Replacements reissue redefines alternative

The Replacements

All for Nothing/Nothing for All

Like the Velvet Underground before them, the Replacements are one of those bands whose influence is far greater than their record sales might suggest. Combining thrashing guitars and quiet introspection, the Replacements, led by singer-guitarist-songwriter Paul Westerberg, laid the groundwork for what's become "alternative" rock, and, in that regard at least, can be seen as maybe the most important band of the '80s.

But placing them in a historical context pretty much misses the point of the band, who were about anything but context. In their music you can hear a decent portion of the history of rock and roll, from the drive of the '50s to the rage of '70s punk, all shot through with a kind of melancholy humor. But listening to them, the sense you get is that the songs are about the moment itself, and about total abandon, and the fact that they incorporate so much history seems almost incidental.

Like Alex Chilton, who served as a kind of mentor figure to the band, they managed to look back and look forward at the same time, only they did it better than Chilton, who ended up cynical and precious. The best thing about the Replacements wasn't that they never grew up (as popular legend sometimes suggests), but that they did mature, only without losing what it was that made them great in the first place.

All of which makes the release of All for Nothing/Nothing for All, a two-CD best-of/rarities compilation, a really good thing. Yeah, it's possible to find faults with the set, but on the whole it serves two valuable purposes: it brings the Replacements back, to some extent, into the public eye, and it's got a whole disc full of unreleased and hard-to-find stuff, most of which is pretty damn cool.

Disc 1, All for Nothing, is a decent summation of the second half of the band's career, when they signed on with a major label and headed steadily away from the low-fi, thrash-happy aesthetic they'd cultivated on their earlier, independent releases, and towards a more straight-ahead pop sound. For the uninitiated, this makes for a pretty good introduction to the band, especially since their later work tended to be more accessible than their earlier stuff.

The problem, though, is in issues of representation. Each album (1985's Tim, 1987's Pleased to Meet Me, 1989's Don't Tell a Soul, and 1990's All Shook Down, the band's final release) is represented by four tracks, which seems like a decent enough idea, but omits some seriously essential songs from the band's catalog. And the fact that Tim and Pleased to Meet Me are much stronger albums than Don't Tell a Soul and All Shook Down hasn't seemed to enter into consideration. A representative sampling of songs works in theory, but in practice, with truly great songs like Tim's "Little Mascara" and Pleased to Meet Me's "I.O.U" left off to make room for tracks like the good but not outstanding "Someone Take the Wheel" (off All Shook Down), it's less successful.

Sequencing problems, however, are more than compensated for by how good the whole thing sounds. It's impossible to listen to the Pleased to Meet Me version of "Can't Hardly Wait," the best power pop song ever written, after hearing All For Nothing's remastered track. Everything sounds clearer, and the song just explodes out of the speakers.

It's disc 2, Nothing for All, though, that's the really cool stuff. From a different, more ragged version of "Can't Hardly Wait" (a Tim outtake) to a brilliant cover of the Only Ones' classic "Another Girl, Another Planet," the disc is full of stuff that, until now, has only been available on bootlegs and imports.0

While the quality of the songs doesn't match up to those on disc 1, they do reveal the less studied, looser Replacements of earlier years. But songs like "Date to Church," featuring Tom Waits on vocals; "Portland," a melancholy reflection on damage caused; a massacre of Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" (called "Like A Rolling Pin"); and a surprisingly cool version of "Cruella DeVille" (from Disney's 101 Dalmations) make the disc more than merely interesting. After all, the Replacements' throwaways are light-years better than most bands' A-side singles.

Ultimately, All for Nothing/Nothing for All has its share of problems, and it doesn't function very well as a career overview for the band, with half their output not included. Whatever its problems, though, it more than overcomes them, and while it's not all that it might have been, it's better than almost anything else out there.