Tom Dunne: Why the Replacements deserved to be this century's Rolling Stones  

There are a lot of 'what-ifs' in the story of The Replacements but one thing is sure - they're a band who should've been much bigger 

The Replacements have released a remix of their album Tim. 

As the Rolling Stones prepare to celebrate 1,000 years in the business and music writer Pat Carty, in these pages, once again incorrectly identifies Exile on Main Street as the “greatest album of all time” as opposed to an album they don’t even rate themselves, it’s good to sometimes take time out and wonder what if?

What if The Replacement’s Tim album of 1995 had been better recorded? What if Paul Westerberg, in the early 1980s a man often referred to as his generation’s Bruce Springsteen, had lived to up the hype? What if he’d delivered on time and in tune?

Would the vacancy for a wild-assed Rock and Roll band have been taken over in 1985 by Minneapolis’s finest? Would all subsequent iterations of The Stones pale into insignificance when compared to the antics of Westerberg, the Stinson brothers and Chris Mars? Might The Stones have faltered?

Although The Stones had long since copper fastened their reputation as the “bad boys” of music, the devil’s disciples, the real “rockers” to the Beatles' wholesome “boy next door” image, compared to the “mats” – the affectionate fan name for them- they were altar boys.

The Stones somehow seemed to court disaster, get busted, drink, imbibe chemicals and still tour brilliantly and record two albums and four singles a year. Despite everything they did, even Exile on Main Street, they showed up for work, on time and in tune.

Unlike the “Mats”. The early days are a litany of drunken disasters, but it is when they get close to their moment in the sun that their true utter self-destructive tendencies become clear for everyone to see.

Let it Be, their third, independently financed album had finally, by late 1984, gotten everyone’s attention. Westerberg’s songs – ‘Unsatisfied’, ‘I Will Dare’ and ‘I’m in Trouble’ - were simply too good to ignore. They had a heartfelt bruised anguish, with a punk sheen, that we wouldn’t see again ‘til Nirvana’s Bleach.

Something had to be done and Seymour Stein – the man who signed Blondie, The Undertones, Talking Heads and Madonna – was the man to do it. He signed them to Sire and as he also managed The Ramones, asked drummer, and founder, Tommy Ramone to produce them.

This is where our worlds collide. So impressed were a young Something Happens by the majesty of Tim we got Tommy to produce our debut too. I remember him as a quiet gentle soul. We tried and failed to get him into Dublin’s then-leading nightclub, The Pink Elephant.

“He’s Tommy Ramone,” we told the bouncer.

“Yeah, sure he is,” he told us. Mortified, I dropped Tommy to his hotel.

But Tim was not brilliantly produced. The songs, ‘Kiss Me on The Bus’, ‘Here Comes a Regular’, ‘Bastards of Young’ and ‘Swinging Party’ are the match, if not superior to anything on the early REM albums. But the production is off and the fact that ‘I Can’t Hardly Wait’ was demoed, but not included on the album, speaks volumes.

They might have survived all that. The sheer brilliance of the songs, and the utterly insightful way in which Westerberg spoke for that alienated Husker Dü generation, at the very least more decipherably than Michael Stipe, might still have won the day. However.

On their first big TV appearance, standing in for the Pointer Sisters on SNL, then a crucial show for breaking bands, they blew it. Rehearsals went well but they then spent the afternoon taking drugs and drinking with Harry Dean Stanton.

Had they been The Stones, they’d have done all that and turned up on time and in tune. But they didn’t. It was an expletive-ridden, song-swapping mess and they were banned permanently.

A US tour with REM fared no better. They deliberately set out to alienate the audience and succeeded. They were booed at every turn.

The moment had passed. Founding member Bob Stinson was kicked out, and was dead by 35. The Replacements never played the game and broke up in 1991. Westerberg has released some stunning solo albums and wrote with Glen Campbell, but The Stones’ position remains safe for now.

Tim has finally received a proper remix. It sounds now as it should have in 1985, which is simply glorious. The remix is by Ed Stasium. He was the engineer on Tim and has subsequently worked with a solo Mick Jagger, Living Colour and em, Something Happens.

A few more “what ifs” there but enough for now. Seek it out!