Gold Soundz: "Favorite Thing"

No other band has influenced my tastes over the past 17 years more than The Replacements have. They are, without a doubt, the reason I am the music fan I am today.

That being said, the brand new Rhino re-issues of the first 4 Replacements albums have a lot to offer any fan - the casuals who may need to fill in their collection’s missing pieces, the hopelessly devoted die-hards looking for unreleased gems (like myself), and those who fall somewhere in between. Documenting the period prior to the band’s signing to Sire Records in 1985, the recordings capture the band at their wild, careening best - quite realistically the most exciting American rock and roll band of the past 3 decades. Many of the newly unearthed rarities on these discs are actually songs I’ve loved for years (“Perfectly Lethal” especially), others are nice surprises I never knew existed.

I first heard The Replacements driving in an older friend’s car sometime in the winter of 1991. “Waitress In The Sky” and “I’ll Be You” were on a mixtape and I was taken immediately. I think I started with buying the tapes - Let It Be and Don’t Tell A Soul originally and I filled in the gaps from there. I was a little taken aback by Let It Be at first - it thrashed more than I expected compared to the shuffling folk-rock I’d already heard. Soon enough though the songs started making sense and I had a new favorite band.

There are countless Replacements’ songs I could include in a Gold Soundz post, but if pressed I think “Favorite Thing” truly captures their early spirit. Even though Westerberg did some of his best writing post-Let It Be, I’ve always felt that the Twin Tone years were the band in their prime (not revelatory, I know) and once they were on a major that the studio albums lost the drunken punk spirit that set them apart. “Favorite Thing” catches the band absolutely ripping to shreds, but also a typically inspired lyric from Paul, which, when he wanted them to be, were becoming more and more insightful (“Gary’s Got A Boner” notwithstanding). Stone classic.

MP3 :: Favorite Thing
(from Let It Be. Buy here)
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Related :: The Replacements - Tim (Re-Imagined)
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Gold Soundz columns highlight some of my favorite songs of all time. “Gold Soundz” because I thought this blog would be cooler if I ripped off a title for a “column” from a not-at-all obscure Pavement song. Previously featured in Gold Soundz:

Slobberbone :: “Gimme Back My Dog”
The Jam :: “In The City”
World Party :: “Way Down Now”
Elmore James :: “The Sky Is Crying”
John Prine :: “Lake Marie”
The Band :: “Jawbone”
Neutral Milk Hotel :: “Holland, 1945”
The Velvet Underground :: “I Heard Her Call My Name”
Hank Williams :: “I Saw The Light”
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