Thursday, April 27, 2006

The Replacements & the Stooges

Got word last week that two of my favorite defunct-musical-acts, the Stooges and the Replacements, are reforming in some capacity to record new material. I put off writing any rants on the subject until I could take some time to re-explore some of their respective work at home…

My admiration for the Stooges and the Replacements come from very different places… My admiration for the Stooges came in my late teens as I began to finely tune my ear and understand their importance in the timeline of music. The Stooges, with the exception of the Talking Heads, have been a musical act I've grown to appreciate more with age. The recorded moments I discovered at age 20 on the "Funhouse" record are a world apart from the ones I discovered at 25…

Listening to the collective work of the Stooges 30~35 years later is very strange for me… Perhaps it's because I lived in Detroit for 10 years and I stared out at a city that had so much of an impact on their sound, that I closed my eyes and transported myself to a place where their protopunk ways changed the course of music…

In contrast to that, the Replacements came at a time when the musical landscape needed music to be ar-ticulated in a different manner and voice. The Replacements were that. I'd be lying if I said I understood anything of depth that Westerberg wrote before I was in college, but I remember seeing the "Bastards of Young" video and knowing that there was something very different going on.

The Replacements also have something that I think really sets them apart from many musical acts… they recorded an amazing record on a minor label, only to follow it up by recording a very important record on a major label. Listening to "Let it Be" and "Tim" in succession should be prescribed to anyone who turns 25 in the world.

Hearing that the two bands are reuniting to record new material is leaving me feeling a bit cold inside…

I may be in the minority here but I really don't think either band could recapture or release something worthwhile… Can anyone think of one band that could possibly reform - 10, 20, 30 years in the case of the Stooges to release something of worth?

The news of the new material doesn't light me up with much hope or anticipation…

.rCr.

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