An Album You Should Own - 9/26/08

The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me

This one could have gone in several directions.
It would have been just as easy to pick "Tim".
I could have chosen "Let It Be".

However, I chose this particular album because it was the first Replacements album I ever heard.
I remember sitting in study hall, reading Rolling Stone magazine when I got to the album review section.

I was probably 16, at the time.
I read David Fricke's review and thought, "Who are these guys? This writer is going out of his tree praising this album and I have never even heard of them."

That weekend, I went to my local record store (Sam Goody, in fact) and I purchased "Pleased To Meet Me" on cassette.

From that moment, I played the tape until it wore-out almost a year later.
I love this album with every beat of my still teenage heart.

It's ironic that I picked up on the band just a few years after they signed with major label Sire. And, this album also marked the first album without guitarist Bob Stinson. It was basically recorded as a trio.

For a novice, it was an odd introduction to a band that made their bones writing songs that sounded like drunken brawls committed to tape. Because, "Pleased To Meet Me" is filled with enough pretty moments ("Skyway"), catchy melodies/horns and strings ("Can't Hardly Wait") to make Westerberg's cynical lyrics about self-doubt and lonesome losers sound like a burst of power-pop sunshine.

It is said that the song "Never Mind" inspired the title of Nirvana's 1991 breakthrough.

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Westerberg at Tower Records in Philadelphia.
I told him how much his music meant to me growing up.
He looked at me and asked, "You mean, you actually made it?"

He then smirked and signed the only thing I had in my pocket; a pay-stub from my band's bank-account.

He signed the stub, "A-VOID....PAUL WESTERBERG."

I framed it.

To this day, I don't go anywhere without The Replacements on my iPod.

"Pleased To Meet Me"?
The pleasure is all yours

Further listening: "Hootenanny", "Let It Be", "Tim", "Don't Tell A Soul"