Let it be clear: Polished Mats a mixed bag
The new Replacements boxed set for "Tim" reveals that the murk wasn't always a bad thing
Thanks to Rhino Records’ inability to get something I ordered to me on release day, this is based on my first listen on Apple Music to the Ed Stasium remix at the heart of the new Tim (Let It Bleed Edition) boxed set.
I don't know when I realized the production on the Replacements' Tim was subpar, a tinny muffle that rendered the entire thing a muddy roar. It wasn't when I borrowed a friend's vinyl copy in 1985 and listened on my parents' hi-fi. Then, it was a revelation, a blast of snotty vigor that instantly rendered whatever was on the radio a joke. Gone was the unclever bombast of Van Halen and the over-serious synthpop of Howard Jones. My teenaged ears had been reborn.
It might have been when I jumped at the chance to buy the album on CD — the second of at least four times I have exchanged money for those 11 songs — and realized that, despite the promise of that silver plastic disc, there was no crystalline sound to be had. I was hoping for separate and distinct instruments, or at least the presence of a bass, or to better hear what Paul Westerberg was howling. That didn’t stop me from listening to it again and again and again.
Now with my fourth out of four (and last, unless there is some sort of hologram mix in the offing that puts the band in my living room) purchase of the album, I finally got what I wanted. The short review? Be careful what you wish for, because it's not always better than what you have in hand.
When Tim (Let It Bleed Edition) was announced, it promised a remix by Ed Stasium, as well as outtakes, demos, and a contemporaneous live show. Stasium seemed the perfect choice, a producing partner of Tommy Erdelyi who had famously muddled the original mix. So, he was familiar with the setup, and, given his work history, better suited to unearth the truly great album within.
He had much to work with, because Tim is a fantastic record. I didn't know, in those early days, that it was flawed, because I was too busy enjoying it, internalizing it. Songs like "Hold My Life" and "Bastards of Young'' became anthems, personally and collectively for a cohort of, if I'm honest, fairly affluent white suburban males who saw a future that did not seem to hold the same promise as a past whose glories had been force fed through the Boomer-dominated media. Unlike the disaffected of today, we didn’t want to look back. We just wanted a chance to move forward without the geezers (who were certainly younger then than I am now) getting in the way. Our heroes punched up, not down. Westerberg was on your side, not against the enemy the elites told him to despise.
After decades of listening to this album, knowing every note, every word of every song, I was ready for this remixed version to be a revelation. It would be an addition, something that took everything I loved about the original and added to it. Maybe.
Things start off with a misstep. "Hold My Life" has always been a great way to open the album, one of the band’s best songs played with a swagger that felt new. Anything different is going to take some getting used to, but this remix just feels wrong. Westerberg sounds like he just got out of bed and started singing poorly mixed karaoke. The guitars are largely absent. One of the touted benefits of this new remix was that we would actually get to hear Tommy Stinson's bass guitar, which is nearly inaudible on much of the 1985 release. It is here, oh is it here, completely burying the guitars. Westerberg's vocals also sit much too high in the mix, revealing the warts of a take that loses its power when it's not nestled into the rest of the track. I'll take the original mix over this every time.
"I'll Buy" works better, the individual elements more distinct and fitting together more cohesively. I'll need to get used to hearing bass on these songs. As with the cowbell that infects certain songs and becomes the only thing you can hear once you notice, it's as if I'm standing in front of Tommy's bass cabinet at a live show. That missing layer of murk reveals a jauntier song than before. As will be the case with much of this remix, it’s not better, just different.
Did Stasium mix these in order, learning and improving as he went? "Kiss Me On the Bus" is what I had hoped for from all of these tracks. It is a much more nuanced performance, revealing so many elements that were previously buried. Anyone who has seen the band's infamous performance on "Saturday Night Live" knows how ragged this song could sound, but here there is a twinkle befitting the rather silly sentiment of the song.
The next track, "Dose of Thunder," has always seemed unnecessary, supposedly written to keep the rocking' Stinson brothers, Tommy and guitarist Bob, happy, a respite from heart-on-the-sleeve acoustic tracks like "Here Comes a Regular." Remixed, it is revealed to be slightly more. The ability to hear the instruments makes this more charming than boorish, sounding like what it is, kids who grew up on Kiss playing their own big, dumb rock song.
"Waitress in the Sky" is the first instance of Stasium restoring something that had been mixed out or buried, or at least the first time it makes a real difference to my ears. The song is cleaner, less shambling, but the backing vocals will take some getting used to. It feels faster, more animated. Westerberg's vocals are immediate, lacking the deep reverb of the original. I could see this growing on me.
Westerberg was always the focal point of the band, but not until the next album, Pleased to Meet Me did it seem as if it was Paul and a backing band, and exponentially more so with each subsequent album. But this new mix centers Westerberg, and "Swinging Party" is a good example of this. He is no longer one element fighting against the tide. He moves fully to the fore, supported by — not battling — the backing track. Oddly, Erdelyi has been criticized for trying to make a commercial record without knowing what one sounded like, but it is this remixed version that sounds more modern, more commercial. Here and elsewhere, this feels like a confessional singer-songwriter album stripped of much of what cloaked Westerberg's vulnerability. It's the album he seemed to want to make from Don't Tell a Soul on, but it is clear now that he had the goods a few years before and might have made it happen with someone different behind the boards.
