The Replacements: Beer, Midwestern Culture, and Rock Rebellion

My favorite Replacements' songs:

Today I wanted to talk about the Replacements and the ways they mean more than the number of records they have sold. After finishing Bob Mehr's new book (Trouble Boys) on the Replacements, I have a new found appreciation for their song "I Will Dare." That really was the mantra of the Replacements, they tried and tried and tried, despite their many missteps, their drunk shenanigans, and their personal tribulations. Unwilling to play the show biz game, unlike their contemporaries R.E.M., the Replacements never really had a chance of becoming platinum recording artists. Still, from their beginning in the late 1970s, they developed a loyal regional following in the Midwest. The reason for their obscurity up and 'til recent years is a long story, and one better told by Bob Mehr. Instead of reiterating their most infamous moments, when Paul and company blew chance after chance at impressing record executives and concert goers, I thought i'd offer my own take on their significance, both from a personal and a historical point of view.

The Replacements were a quintessentially Midwestern 'beer-rock' band, and its members (even the preteen Tommy Stinson) quintessential heavy drinking Midwesterners. This may be a bit of an understatement, much like saying people in Wisconsin and Minnesota like to drink. The band represented the ways in which alcohol unleashed some of the best and simultaneously worse tendencies in cishet Midwestern (white) men. I've identified with the band for a lot of reasons, from the tough guy facade to Westerberg's heart-on-the-sleeve. But it's the band's functional alcoholism that I most strongly identify with. I come from a long line of alcoholics on my father's side. Carnaby's like to drink. The problem with Carnaby's has always been providing the correct amount of lubrication. Too much and we turn into foul-mouth, self-destructive assholes. Too little and we are stoic, tight-lipped assholes. The same issue, of calibration of lubrication, bedeviled the Replacements their entire career. Many members of the band, Westerberg and the elder Bob Stinson especially, suffered from dependency in an era in which most people refused to accept that addiction could be a disease. Yet it is doubtful any of the Replacements best songs and best performances could have been possible without the help of a bottle. Certainly the spark was there without the bottle, but drinking was the only way the band could let go of their insecurities and hangups and perform/record. And some point in the late '80s, the partying took its toll, ruined chances at mainstream success, and signaled the death note for one of the best little bands of the Upper Midwest. And the most tragic aspect of the band's alcoholism comes from its deceased member, Bob Stinson, whose life of trouble and excess came to an end in 1995 after years of being estrangement from the band. The Replacements' banquet of excess would never be quite the same after his death. Something tragically mundane about life in the Midwest lies at the heart of Bob Stinson's story. His history of family abuse, his time bouncing in and out of youth homes and rehab, and his last years bouncing from household to household and bumming drinks off strangers all speak volumes to the darker aspects of life in the Midwest. What is even sadder still is that it really looked like he was getting his life together towards the end. Sometimes the curtain calls just when things are getting good again.

In addition to the beer fueled chaos, the band exhibited a lovable losers persona that proved immensely influential on alternative rock after the band broke up in 1991. Even while Paul Westerberg's name would be forgotten throughout the nineties, artists like Billie Armstrong, Beck, and Johnny Rzeznik (of the Goo Goo Dolls) had "taken his influence and outstripped him, selling millions of records" (Mehr 419). Still, we can appreciate in hindsight the ways in which slacker culture and the loveable loser archetype gained mainstream acceptance because of the broken-bottle-fueled-bacchanal that was the Replacements. The Replacements' reputation of hard rocking fuck-ups with a soft spot was not an artifice, however. In the 80's, artists that wanted to hit big couldn't afford to act like losers and fuckups; you had to play the game and jump through all the usual show biz hoops to have success. Out of a good degree of fear of failure and an ever greater fear of success, Paul and the gang wouldn't suck ass or play according to major labor rules. The band's self-sabotage meant sadly that the band never got as big as R.E.M., but it also added to the band's charm and identity. I'd argue the band was never meant to be as big as R.E.M. If things played out again, they'd end up similarly, or the band could have been even more obscure, never been given a big contract with Warner Brothers in the first place. The songs hit big with a smaller number of people than R.E.M. for a reason, they had heart, but not mainstream accessibility. They really were a bunch of schmucks from Minnesota who were buoyed by Westerberg's songwriting and their infamous reputation as booze-fueled rock 'n' roll ruffians. Loveable losers indeed.

Thirdly, the songs themselves are what make the Replacements still listenable today. They never did succeed in breaking through at the time, but the songs remain strong today, aging far better in my opinion that their adversaries R.E.M. At the heart of Paul's songs and the bands sound lies something more emotional, more human, more essential than the more elaborate song structure and pop music sensibilities of more successful arty alternative bands like R.E.M. It is the band's rawness, their willingness to make a mistake, and to keep going that makes them so endearing. Punk and Post punk's dynamism was fueled by nonprofessionals picking up instruments and playing with more innovation, creativity, and passion than the best classically trained musicians. One may argue that Replacements have aged well because we can all identify far more easily with heart-on-their-sleeve fuckups than we can with the hermetic lifestyles of musical masterminds. British music journalist Simon Reynolds said it best when describing the band's identity and appeal: " 'At the heart of the Replacements lies fatigue, insecurity, a sense of wasted or denied possibilities, but this is a pain that comes out bursting and exuberant, a world weariness that's positively, paradoxically boisterous' " (Mehr 272). I think this really says what lies at the core of the best Replacements songs. The best way to enjoy them is blaring on a shitty car stereo, driving down nowhere road in Shitberg, U.S.A.