Tonight we happened to flip to a 1996 movie called "Feeling Minnesota," despite the fact that it had Keanu Reeves in it, because it also starred Vincent D'Onofrio who, Top Management frequently informs me, is perhaps my only serious competition for her lifetime affections. Given that her ardor is inflamed mainly by the character he plays on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Bobby Goran, a manic depressive, perhaps slightly schizophrenic genius with Asberger’s, this is a tad disturbing. Then again, so am I.
Anyhoo, when I first turned to the channel, we saw Keanu driving in a car with Cameron Diaz, whom I hadn’t realized was in the film. Since I’d never heard of the movie until this evening, it’s not surprising that I’m not an expert, but I do find it a bit surprising that of the two names listed in the online TV guide, Cameron’s wasn’t one.
So they’re driving in the car and a song comes on and they both look down at the radio in annoyance. One of them changes the station, and an upbeat shuffle begins to play, just a clean, distortion-free electric guitar, soon joined by bass and drums. Keanu and Cameron (or, more accurately, their characters), smile at each other and start bopping their heads back in forth in time to the music. And at the same time as the singer starts singing, they start singing—clearly this is music they know and love well. And why not? It’s by one of the greatest bands in the history of rock and roll.
I turn to Top Management and say, "Who is this?" And with a look of utter disdain, not too different from the look Keanu and Cameron had recently given their radio, she answers, "The Replacements. Please." As it’s almost certain that she’s the only other person in our small town who could have given me that answer, I immediately fall in love all over again.
Of course, the Replacements are from Minnesota, so it makes sense that a movie set in Minnesota with characters of the right age should be playing their music. But it was still a delightful surprise. Because with the possible exception of the Velvet Underground, never has there been a band so good and so commercially unsuccessful.
When the ‘Mats were first really making waves in the early eighties, R.E.M. was also just bubbling up to the surface from down in Athens, Georgia. The conventional wisdom had it that R.E.M. was going to be sort of alternative rock’s answer to the Beatles and the Replacements were going to be alternative rock’s answer to the Rolling Stones. (Of course, this was before the term "alternative rock" was really in use, and therefore long before the term fell out of favor. I still use it, though, because I’m a rebel. Actually, I’m just a crusty bastard.)
Things didn’t work out that way. R.E.M. was sort of like the Beatles in many ways—and unlike them in almost as many—and did go on to have massive success, both commercially and artistically. The ‘Mats, though, had almost nothing in common with the Stones, other than playing a lot of very basic rock and roll.
In hindsight it’s easy to see or at least believe that Mick Jagger, in particular, did most of the things he did because of his oh so calculated scheme to make it huge. So what? In the process he and Keef and the boys gave us all some of the finest rock ever. And even if he did go on to become an utterly soulless corporate stooge, selling out every principle he and the band ever pretended to believe in, and now finds himself incapable of creating any decent music, including an inability to even be a half-decent Stones cover band, no matter how overinflated their ridiculous reputation remains, well, we’ve still got those original records.
The only thing calculated about the Replacements was their deeply held belief that if it looked like things might start going their way, it was best to pull out the shotguns and start blasting away at their own feet as fast as possible and to repeat if necessary. Again and again and again they had the brass ring brushing against their fingers and every single time they pulled back, then got drunk and fell off the merry-go-round and usually ended up kicked out of the amusement park as well.
Got a big show in New York City with all the most important record label executives and promoters and DJs in attendance? Get drunk, vomit on stage and play nothing but Cher and Black Sabbath covers while switching instruments mid-song. Quit each song after ninety seconds or less and walk off stage after about half an hour. So infuriate every big wig there that you’re almost guaranteed to never get airplay, then go out the next night and in front of maybe two dozen people play one of the greatest shows Manhattan’s ever seen, a blistering set that practically sets the place on fire and has the ghosts of Elvis and Jimi weeping from the sheer beauty.
Since about 1985 I’ve been telling myself that their time will come. It finally did for the VU, and Lou Reed found success even before that, so surely, surely folks will glom onto the fact that this is one for the ages, a monumentally great band who write and play magnificent, moving, raunchy, tender, funny and insightful songs. And, as always, they’ve got a beat and you can dance to it.
But it still hasn’t happened. I don’t get it. Some teenage flick names itself after one of their best songs, "Can’t Hardly Wait," and uses the tune over the credits. THIS’ll be the thing that breaks ‘em wide open, even if by this point they’ve been broken up for five years. But no. Nothin’. Paul Westerberg, lead singer and writer for the ‘Mats, writes the songs for Cameron Crowe’s movie, "Singles," which has huge success. But no. Nothin’. A greatest hits collection comes out. Nothin’. Nothin’ nothin’ nothin’.
And I just don’t get it. I’ve recommended the Replacements to some of my closest friends, people who have outstanding taste in music. It hasn’t clicked with any of them. They WANTED to like it, they just didn’t. My pal Keri was even kinda upset—she didn’t want to let me down because she knew how much I dug ‘em. But they just didn’t work for her.
And, again I say, I don’t get it. What is it about this band that is so fabulous but which doesn’t resonate with a larger audience? Critics have always loved them—they got nearly as many kudos from the early days right up to the end as R.E.M. ever did. But no. No airplay, no sales, no clicking with large numbers of people.
And yet. When Top Management bought me that greatest hits collection a few years back—bundled with a disc of rarities—I put it on the stereo, turned the volume way up (hmm…wonder if that has anything to do with my ears ringing…) and got ready.
The first thing you hear is someone saying, almost but not quite out of the range of the microphone, "Okay." And then a rock and roll guitar starts, the rest of the band comes crashing in, the drummer leads the way, and they’re off. A few seconds of this, and then they pull it all down, and it’s just the singer over some sustained chords and a pair of clicking drumsticks, singing, "Read about your band in some local page—didn’t mention your name." And for three minutes, they play this song with the precision of diamond cutters and the passion of pilgrims on their way to Mecca, random lines that every band who’s ever tried to tour in a beat-up van can feel even if the lyrics are almost impossible to understand clearly as they drift up out of the mists.
And I just sat there, listening to this song I’ve heard a hundred times, thinking once more, this is rock and roll. Everything about it just screams This Is Rock and Roll and All That Is Good About It. If an alien landed and wanted to know what rock and roll is, I do believe this is the song I’d play.
And nobody else I know gets it. Oh, sure, every professional critic does. The members of R.E.M. and Sonic Youth and Pearl Jam and Nirvana do. Hell, the Goo Goo Dolls are nothing but a watered-down version of the Replacements, with better looks and weaker songs and minus the drunkenness. They not only get it, they’ve made millions and millions off their rare and precious knowledge. Meanwhile, all eight Replacements albums together have almost certainly sold less than any one Goo Goo Dolls album. Great. The Goo Goo Dolls get it. But no one else does.
That’s not exactly true, of course. Top Management gets it. She knows quality when she sees (and hears) it. That’s why she’s with me, and not Vincent D'Onofrio.
And when those aliens land, they’ll get it too. They’ll be converted and become true believers. I just know it. Or at least I believe it. Because I have to. Quality will out. It always does eventually. Maybe in this case it’s just waiting for those aliens to take the message of the ‘Mats to the rest of the universe.
Either that or they’ll be so freaked out they’ll get their little gray asses back to wherever they came from, because they’ll know that any planet capable of producing stuff this powerful is capable of ANYTHING.
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