SOUNDTRACK–THE REPLACEMENTS–All Shook Down (1990).
And here we come to the end of the recorded history of the Replacements. 7 albums (and an EP). 4 and a half hours of recorded music. And a steady maturation from drunken punks to elder statesmen. Or really statesman (Paul Westerberg at the ripe old age of 31!). All of the reviews state that this was originally designed as a Westerberg solo album, and that the band barely played together on it at all. And it shows.
To me, this album just isn’t very good. It’s not that the songs are bad…I ‘ll always admit that Westerberg is a great songwriter. I’m just not inspired by them. The single, “Merry Go Round” is the most (there’s that word again) mature sounding rock tracks that Westerberg has written. And “Nobody” is a decent acoustic type rocker (although the drums are kind of boring). “Bent All Out of Shape” shows promise but never lives up to it.
“Sadly Beautiful” is another of Westerberg’s solid ballads. But it doesn’t stand out because the rest of the album isn’t that radically different. “Someone Take the Wheel” and “When It Began” are decent rockers, but the rest of the album is just sort of…there (except for the awful duet with Johnette Napolitano (whom I used to like but who i just find annoying all these years later).
Westerberg went on to do about a half dozen solo albums but I haven’t heard any of them.
There’s nothing wrong with a songwriter maturing, especially if you get to mature along with him or her. It’s just such a surprise to see it happen so quickly.
[READ: June 15, 2009] Natural Novel
My coworker and I were experimenting with our library’s catalog. We started searching for books in specific languages. We noticed that Bulgarian was one of the languages, and were surprised that our branch had anything in Bulgarian. It turned out that there was one book that was originally written in Bulgarian but which had been translated to English. It was this book. It sounded bizarre and fascinating. And it was only 136 pages. How could I pass it up? And what would it be about?
Well, that’s hard to answer.
The premise of a “natural novel” is that it is meant to be a man’s attempt to deal with the dissolution of his marriage. He starts to talk about the divorce several times, but he can’t really come to terms with it, and so, rather, he gets involved with other things. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 