replacements’ album but it shows all the different directions they could go in from fast paced punk outbursts to acoustic tinkerings. Somewhere along the way they also developed an affinity for horn arrangements which I personally love, so fuck off you purists. After this album the band (mainly Paul) continued to go in yet another different (more mainstream?) direction but to be fair I like the last two albums before they disbanded too. It’s healthy for bands to experiment with their sound, even if your core fanbase is content hearing the same shit over and over again, it must get boring. As long as whatever new sound you shoot for doesn’t completely suck and isn’t some cash grab to do whatever has become popular the fans should understand. And if they don’t, fuck ’em.
The Drink: In honor of The Replacements song “Beer for Breakfast” I’ll nominate Founder’s Breakfast Stout.
Bake
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I love this album
[…] Their new album Last American Band is a new blues rock gem produced by Paul Friggin Westerberg of The Replacements. There may be more about this album on this site […]