The Replacements: every alt-rocker’s favourite band
It’s easy to think that alternative rock started in September 1991, right around the same time Nirvana’s Nevermind was released. As fans were tired of listening to every cookie-cutter rock band populating MTV, Kurt Cobain’s feral scream in the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ wiped out every other glamorous rock group off the face of the Earth. Then again, even Kurt Cobain had to take his inspiration from somewhere, and The Replacements were one of his foundations.
Before the grunge explosion took off, the alternative scene had been slowly bubbling up from the underground for years. Alongside acts like Duran Duran and Poison on MTV, bands like Pixies and R.E.M. were delivering a new brand of rock and roll, while groups such as The Smiths and The Cure were making inroads on the charts out of the UK.
In the middle of the college rock circuit stood The Replacements, featuring the loudest pack of drunks ever to grace the rock scene. Although they may have started in the punk rock world on their debut Sorry Ma Forgot to Take Out the Trash, the next few years saw frontman Paul Westerberg expand his songcraft beyond merely noise and screaming.
Starting with Hootenanny, The Replacements delicately toed the line between punk trashiness and old-school rock and roll, with songs like ‘Colour Me Impressed’ sounding like a long-lost Cheap Trick song and even doing a parody of The Beatles on ‘Mr. Whirly’. While MTV was not impressed, that didn’t dissuade the band from seeing where their classic rock fixation would take them.
Across both Let It Be and Tim, Westerberg traded in his punk credentials to become a rock star, featuring down-and-out anthems like ‘Bastards of Young’ and ‘I Will Dare’. Even though he might not have been the most technically gifted frontman to grace the stage, there was no disputing that what he left on the stage was authentic, including their infamous SNL performance from around the same time where he swore on air while stumbling across the stage.
Westerberg’s flash was only matched by his chemistry with his bandmates onstage, with Bob Stinson bridging the gap between feral noise and melodic sensibilities across tracks like ‘Kiss Me On the Bus’ and ‘Hold My Life’. Since they saw themselves as a punk band, bass player Tommy Stinson was their answer to Sid Vicious, playing with fiery gusto with a blatant disregard for whether every note was precisely in tune.
Although the band didn’t stick around to see the alternative rock movement become a global phenomenon, every member of the revolution studied what Westerberg had left behind. When discussing his influences, Kurt Cobain counted Westerberg among his favourite songwriters, earning him a spot on the grunge rock soundtrack Singles with ‘Waiting for Somebody’.
This didn’t just apply to the disaffected youth of Seattle, either. Once the pop-punk movement began to kick into high gear, Billie Joe Armstrong said that Westerberg helped inspire him to pick up a guitar, while Tom DeLonge of Blink-182 mentioned how much he loved his songwriting.
Considering where they’ve ended up, though, The Replacements tends to remain the brilliant band that never got their fair shot. Compared to the other acts that liked to play loud and fast at the time, Westerberg was the one artist who dared to dream bigger than what the indie scene had to offer. He might not have been able to reach the heights of rock stardom, but every alternative kid that found their way onto the charts owes him a beer for making that initial push towards mainstream material.
