Tim (the Let it Bleed Version) – The Replacements

Maybe too late but good goddamn, not too little.

My relationship with the Replacements has gone in fits and starts. I kinda like them, definitely can appreciate them, but wasn't their truest fan. I started off on the wrong foot by getting All Shook Down on its release. This was, apparently, the representation of raucous, wild, drunk snot-nosed punk rockers. Except...no. With a few exceptions, it was awful.

Just as high school ended, I decided to give them another chance since I was bound for college in Minnesota. So I picked up Pleased to Meet Me and then saw a better glimpse of what this band was capable of. It still wasn't 100% what I'd heard about. It was more mature than I'd imagined it should be. And it never really inspired me to pick up much more. I completely understood when one of my friends wrote this about Winona Ryder: "She's the reason I know who the Replacements are, although that's a point neither for nor against her."

Tim was my next purchase. Why I got this and not Let it Be, I don't know. Maybe I was a Gen-Xer who wanted to hear the anthem of non-purpose, "Bastards of Young." At any rate, I got it, and it was closer to what I'd expected from the Replacements.

So here's the thing. What I wrote above: raucous, wild, drunk snot-nosed punk rockers? That was what was always sold to me. What else did I hear about? A band that, on stage, could succeed in giving jaw-dropping visceral shows just as easily as gawdawful drunken disasters, and if you saw them, you never knew which was going to happen. As a consequence, I expected epic levels of craziness, and never got it. So there was always some level of disappointment, however subconscious, that underlay my enjoyment.

What wasn't sold as much was the awesome songwriting and musicianship that transcended punk. It went on to rock and to pop, providing a huge foundation for popular music in the 1990s. Maybe I needed a compartment to put the Replacements in so I could appreciate them more. Maybe that would have allowed me to appreciate their later stuff more, as they grew older and had less energy with which to support their legendary shows of yore.

Anyhow, it seems like Tim catches the 'Mats just as they begin to explore life beyond punk. Really, only two songs here qualify as punk, and they're arguably the worst ones on the whole album: "Dose of Thunder" and "Lay it Down Clown." But even as they're bad, they're still indispensable to the album as a whole, just like those immature ditties about boners and getting your tonsils out on Let it Be. "Lay it Down Clown" in particular careens along like a rollercoaster threatening to jump its track at any second; every instrument on the song is gloriously out of tune, and Westerberg howls just to keep up with the din. If this was the Replacements being terrible, man, that made me want to see them.

Immediately after that came the Replacements tightening up and throwing forth one of its all-time best anthems: the paean to college rock "Left of the Dial." It already sounded nostalgic then—its lyrics concern a lost musician friend found and lost again while skimming the radio stations on a road trip. And it was a lovely hard rock song, punctuated at the end by a punkish terse ending that doesn't dwell on being maudlin.

The rest of the album basically showed excellent songwriting. Paul Westerberg always had a great ear and knack for witty lyrics that occasionally hid deeper meanings.

Anyway, Tim has garnered renewed attention now because it has been remixed or remastered or whatever that is, and this new release has been getting amazing raves. In at least one reviewer's eyes, Tim has become the definitive Replacements album, supplanting Let it Be—a heretofore near-impossibility. All just from remixing? Apparently so. So I had to listen to see what it was all about.

I was surprised at first. The songs sounded...closer? more muffled? The aural equivalent of being in a studio covered with quilts. But...no...muffled wasn't quite the right term. Everything actually sounded clearer. Paul Westerberg's singing, always wanting for clarity, suddenly got it. The guitars cut through when they needed to be buzzsaws. And the bass...damn, the bass is brought way up front. Gloriously so. Want to hear what it's like to be right in the studio when the Replacements are laying it down? Here it is.

It's a joy to listen to the album now, even more than it was before. Your ears are drawn to the little details here and there that contribute to each song's appeal, and certain things that seemed essential to the original mix are gone, and you don't miss them anymore. (Trust me: you won't miss the clown's horn in "I'll Buy"; you'll realize it wasn't necessary, just a gimmick.) Tim is just that much more fun of an album now...and it was already lots of fun.