30 years ago today, April 29, 1983, The Replacements released their second full-length album Hootenanny on Twin-Tone Records. The band was still a record shy of becoming the under-achieving, over-intoxicated media-darlings that they would be with their next album, the groundbreaking Let it Be, but Hootenanny certainly paved the way and set the stage, and it holds a special place in hearts of `mats fans to this day.
Hootenanny cover by Fake Name Graphx (Grant Hart of Hüsker Dü)
Hootenanny came less than a year after Stink!, an 8-song EP that is as rough, raw, fast, and gritty as the band ever got. Front-man/singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg was showing increasing signs that he was capable of writing more than fast, funny punk songs, and a budding creative force was starting to emerge. Songs like “Within Your Reach,” a solo Westerberg + drum machine track with a cheap flanger-drenched guitar, showed listeners that this guy could pull at their heart-strings every bit as hard as he could pull at the Doc Marten laces of the punks who were slam dancing to songs like “Run It,” “You Lose,” and the under-rated “Heyday.”
Anyone familiar with The Replacements’ catalog would likely cite one song as the standout on this collection: “Color Me Impressed.” The track embodied everything that made the band great – brilliant lyrics about a teenage cocaine & make-out party where the attendees are trying their best to outcool each-other, built against a guitar line and melody that were a new take on something between the first Cheap Trick record and the Slade albums Westerberg was obsessed with at the time. The song was a mainstay in the setlist from then on, and even quoted by Christian Slater in the movie Heathers. It’s easily one of my favorite songs of all time, and I could write a dissertation on the impact it’s had on me.
Though “Color Me Impressed” was the high-water mark on Hootenanny, there were other great moments for sure. The above mentioned “Heyday” is brilliant in its two-chord melodic punk energy and might be the prequel to “Impressed” as the protagonist is getting dressed, a half-gram in his pocket, knowing the party is gonna be killer and the girl he’s been pining for at school all week is obliged to meet him there. The spacey “Willpower” might not exactly hit on all cylinders but shows that the band was tiring of the punk formula. The sloppy title track, played live by the band who, unbeknownst to producer Paul Stark, had switched instruments before the take, led to the Grant Hart (Hüsker Dü) designed cover art that was a take off of a 1963 country compilation. And the fun and quirky “Lovelines,” “Buck Hill” and “Take Me Down to the Hospital” weren’t going to win any songwriting contests, but showed that very important side of the Replacements that was fun & drunk, rebellious & stupid, still punk, and so very rock and roll to the core.
You don’t see Hootenanny at the top of anyone’s list of favorite Replacements’ records. It preceded what most would consider their holy-trinity of Let it Be, Tim, and Pleased to Meet Me – perhaps the best thee-album run since Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street. Still, Hootenanny remains relevant and exciting 40 years after it first saw the cash register at your Midwestern corner record shop. Give it a spin this weekend while you’re waiting for that next box-set reissue!
Jeremy Porter is a Co-Editor in Chief at Pencil Storm. He 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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