I admit that I am always psyched to see a beloved band get some love for their past work, so whenever a new Replacements compilation hits the streets, I imagine the members of said band rubbing their hands together in anticipation of a nice royalty check.
In some cases, though, they've already seen an influx of cash via an advance from the label in lieu of future royalties, which will be applied to the band's debt with the label.
Am I suggesting that the Replacements still owe Warner Brothers some money?
Oh yeah.
Keep in mind that, due to the fuzzy accounting practices by most major labels, many a million-selling band can still be up to their ears in bogus debt.
Having said that, will I be partaking in the repurchasing of my favorite Replacements album, Don't Tell A Soul, you ask?
Nope.
Granted, I do want to take a gander at that saucy booklet that's included in the deluxe re-issue, Dead Man's Pop, but, from a musical standpoint, this release interests me about as much as one of those Giles Martin-"produced" Beatles cash grabs.
See, Don't Tell A Soul is perfect as it is and no amount of Matt Wallace mixes or Tony Berg outtakes or Robert John Mutt Lange remixes (if only!) can change that. Nor can they shed any more light on those songs than the mix that the band and their label released in 1989.
Of course, the sheep will say otherwise because, if you notice, they tend to love everything the band puts out, no matter how sketchy or revisionist. In that sense, they bear a striking resemblance to Michael Jackson fans.
Now, if I knew that funds from the album would go directly to guitarist Slim Dunlap to help pay for his long-term medical care after suffering a stroke in 2012, I'd throw down my $60 in a heartbeat, but would I listen to it?
Nah.
I mean, we all want more, more, MORE crap from our favorite artists, especially those who broke up before we were ready to say goodbye, but when's the last time being asked to fork over $60 or more for an album that originally only cost ten bucks or so ever led to any revelatory discoveries?
If anything, hearing a band's demos or rough mixes of tracks recorded with a different producer that the band (or the label) fired quite unceremoniously rarely fail to shed any true light upon an already beloved album.
In the case of Don't Tell A Soul, what you hear is producer Matt Wallace pulling rabbits out of his hat and getting passable performances from a band that was, by all accounts, in shambles and out to fuck up the process.
Chris Lord-Alge's mix takes those admittedly ramshackle performances and miraculously elevates them to something that is altogether spectacular and as radio-ready as anything the band ever did.
In the decades since, Lord-Alge's name has come to be synonymous with BIG, BOOMING mixes that peg the meters and win the digital loudness wars by a long shot and, because of that, rock snobs tend to view everything he's done as somehow sacrilegious to a hipster-approved band's intent.
The truth of the matter is that the Replacements knew that they had to deliver a hit and that, in order to do so, this album would be taken out of their hands at the very first opportunity and given a major label-approved spit shine.
Thankfully for all involved, the label called Lord-Alge instead of, say, Andy Wallace (no relation to Matt), who would do for Nirvana's Nevermind what Lord-Alge did for Don't Tell A Soul.
At the time, Andy Wallace was still primarily known for his work with Slayer and for fucking up the mix on The Cult's Electric.
Lord-Alge, on the other hand, comes from the Bob Clearmountain school of mixing, which means, yes, the snare and drums will sound AMAZEBALLS, but not to the detriment of everything else, as tended to be the case in the late '80s.
Long story short, Lord-Alge is a take-no-shit kinda guy who has one of the best sets of ears in the business and the skills to take a Portastudio cassette demo and make it sound like Back In Black.
As for why the band didn't just hire Bob Clearmountain in the first place, if they had, trust me, they'd owe their label even more money than they do already. Thus, due to the simple fact that everything he touched back then turned to gold (or quadruple-platinum), only the Stones and Bryan Adams could afford Clearmountain at the time.
Lastly, in the years since the release of Don't Tell A Soul, I've heard a number of folks, including Tony Berg, say that the best song the band recorded during those sessions didn't even make the album.
The song in question, "Portland", is the sort of song Westerberg could write in his sleep back then, but as far as it being the best song the band had in their arsenal at the time, I could not disagree more.
Its inclusion on Don't Tell A Soul would have meant that "Talent Show" might never have come to fruition since it borrows the line "It's too late to turn back, here we go" from the chorus to "Portland".
Can YOU imagine Don't Tell A Soul without "Talent Show"?
Yeah, didn't think so.
While I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade as they fork over $60 for a booklet and some outtakes, Don't Tell A Soul is one of the few perfect albums from the '80s that still sounds great today.
Oof.
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