The Replacements - Tim (1995)

1. Hold My Life 4:21

2. I'll Buy 3:25

3. Kiss Me on the Bus 2:54

4. Dose of Thunder 2:19

5. Waitress in the Sky 2:02

6. Swingin' Party 3:51

7. Bastards of Young 3:38

8. Lay It Down Clown 2:24

9. Left of the Dial 3:44

10. Little Mascara 3:36

11. Here Comes a Regular 4:45

Highly acclaimed at the time of its release, Tim is now often believed to be inferior to the classic Let it Be. Let it Be had the band mastering their diverse influences for the first time. Tim is just as diverse in its sound, but with 11 totally new and different sounding songs.

The main difference I find when listening is that Let it Be has 2-3 songs that aren't beat anywhere on Tim. And that the awesomely catchy Waitress in the Sky is strangely misogynistic seeming coming from a band that wrote Androgynous. On the other hand, there's no wasted space on Tim as there is on Let it Be. I'd never want to skip a song.

O yea, there's Here Comes a Regular probably one of the most moving singer-songwriter-y songs of all time.

A+

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The Replacements - Let It Be (1984)

1. I Will Dare 3:11

2. Favorite Thing 2:17

3. We're Comin' Out 2:20

4. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out 1:51

5. Androgynous 3:14

6. Black Diamond 2:36

7. Unsatisfied 3:59

8. Seen Your Video 3:05

9. Gary's Got a Boner 2:25

10. Sixteen Blue 4:21

11. Answering Machine 3:37

Let It Be is one of my all-time favourite albums (along with the follow-up, Tim). A crazy versatile album released the same year that Meat Puppets and Hüsker Dü tried (and succeeded) to do something new with punk rock and then released classics. I Will Dare is everything I want from an REM song (Peter Buck plays guitar on it), Androgynous is moving in its drunken lo-fi-ness, Unsatisfied is epic, and Sixteen Blue features one of the best guitar solos ever recorded.

Bridging the gap between their punk origins and less cool shit like country music, Tom Petty, KISS, and Bruce Springsteen, this probably influenced alternative music in a huge way. And then there's the fact that every song is awesome in its own way, Paul Westerberg has one of the best voices in rock (part of that Lennon, Springsteen, Cobain lineage), there's an affecting, shameless sincerity to songs like Answering Machine, and at half an hour Let It Be feels like the perfect length.

A+

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