The Replacements To Release Dead Mans Pop

The Replacements To Release Dead Mans Pop

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The Replacements, 1988 (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images)

They’re Tim Rogers’ favourite band, and their bass player unexpectedly joined Guns N’ Roses and stayed for 15+ years. One of the most acclaimed American bands of the 80s, The Replacements announce a hugely expanded edition of their 1989 album Don’t Tell A Soul, complete with an unreleased session with Tom Waits, a 29 track live show and much more, available on September 27, pre-order here. 

The Replacements were one of the great American rock bands of the 80s. Lack of commercial success notwithstanding, the band’s critical cache and influence has continued to grow since their demise in 1991. Frontman/songwriter Paul Westerberg is now acknowledged as one of the great rock’n’roll writers of his generation; he’s a Springsteen/Petty type for the post-punk, pre-grunge generation, and no doubt Bruce and Tom paid close attention to his work. Bass player Tommy Stinson went unexpectedly onto join Guns N’ Roses from 1998 to 2014. The band is acknowledged as a definite influence by the likes of Nirvana, the Goo Goo Dolls, Soul Asylum, Green Day and Wilco, as well as alt-country artists including Justin Townes Earle,  and Westerberg would later score the soundtrack to the popular 1992 film, Singles.

They never quite achieved the profile here in Australia as they did at home in the US and in the UK – they existed primarily in a pre-national Triple J and pre-Big Day Out world and never toured here like contemporaries including the Lemonheads and Dinosaur Jr – but they had an impact. Tim Rogers worships Westerberg, and You Am I flew to the UK in 2015 for the opportunity to support their heroes during The Replacements short-lived reformation. Dallas Crane’s Dave Larkin put together a Replacements band to accompany a screening of the documentary Colour Me Obsessed: the Potentially True Story of the Last Best Band, the Replacements. A 1990’s Australian Replacements tribute album had contributions from the likes of Hoodoo Guru Brad Shepherd, Mick Thomas & Nick Barker, the Celibate Rifles, Dom Mariani and the Ice Cream Hands. Indeed listening to the Replacements now, it’s possible to imagine how incredibly well they would have gone down in Australian pubs in the 80s.

Rhino/Warner in the US has deemed the band’s catalogue continually worthy of regular upgrades over the years. The Complete Studio Albums: 1981-1990 boxset and the incredible, previously unreleased For Sale: Live At Maxwell’s 1986 set are amongst the treats afforded fans in recent years. Now comes the most ambitious project of them all.  Out September 27, and announced today, is the Replacements’ Dead Man’s Pop,  a 4CD/1LP boxed set featuring the group’s penultimate album Don’t Tell A Soul, “mixed as it was originally intended”, and expanded with a trove of previously unreleased material, including a studio session with Tom Waits and a complete concert recording from 1989. 

Presented in a 12” x 12” hardback book format (similar to the ongoing series of Ramones 4CD/1LP reissues), the collection features Don’t Tell A Soul Redux – the original album, but in the sequence and using the mixes that the band had wanted to release originally – on CD1, some 20 rare and unreleased studio tracks (including 9 songs from an aborted early attempt at the album) on disc 2, and a 29 song live show from 1989 – including a brace of the groups’ patented party-starts-now covers including “Black Diamond” by Kiss, “Born To Lose” by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, and “Another Girl, Another Planet” by The Only Ones – on discs 3 & 4. The included LP is, of course, the Redux, and the package also comes with copious liner notes and images. 

Much more than the plethora of marginally different mixes and live sets the same as existing live sets that this sort of set often presents. Dead Man’s Pop will be a genuine boon for fans, who’ll not only hear an original album reconfigured to match the band’s original vision, but a killer live set from a previously undocumented tour and numerous unheard studio recordings. The set of tunes with Tom Waits, which includes a cover of the Billy Swan classic “I Can Help”, is a particularly mouth-watering proposition. 

To get you in the mood, or to show you to how great these guys were if you never heard them, here’s a bunch of our fave Replacements tunes, starting with a couple from Don’t Tell A Soul, then something from their brilliantly titled first album Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash and moving forward from there.

 

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