When The Replacements – Tim was released on an unseasonably cold, rainy September day in 1985, my friend John hopped on his bike and rode face-first into the Arctic wind and sleet to the Marquette (Michigan) Mall to procure a copy. By the weekend we’d heard it a dozen times. Thirty-seven years later and it’s approaching the thousands. I was a kid in a basement band back then (already called The Regulars a year before Tim, with a singer named Tim, who was literally “a drinkin’ buddy bound for another town” – we thought The Replacements were prophets, singing about us). I didn’t know what a bad mix was. We barely knew what the band looked like. All we had were their albums and the occasional fanzine. That changed in February when they played Saturday Night Live. A decade later I knew my way around a recording studio a bit, and I knew that Tim lacked the edge that the albums before and after it had. That’s when the “What if it sounded like Pleased to Meet Me?” discussions in vans and on bar stools started.
Tim: The Let it Bleed Edition does not sound like PTMM, it sounds better. For the first time the wash of cheap, digital reverb is gone, the nuances are audible, and the record sounds like a band, not a mixing board with effects patched in. There have been dozens of articles about the release, what the problem was, what was done to fix it, how it was done, what Tommy thinks about it, what Paul might think about it, if only he’d tell us… and for every article there are a hundred comments about why it sucks, why it rules, why that song was better before, and how much better this song is now. I’ll spare you the Tommy Ramone VS Ed Stasium mix discussion, and everything else that’s been covered to death. Check out Pitchfork, Slate, Variety, or Rolling Stone for deep dives into that stuff. Let’s dig into the minutia just a little bit though, eh?
Disc One and the LP are the remix, the real prize here. If you’re a fan of the band and the songs, but not the dated, washed-out sound of Tim, you need this. It sits proudly and justifiably right next to Dead Man’s Pop – Rhino’s mirror treatment of the even more dismal mix of 1989’s Don’t Tell a Soul record. Gone is the decaying reverb after every snare hit and guitar riff, replaced by the crack of a drum and the cackle of an amp. Westerberg’s vocals have a new clarity, exposing his under-appreciated, raw and visceral talents as one of the 80’s best. The bass has real definition and fills a frequency previously best described as dirty water beneath the sheen. Perhaps most importantly, Bob Stinson’s insane, beautiful shredding is more audible than ever, with inconceivable melodic lines uncovered, especially in “Little Mascara,” perhaps the most improved of the lot.
Is it flawless? Nah, nothing about The Replacements is flawless. If we’re picking fly shit out of pepper, we might say that at times the backup vocals are just a bit too loud, distracting from the greater cause. There are also a couple moments where keeping maybe just a bit of that gloss would’ve helped, somewhere between the original mix and what we have now. “Swingin’ Party” and “Here Comes A Regular” could benefit from a hair more of that fabricated room sound. Hear me out; the whole thing feels a bit more urgent now, more tense, and faster even, and that’s a good thing when you’re listening to a band that was tense, urgent, and fast. But these two songs - while sonically vastly improved - have lost a little atmosphere in that new-found exposed rawness and urgency. But this is what we do as super-fans (and music writers); we get the gift of a lifetime and we tear it apart, just as the `mats did every time they had an opportunity to take a step forward. These are not show-stoppers or flies in the soup - they are minute, super-geek-fan criticisms, and those aside, the remix is worth every stinkin’ penny. They could have stopped there, but they didn’t.
Disc Two is a remaster of the original mix. This is at least the second remaster. The 2008 version is widely panned, and I haven’t gone back to it often, but I remember thinking the Let it Be remaster from that batch was amazing. The original CD is a bit tinny and did the mix no favors. The remaster of the original mix presented here is an admirable effort, the best sounding version yet, but not quite enough to save the record from the abysmal mix. Still, it’s incredibly important that these original versions remain available and in print, so purists who have no time or interest in revisionist actions like remixes will always have the product as it was sold when it was originally released. I call the opposite the George Lucas Effect – issuing revised versions of the original Star Wars trilogy with distracting and mostly unnecessary effects and artificial CGI elements that do far more damage than good, meanwhile wiping access to the original cuts of the movies off the planet. Unforgivable in my book.
Disc Three is a collection of alternative takes and outtakes. My take on these, for any box set by any band, is that they are outtakes for a reason. It’s fun to hear a slightly more aggressive vocal on “Left of the Dial,” and always interesting to hear how a song develops from early takes to the final version, but holy smokes do we need another four versions of “Can’t Hardly Wait?” My opinion about that song is an unpopular one, but I consider it the most over-rated song in their catalog, and certainly the most exhausted. I don’t think it’s been topped since The Shit Hits the Fans cassette. The “Tim Version,” included again here, is probably the second best, but enough of the acoustic, air shaft, stairway, basement, laundry room, pantry, whatever versions, and don’t get me started on the clean guitars and strings on PTMM (though the lyrics and vocal on that version are tops). The only “new” song in the collection is an outtake called “Having Fun.” While it’s not better than anything that made the album, it’s as worthy of inclusion as anything else on the disc, and surprising that there are still gems the collectors haven’t heard.
There’s an alternate mix of the greatest Replacements outtake ever (“Nowhere is My Home”) that is a bit exciting, but the original mix, produced by Alex Chilton, didn’t suffer the same fate as Tim and wasn’t a big problem to begin with. Bob Stinson’s solo on that might be the best thing he ever laid to tape in the studio, and that song remains a fan favorite of all the stuff that never made a proper album. With regards to the alternate takes, I have to assume that Paul is playing all the guitars. History tells us that Bob was only in the studio for one day, and it’s unlikely he laid down leads on multiple versions of the same song. The outro lead on the alt-take of “Hold My Life,” for example, is similar to the album version, but lacks the bite of Bob’s tone or the venom in his playing. (Play this song at my funeral, please.)
And then there’s the live set, Chicago, January 1986. They were at their live peak in 1985-86, fewer train-wreck shows, Bob Stinson going full throttle (on stage and off), and Paul at his songwriting peak. The set is solid and fun – some rarely played songs (“Mr. Whirly”) and a few great covers. It falls short of For Sale: Live at Maxwells, recorded less than a month later to multi-track, which allowed for a much better mix, and released to a universally glowing response in 2017. The Chicago show is what it is – a straight board mix with only EQ and other studio tricks available to adjust levels at different frequencies. For that, however, it’s really great, suffering less from blaring vocals and hushed guitars than most straight board recordings would. Bob Stinson shines, Tommy’s bass is a bit buried, and the vocals are still way out front. For fans of the band at their high-water mark who can’t get enough, it’s a must-have. For a more causal listener, unnecessary at best.
Tim: The Let it Bleed Edition is a mandatory addition to any Replacements fan’s collection. The improvement over the original mix is staggering. Not quite as impactful as the Matt Wallace remix of Don’t Tell a Soul, probably because the material on that album needed more saving than this one, but still, a very needed and welcome update.
The Replacements were a raw and unhinged band with incredible songs, and the biggest crime around the original release of Tim was not that it was washed out and blurry, but that it sounded restrained and hampered, like they were reaching for something that they couldn’t (or weren’t being allowed to) quite grasp, afford, or understand. Turns out they had it in their grip the whole time. The Let it Bleed mixes fix that and provide redemption.
Just listen to the new mix of “Left of the Dial,” what has become considered by many to be their best song. They’re playing in your living room now. You can smell the booze, sweat, and burning amplifier tubes. You can hear the guitar strings and Paul’s throat. You can feel the tension with Bob from the other side of the stage. You can feel the songs. It’s the most rock and roll thing ever. It’s exactly what we wanted. Crank it up and enjoy.
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
