REPLACEMENTS-SORRY MA, FORGOT TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH

Everything about The Replacements' debut was fast and furious.  Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, first released in 1981 on the Twin/Tone label, introduced eighteen rip-roaring nuggets primarily from the pen of Paul Westerberg.  More than half were under two minutes long, and only two cracked the three-minute mark.  While the lyrics were filled with aggression and the spirit of youthful rebellion, they weren't devoid of self-aware humor.  And though the sound was primal, abrasive, and rough, there were melodies lurking underneath the barrage of guitars, bass, and drums.  Late in 2021, Rhino reissued Sorry Ma as the third in a series of box sets, following 2020's expansion of Pleased to Meet Me(1987) and 2019's Dead Man's Pop (an alternative presentation of 1989's Don't Tell a Soul) from the Minneapolis band.  While Sorry Ma isn't as experimental as those later works, it nonetheless represents the building blocks of a group that aspired to more than just so-called "punk."

Paul Westerberg (vocals/rhythm guitar), Bob Stinson (lead guitar), Tommy Stinson (bass), and Chris Mars (drums) were too in thrall to classic rock to completely shed its conventions even if they may well have subverted some of them.  Band historian Bob Mehr writes in his liner notes, "Although Westerberg's preferred brand of music was simple and in-your-face - the sleazy R&B of mid-period Rolling Stones, the hooky silliness of Slade, or the paradoxical magic of a hard-rocking but emotionally vulnerable band like The Faces - Westerberg plied his trade with whomever he could.  He played southern rock with hippie stoners, jammed with a crew of Sabbath-obsessed metalheads, and covered Beatles tunes with perfect precision, yet he never seemed to find what he was looking for in those scenes or with those musicians."  The Replacements proved the ideal outlet for his musical visions.

Though uniformly ferocious, the songs on Sorry Ma were rhythmically varied, incorporating blues textures into the punkish "Otto" and "Rattlesnake," and slowing down the frantic tempo for the pained but sad, heartfelt "Johnny's Gonna Die" about Westerberg's encounter with a strung-out Johnny Thunders; the punk progenitor succumbed to his demons in 1991 (though rumors of foul play have lingered).  The latter - with Tommy Stinson's prominent bass propelling the groove, Chris Mars in perfect sync, and Bob Stinson giving his lead guitar more room to breathe than usual - had a haunting depth that would be further plumbed in future records.  Westerberg is quoted by Mehr: "I figured this aggressive style of rock music is gonna get us out of the basement, so let's go for it.  But I had Dylan records and Joni Mitchell records, and I listened to Frank Sinatra and Charlie Parker and all this other shit.  I did have another side that I didn't share with the band."

Westerberg wrote what he knew, so the themes revolved around girls, drugs, smokes, booze, hitchhiking, and a seemingly bleak working-class future.  But it wasn't all disaffected; there's a good-natured sweetness to "Customer" ("I'm in love with the girl who works at the store/Where I'm nothing but a customer...") that's easy to overlook in the righteous clatter of the album.  He wrote about music, too, name-checking the 'Mats in "Shutup," taking good-natured (?) aim at Husker Du in "Something to Du," and asserting "I Hate Music": "I hate music/It's got too many notes/Are you listening?"  This reissue adds the non-LP B-side "If Only You Were Lonely" following the original album sequence.  It's not hard to see why it wasn't included on the album, as it's a wry, acoustic, and melodic country-flavored ballad.  But it points to the ambition and versatility of the group as strongly as "Johnny's Gonna Die," albeit with a completely different sensibility.  In addition to writing accessible lyrics, Westerberg rarely forgot about the importance of a strong melodic hook.  He confesses in the liner notes, "I was into all the top 40 hits - the ones by people like Edward Bear ['Last Song'] that you find on that Have a Nice Day series by Rhino.  I was glued to those records...I can't spend much time on anything that isn't catchy."