Finally getting their due after a generation and a half of younger bands cashed in on their legacy, the Replacements are in the midst of the rock-n-roll equivalent of a Presidential exploratory committee for a reunion tour. First came Jim Walsh’s adoring biography, and now the Mats’ early funny records get the deluxe treatment from Rhino records, re-mastered and fleshed out with bonus tracks.
The Replacements’ later years on a major label were marked by disappointment, as each effort to turn their next record into a “Great Rock Statement” missed the mark, making the out-takes and B-sides an essential part of the band’s narrative. Their indie years, on the other hand, were marked by a constant maturation and growth that culminated in as perfect a record as any band has ever committed to modified petroleum product, 1984’s “Let It Be.” Consequently, the bonus tracks are the usual mix of covers (“20th Century Boy”), demos (a more vulnerable sounding “Sixteen Blue” and a Westerberg solo “Answering Machine”) and excised tracks (“Temptation Eyes” and “Perfectly Lethal”) that add little to the record but a historical footnote and the slight satisfaction that there are better sounding versions of these songs than our muddy, 16th generation traded bootlegs.
It was on “Let It Be” that the band finally acquiesced and let lead singer Paul Westerberg load up the disc with four of the most beautiful fucked up ballads. On earlier records, these songs wound up as B-sides or home demos that were never fully realized. Now they are rightfully reclaim the spotlight, starting with “If Only You Were Lonely,” the cutesy, clumsy love-song left off of the band’s trash debut, “Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash,” but featured on 76.5% of all mixtapes made ever since. “If Only You Were Lonely” hinted at a wit and maturity that songs like “I Hate Music” and “Shutup” belied, but guitarist Bob Stinson hated it, and it was relegated to B-side status. The remainder of the bonus tracks on “Sorry Ma” indicate that “I Hate Music” was as witty as all four band members were willing to get on their first record.
“If You Get Married” was probably the next great ballad that the Replacements might have recorded, an elegiac ode to swinging bachelorhood and the dread of growing up, except that Westerberg never had the nerve to propose its inclusion on a record. Heretofore, its only known existence was a low-quality recording of a slightly inebriated live performance. On the newly-remastered “Stink,” “Married” turns up as a fully realized home demo — a lost classic. The rest of the short record is fleshed out with Hank Williams and Bill Haley covers, which, as far as I can tell have never gotten out of the vaults until now. It’s enough to make a fan misty to hear the Replacements wail on some classic in the studio at the height of their prowess, and for that reason and “If You Get Married,” “Stink” is the best value of the Replacements’ re-mastered discs.
“Hootenany” is a hoot. At the time of its release, it was the most stylistically diverse of the Replacements’ records. The bonus tracks continue in that freewheeling style. Two of those extra tracks are alternate versions of “Lovelines,” a first reading of the back pages of the Twin Cities’ favorite weekly alternative newspaper and a rambling rocker that steals the melody for the band’s smart ass entry into a Miller college band contest (“Keep your riches, give me a Budweiser,” our favorite weisenheimers shout). The highlight here, as on other records, is a Westerberg solo home demo, “Bad Worker,” in which our hero takes himself to task for being an otherly-motivated employee and a disappointment to his father.
A band as bootlegged as this is likely to leave a few key tracks off, but that seems an intentional tease for the boxed set that could follow (and the reunion tour to support it).