1987: The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

By Bill Holdship
CREEM, September 1987
(edited, slightly)

For the most part, I hate rock ‘n’ roll.
Probably not the smartest thing to admit in print, and I wish it wasn’t true. I used to love it. Worshipped it. Thought it was one of the most important things in my life. Just the mention of it could conjure up images that were like magic. In many ways, rock ‘n’ roll had replaced Disneyland. Today, I generally prefer Disneyland.
Because — beyond all the hype and the fakery and the right radio sound and the talentless dreck and the I’m cooler than you isms and the nausea — rock ‘n’ roll was always funny. Elvis was funny. So was James Brown. The Beatles were comic geniuses. Both Dylan and The Stones could be hilarious in their irreverence. Jim Morrison belched into his microphone during the quiet part of “When the Music’s Over” at the Hollywood Bowl. That’s funny. From doo wop through punk, rock ‘n’ roll always had a sense of humor, even when it was being serious or brutal, especially when it was being great. It wasn’t a bunch of “superstars” — probably one tenth of the talent John Lennon possessed — sitting around being more serious and more pretentious and more morose than Lennon ever imagined. Working class heroes, indeed.

For the most part, I love the Replacements.
“It’s not that you hate rock ‘n’ roll,” says Tommy Stinson. “It’s that you hate everything that goes with rock ‘n’ roll. And we aren’t rock ‘n’ roll, we play rock ‘n’ roll. We aren’t rock ‘n’ roll.”
After a short pause, Paul Westerberg retorts in his gravelly voice that’s only going to get raspier before this night is through: “We are, too!”
“We’re not fuckin’ rock ‘n’ roll,” replies Tommy with his ever present laugh. “We don’t wear tight pants and we’re not on the radio and…”
“But that ain’t rock ‘n’ roll,” says Paul. “See, that’s the whole thing.”

* * * *

I don’t wanna make any grand proclamations here or anything, but the Replacements are probably the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world right now. And Pleased To Meet Me is probably the best rock LP of 1987, if not the ’80s. If you’ve ever loved rock ‘n’ roll, you’ve gotta love this record.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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