| Rollingstaones |
 Released in 1985, Tim caught a great American garage band stretching out, working Big Star pop and Fifties-style rock into a mix of punky abandon and regular-dude romanticism. This version — reissued along with three other 'Mats albums, none of which is quite as tuneful as Tim — brightens the sound and adds six bonus cuts, including a bare-bones version of "Here Comes a Regular," Paul Westerberg's moving acoustic ballad about directionless barflies. Rarely did Westerberg write so poignantly, and Tim marked the height of the band's powers — it was its final album with Bob Stinson, the notoriously soused guitarist who helped give the group its lovably shambling sound...full text |
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| Dustedmagazine |
The dynamic that fueled the Replacements’ success can be gleaned from the fate of the original members. One is a journeyman songwriter, one has left music, one of them is in Guns ‘n’ Roses, and one is dead from drinking. They were reckless and natural. Of the iconic ‘80s bands profiled in Our Band Could Be Your Life, the Replacements were the most musically conservative. Even their thrashiest album has blues licks and bar-band moves. But they were the only flirts in the bunch, the only ones creating straight-up love songs. Even the Minutemen, who were equally down to earth, used artsy brevity to hide their roots as teenage Blue Oyster Cult fanatics. The Replacements never felt the need put up a cool front. As musical omnivores, bits of country and metal and mainstream pop were always surfacing in their music, and not as knowing references; often, it was the corniest bits. An official bootleg they slipped out on cassette in 1985 (The Shit Hits the Fans) finds them stumbling through Bachman Turner Overdrive, the Carter Family, Tom Petty and the Jackson 5. The tracklist is entertaining, the performance less so. They were too drunk to finish any of the songs, and it’s mostly a jumble of stray verses.
When Dusted reviewed the remastering of the Replacements independent releases earlier this year, Mike Lupica avoided reading the liner notes, lest his impressions get muffled by the "mushy reminiscence that is so commonly utilized in discussions of this band." And he had a point: a novice approaching any of their albums could easily form the impression that the Replacements were wildly inconsistent. But tell that to a fan, and it’s likely they’ll recount tales of the band cross-dressing and swinging from chandeliers, and that the inconsistency was an important part of their thang....full text |
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| Absolutepunk |
Few bands can claim to have released two seminal masterpieces back to back, but Minneapolis' the Replacements did just that in 1985, with Tim, the follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Let It Be, released the previous year. And while Let It Be found the band maturing past their grittier beginnings, Tim was a step even further away from the days of one-minute-song punk fury. Frontman Paul Westerberg's numerous influences, ranging from Roy Orbison to Alex Chilton to Chuck Berry, became more apparent the time around too. Songs like "Kiss Me On the Bus", with it's jangly, rockabilly-inspired solo to the blues swing of "Waitress In the Sky", Tim found the Replacements at the peak of their creativity; unafraid to expand beyond expectation. Of course, this was still, at their core, the same 'Mats that their fans had come to know and love. The songs still dealt with all manner of social rejects and rain dogs, seemingly unable to function properly amongst civilized society, a long-standing element in Westerberg's lyrics. From the barn-burning "Bastards Of Young" to the tear-jerking "Here Comes a Regular", indeed, there was a bit of something for everyone on Tim, and it all meshed perfectly.
In addition to being perhaps the band's best work to date, Tim also acted as catalyst for a sort of new found "fame" for the Replacements. While they were still a relatively obscure alternative rock band, the album did spawn their biggest television appearance to date as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, a now iconic moment in rock history, as they would be banned from ever playing the show again, due to their reckless behavior. Another first for the group was their music video for "Bastards Of Young", aired on MTV. Featuring simply a stationary, single-angle shot of a speaker, over the shoulder of an unidentified man who later kicks it in, the video's unconventional nature was typical of the Replacements, and displayed that despite maturing, their sardonic wit and disregard for mainstream culture was still well in tact....full text |
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