The Replacements Album: “All Shook Down”

Some claim this to be Paul's first "solo" record. While others claim a final whimper from an incredible rock and roll band. When it's all said and done it's 13 more beautifully crafted Paul Westerberg songs. Listen to the words sung in "Nobody". Facing marriage and still flipping it the middle finger. The longing and desire for a woman in "Bent Out of Shape". The frightening "All Shook Down" which to me really describes what this band state of mind/shape it was in when this was recorded. Then to the final song on the record,"The Last". Total closure on a ten-year ride in rock and roll.

The great thing about Paul's songs is that you do not need to know what he was writing about or what his feelings are about a specific song or record. I truly believe more than any other rock band on this earth that no one has written songs where once you let them into your life those same songs when heard ten years later you still feel that same emotion that you first felt when it reached your ears.

It's amazing that this man, his band and his music fell through the cracks. The biggest crime of all is that not enough people were aware of a band in a decade of vapid pop and schlock heavy metal bands that all sounded the same and looked the same. A true original goes unnoticed again. Isn't that always the way.....

The bad news is that All Shook Down is not truly a Replacements album. The great news is that it is a Paul Westerberg album. Many longtime Mats fans, already jaded by the glossy "Don't Tell A Soul", probably ran screaming when they heard the fine tunes on this effort.

Even though it ain't really the Mats, this CD has some of the best songwriting Paul has done. 'Sadly Beautiful' is an excellent tender ballad. 'Nobody' and 'One Wink at a Time' are also great songs. This CD also is a great example of Westerberg's evolution as a songwriter. Yes, these songs were written by the very same man who wrote "Customer", "Bastards of Young", and "Alex Chilton."

The album is quiet and introspective and very good if listened to in the right perspective. Give it a try, but spread the listening out between doses of the classic Replacements albums

Don't listen to the jaded and cynical who think you have to dislike everything after "Tim." Or everything that isn't "approved" by the critical intelligensia. This is a flat out, old school classic, and I grow tired of hearing people who were in elementary school when it came out, whining that it isn't authentic like "Let it Be."

It is as if this album was recorded for me and my peers: spaced out, confused, messing around with women, drugs, and booze and losing almost every time.

We felt this because we lived it.

And we feel it now, whenever we listen, like a little postcard back, from the blurry days of college and young adulthood.

Thanks Paul.

Also recommended: "Flip Your Wig" by Husker Du, "Up on the Sun" by The Meat Puppets, and "Blood and Chocolate" by Elvis Costello.

I love "all shook down"---------never tire of it, and have bought it for any Replacement virgins I run into--- I Rank it as High as:

" Pleased to meet me" and " Tim" Or any of the others----to me its one of their 3 BEST. Great disc!

Had to write this because I can't see eye to eye with anything less than 5-stars on this one.

Maybe the last Replacements album was so good because Paul Westerberg intended the songs to be his debut solo effort. After all the stormy angst of The Replacements, these songs are breezy, bouncy and largely cheerful -- perhaps no coincidence given that Westerberg was finally dealing with his alcoholism when he wrote these songs. "When It Began" is a lovely little pop-rock song, as is "One Wink At A Time." "Bent Out Of Shape" is another good song and "My Little Problem," with Westerberg joined by Johnette Napolitano, is the second best duet of 1990. (It had the bad luck to come out the same year Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson did the incomparable "Candy.") The album is chock full of good songs that are easy on the ears, and that is really my only criticism. In what was probably a healthy move for himself personally, Westerberg lost a lot of his edge, or maybe Chris Mars had supplied much of the band's edge all along, because "All Shook Down" is missing a lot of the angry passion that made so much of The Replacements' music so good.