The Replacements

Tim (1985)

The Replacements' most polished record was also their most fully realized — Tommy Stinson's bass locked in tighter than on any previous release, Paul Westerberg's songwriting reaching a clarity of emotional expression that the band's characteristic sloppiness had previously obscured. 'Bastards of Young' is the manifesto, a mid-tempo anthem about generational disappointment that became the unofficial anthem of disaffected mid-80s American youth; 'Left of the Dial' is the tender pole, a tribute to college radio delivered with a directness Westerberg rarely allowed himself. It remains the entry point through which most listeners discover the band.

Sleeve notes

Tim · 1985

The Replacements were incompetent in ways that were inseparable from their excellence. Paul Westerberg wrote songs of devastating emotional honesty — "Here Comes a Regular," "Unsatisfied," "Bastards of Young" — and delivered them in performances that ranged from transcendent to deliberately sabotaged, as if the band were afraid of their own sincerity and destruction was the only available defense. Bob Stinson's guitar, sloppy and luminous, matched the energy.

Let It Be (1984) and Tim (1985) are the canonical works: American rock that sounds like it was made by people who had heard nothing, stolen nothing, and were making it up from the feelings directly available to them. The tension between Westerberg's perfectionist instincts and the band's self-destructive performance practice is the thing that makes the records live rather than merely document. Every subsequent American indie band that has made a virtue of imperfection, of showing the effort, owes something to Westerberg in particular.