3/25/12: The Replacements: Let it Be

The quintessential Mats record, as the good stuff strikes major emotional chords and the bad stuff is just stupid and fun enough to be, well, stupid fun.  I don't think anyone's gonna confuse what's "good" and what's "bad" on Let it Be: the ballads are near-perfect, the pop/rock songs are superb, and the more metallic/hard rocky numbers kind of blow.  Course, these latter tracks (I'll name them outright: "Gary's Got a Boner," "Seen Your Video," "Black Diamond," "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out," and "We're Coming Out") are played so sincerely, with seemingly no winking involved, that I cannot help but love them, at least a little bit (actually, I love "We're Coming Out" more than a little... just awesome energy).

The key to the Replacements-- the reason why I care-- is not just that they mixed traditional rock, country, and folk influences into their "punk rock" sound: it's that they introduced a touch of human sympathy to punk that was almost completely lacking before.  Prior to Let it Be, and to a lesser extent, Husker Du's Zen Arcade, there were just a handful of ways to approach other human beings in a punk rock song.  You could spite them (a la the Sex Pistols), you could judge them (a la Minor Threat), you could distance yourself from them with your cute artistic whims (a la Patti Smith), or you could plain alienate them (a la Public Image Limited)-- that's about it.  At least in the early days, punk bands were not driven by a need to understand the whole around them, but by a desire to remove themselves from said world.

On the other hand, the Mats took a kind of pride (maybe ironic, but rarely mean-spirited) in their fragile and silly (but never insignificant) humanity.  They came from the Midwest and liked drinking and covered Bad Company.  They wrote songs you could understand and maybe relate to, and on Let it Be, they started writing songs that were kind of serious and beautiful and humane.

"Sixteen Blue," for example.  Probably has the best guitar solo of all time.  But I don't wanna talk about that; I couldn't, anyway (too gorgeous).  I wanna talk about the lyrics, which ask you to empathize with the most loathsome character in America at any time: the teenager.  I mean, what a chorus:

Your age is the hardest age
Everything drags and drags
Looking funny, you ain't laughing are you?
Sixteen Blue


That's it, amiright?  That is exactly what it is to be a teenager.  Everything really does drag and drag when you're sixteen.  And you try and try to be an adult, but people still see you as an awkward nobody.  So, yeah, you're kinda blue.

There's also "Androgynous," a perfect lyrical combination of the anthemic and the everyday (a combination only a few other songwriters, thinking here of Bob Dylan, have ever conceived):

Here comes Dick, he's wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y'know she's sporting a chain
Same hair revolution, same build evolution
Tomorrow who's gonna fuss?


Cuz who is gonna fuss tomorrow?  In a couple decades, no one is gonna give a rat's ass about what people look like or who they fuck.

Paul Westerberg is the closest thing punk has to a poet, because his lyrics are actually punk rock.  They are not full of obscurity and allusion and artisness like Kim Gordon's or Richard Hell's or whatever.  They speak of recognizable things in inspiring ways.

3/4/12: The Beatles: Let It Be

The least perfect Beatles album, and for that reason one of my favorites.  The Fabs had been rougher and wilder and weirder before, but never so disjointed, and rarely so human.  This is the Beatles album that mortals could've made... providing mortals had voices as charming as Lennon and McCartney (and Harrison too, I suppose... his vocals on "For You Blue" are adorable).  It's a funny one.  Not many bands would put a statement song like "Let it Be" IMMEDIATELY AFTER "Dig It"... That's some Guided by Voices shit, if ya ask me.

As is characteristic for the Yoko era, Lennon is lazy as fuck here.  He doesn't even attempt to make sense, and only goes serious once-- the admittedly moving and beautiful "Across the Universe."  I love these stupid throwaways though: "Dig A Pony," "One After 909"...

Meanwhile, in church, Paul is finding God.  In what must be deliberate contrast to John, he turns in some of his stateliest and most soulful tunes ever.  (Which isn't to say his work isn't fun... "I Got a Feeling" is a far better party song than the Black Eyed Peas "jam" of the same name.)  I'm a John man, and always will be, but I don't know how anyone could listen to this album and deny that, in their final third, the Beatles are pretty much Paul's project.  Let It Be is his concept, and he delivers on the idea.

So what you have here is something that's both mature and playful.  It's a nostalgic record (originally titled "Get Back").  Its one hint of darkness comes during "I Me Mine," a song that people like far too much.  (And here's why: it's about GREED.  People love that money hating shit.  But I can see right through them, and George.  I'm not fooled by his Quiet Beatle nonsense.  Guy was just as corrupt and drug-addicted and sinful as anyone else in the band.  And he was NOT, NOT the talent that Lennon or McCartney were.  He had a lot of great songs... 15 or so.  Paul and John each had a hundred.  So yeah, stop talking about him.)