Everything on this album leads up to and then falls away from "Bastards of Young." When this remix was issued as the teaser for the full set, it was a revelation. The vocals popped, the guitars crunched, and the other instruments were audible. But here, as with "Hold My Life," it sounds more odd than life changing. I've heard the song hundreds (thousands?) of times, and the differences here are stark. What had sounded like a monolithic force of nature that hit as one flat surface on the original is now a weapon of a different sort, spiky, even a bit stealthy. There is a lot more Bob in there, as if Stasium found a fader that revealed a hidden solo that Westerberg had replaced with his own. Here, you get to hear both simultaneously. It's interesting, but the original is so ingrained that I don't know that I'll ever want to hear this version instead.
"Lay It Down Clown," the second-weakest song on the album, was never mixtape worthy, but here at least it feels livelier. It doesn't benefit from the scrub as much as "Dose of Thunder," a bit of clarity and a little piano made audible are the real contributions. It's a B-side-quality tune that stumbled onto the album proper, and no amount of polish will change that.
"Left of the Dial" is the first of the big three (for me, anyway: "Hold My Life" and "Bastards of Young" being the other two) that really seems to benefit from this exercise. The bite remains as the guitars continue to dart and charge throughout the song, and here Westerberg's vocal sits more comfortably in the mix. This could bump the original in my rotation.
To sum up Stasium's efforts in a word, he gives everything more punch. "Little Mascara" is a good example. It's a song that falls into the middle tier on the album, not a rousing anthem or heartstring-pulling weeper, but a good rocker with surprisingly poignant lyrics. Here, it's as if Stasium removed a tarp to reveal something with much more detail. Extra guitars and backing vocals are audible. Better? Maybe. Different? Definitely.
The album closes with one of Westerberg's masterpieces, the barroom lament "Here Comes a Regular." In Stasium's hands, the backing sounds more polished, and as a result, the unadorned Westerberg vocal becomes more ragged. It's perhaps even more maudlin than before. It didn’t really need reworking, but it’s interesting to hear if nothing else.
I had anticipated this set more than the previous three collections that revisited and reworked Don't Tell a Soul, Pleased to Meet Me, and Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take out the Trash (to be honest, I had completely forgotten about that last one). Each was interesting to hear once or twice, but the pull of the original albums was too strong. I’m glad to own them — the packaging is beautiful — but they are curiosities, not something in frequent rotation.
In contrast, I really thought this would become my go-to version of Tim, that I would be so happy to hear what had been buried that this would replace the 1985 mix. Now, I know that won't be the case. As with those other sets, I'll pull this out to satisfy curiosity, to compare and contrast, but I don’t see it ever replacing the original.
And that's OK. The original is still there on the shelf, waiting for my return. There certainly are songs that benefit from the remix, and maybe they'll make a mix here or there. But it's not a fair fight. The original is something I've been listening to for nearly 40 years; flawed or not, how can anything else compare? First impressions are just that, and this might grow on me as I listen more. Those extra elements that were excavated by Stasium might become so ingrained that I'll miss them when listening to the original. But I doubt it. It will be like those x-rays that show a painting beneath another. It's interesting to know it's there, but you're not going to scrub away the familiar masterpiece to get to it.
What did you think of the new mix? Is it a keeper, or are you ride or die for the original?
I love it...but, I'm a kid who came to The Mats when Don't Tell A Soul was released, so that may impact my tastes a bit. For sure, I love the original Tim and I continue to listen to it, but when I listened to this, it felt like something had been recovered and brought to the surface. It felt like being let in on something, aurally, that had been hidden for years. I shared my opinion with a friend, and his first question was "is it less punk rock?" and intimated that the raw, ragged sound was what had been important and quintessential to him, and I get that too. I'm pleased with having both versions! #blessed, lol
I’ve never been an early adopter when it comes to releases like this. When it’s the Replacements involved I’m even more cautious. The Mats are supposed to be loud, fast, and unkempt. The rough edges are their trademark and this exercise sounds like trying to sand a wood table with deep gashes in it. Give me more live recordings, outtakes, B-sides. The live shows reveal the true nature of the band. Live at Maxwell’s or a bootleg called The $hit Hits the Fan are what I want to hear. Westerberg once said something about the reason for their un-video for Bastards of Young is they always like to be a mystery. Why show them playing live when the best thing is to encourage you to see them live. Let It Bleed is the opposite of this mentality. I’m so stubborn about holding on to vision of the Mats’ past I didn’t see them at Midway Stadium just because I had never seen them live but I could imagine what it was like through the bootlegs - no matter how poor the recording of the sloppy, raucous and spontaneous performance was or how many Elvis covers there were. I may get to it in a month or so. Maybe my opinion will change. At least I have had you to prepare me.