The Replacements was a band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1979. Formed by brothers Bob and Tommy Stinson and high school dropout, Chris Mars, the band started out as Dogbreath. They started out primarily covering songs by Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Yes while still lacking a lead singer. Soon to be lead singer Paul Westerberg, was working as a janitor for Senator David Durenberger when he heard the band rehearsing at Stinson’s house and after positive first impressions, soon became a regular attendee at Dogbreath’s rehearsals. The band auditioned multiple vocalists and managed to find a singer until Westerberg, who wanted to be the singer, took him aside one day to say, “The band doesn’t like you.”. After that, Paul Westerberg took up the helm as the leader of the band. Westerberg was the glue that Dogbreath needed. Before Westerberg’s arrival, the band often drank and took various drugs during rehearsals with practicing their songs being an afterthought. Upon Westerberg joining the band, he would show up to practice, well-dressed and would insist on practicing until he was satisfied with the songs. They then went by The Impediments until they performed a particularly drunken show at a church hall gig in June 1980 and were banned for disorderly behavior and changed their name to The Replacements, a name that stuck. Mars later explained the band’s choice of name: “Like maybe the main act doesn’t show, and instead the crowd has to settle for an earful of us dirtbags….It seemed to sit just right with us, accurately describing our collective ‘secondary’ social esteem”. Their demo tapes were immediately well received and it started a long and storied career of the Replacements.
Their first album, Sorry Ma Forgot to Take Out The Trash was a primarily punk styled album. Released in 1981 it was well received by local fanzines but it didn’t have huge commercial success, a trend that became prevalent throughout The Replacements career. It’s got whiny, teen angst filled vocals, heavy guitars and ear shattering drums, complimented by strong songwriting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a clean or technically good album. It sounds amateurish, like that one band from your small town that performed at your yearly high school talent show and really, that’s what The Replacements were. A ragtag band that formed mostly by chance. The only single off the album, ‘I’m in Trouble’ had that distinct Replacements style, speedy guitars, and a riff that gets remixed in later albums. Sorry Ma is 80’s punk wrapped up in a cozy blanket and it’s a great debut. Jumping ahead to the band’s third album, Let It Be (not to be confused with Let It Be by The Beatles) is in my eyes, a perfect album. This album has everything from anthemic ballads to mourning piano and even a Kiss cover thrown in for good measure. It steers away from punk and parks itself in post-punk. If Sorry Ma is angsty teenage years, Let It Be focused in on coming-of-age. The opening track ‘I Will Dare’ starts things strong with a twangy guitar riff and immediately jumps into bouncy, toe-tapping drums. The album still has it’s whiny teen moments with tracks like Tommy Gets His Tonsils out but balances it with a degree of sincerity shown in Androgynous, a piano ballad about gender and youth, complimenting the band’s choice to perform in dresses. Ending out the album with the haunting Answering Machine, a song about struggling to communicate and feeling stuck in a small town that uses the original automated voice recordings for Bell Systems to close the album and stick a bow on it.
With the release of their fourth album, Tim, The Replacements once again only received moderate mainstream commercial success despite critical acclaim. Tim deviates a bit more into rock and found itself a placement on the Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums of all time with a comfortable spot at 137. Tim has smoother, more polished feel and shows Westerberg taking inspiration from the likes of Alex Chilton (On the track ‘Hold My Life’) and Roy Orbison and Duane Eddy (For ‘Swingin’ Party’) Left Of The Dial being a reference and homage to collage radio and how they were usually on the left of the dial. Bastards Of Young is a sprawling, hard hitting track with remnants of that coming of age twinge, a song that would feel at home being played while speeding down the highway. After the moderate success of Tim, they landed themselves a gig on the one and only, Saturday Night Live, a performance that has gone down in history as one of the messiest performances in SNL history. The Replacements were never a particularly clean band while performing but this skyrocketed their reputation to a national level. The band was rowdy and antagonistic towards the audience, often showing up drunken to their live shows, even more frequently showing up too intoxicated to perform. They would show up in trash bags, dresses, they would swap clothes backstage and gradually strip them off throughout the show, Bob Stinson would usually wear anything he could piece together backstage which usually left little to the imagination. The Replacements always held an amateurish air to their performances that became a staple. . During their SNL performances, they pulled out all the stops. They showed up drunk, they stumbled around onstage, Stinson wore a unitard, and they occasionally mouthed swears into the camera resulting in a lifetime ban from SNL.
The Replacements on SNL, “Bastards Of Young” pt 1 pic.twitter.com/l56ku3SFe8
— Noel Murray (@NoelMu) February 15, 2020
The band had their final tour which ended in the summer of 1991 with a show performing with Material Issue at Taste of Chicago in Grant Park. A show that fans have since dubbed “It Ain’t Over ‘Til the Fat Roadie Plays”, due to each member disappearing during the set, with their respective roadies taking their places. The band would never have a full reunion due to founding member Bob Stinson’s passing in 1995. Although they haven’t reunited yet, the band performed at Coachella in April 2014 and made an appearance on the Tonight Show in September 2014 to perform ‘Alex Chilton’. Now like the title states, The Replacements wasn’t a good band. They were a great band that never saw massive commercial success like other bands of the era. They encapsulate everything you could want out of an 80’s punk band. Teen angst, coming of age themes and complemented by legendary guitar riffs. The Replacements are timeless, their lyrics are accessible to a variety of audiences and their songs could be played on the radio like they were released yesterday. From power rock songs like ‘Takin’ a Ride’ to the more country ‘I Will Dare’ and melancholic piano tune ‘Androgynous’ to a ballad about alienation ‘Bastards Of Young’, The Replacements has you covered. The band only ever achieved moderate commercial success but with placements on the Rolling Stone 500 greatest albums of all time (Let It Be placing at 241 on the 2012 edition and Tim placing at 137). The Replacements has been a staple in my life for only a few years now but their music has made an impact to last a lifetime.