Paul Westerberg

At first, the diffidence of "14 Songs" seems like a strategy designed to downplay messianic
expectations. Certainly, the stakes are high. Paul Westerberg, after all, helmed the
Replacements, whose eight albums of anguish, truth-telling and glorious noise faced serious
competition only from R.E.M.'s craftier pop in the college-radio wars of the '80s. Rather
than a pronouncement from on high, Westerberg's solo debut comes on as pleas,... More >

Like most know-nothings--"Knowledge is power/Got your books, go read 'em"--he equates freedom with individualism and wisdom with unbridled sentiment. But the Replacements were a monument to bad faith by the end, and being as it's time for him to sh*t or get off the pot, he sh*ts. "Things," to a woman who deserves better than the guy who wrote this song, will tempt you to forgive the songpoems about junkyard flowers and runaway winds. "Down Love" and "A Few Minutes of Silence" are new ways to say shut up. You'll want to hear that riff again--that one too. Because his official solo debut is considerably more raucous than Don't Tell a Soul or All Shook Down. (Grade: B+)