here comes a regular
Pitchfork: Even to this day, when somebody says a band is influenced by the Replacements, often times they're just talking about alcohol intake. Certainly, no other bands sound quite like the Replacements.
PW: Yeah. It's the label they put on you if you don't come up with one. The bands we toured with-- R.E.M., every band I ever knew-- drank and took their share of substances. They just weren't known for it. I guess we were the first-- Christ, we weren't the first band to get up there loaded.
There you have it. Proof - once and for all - of the Replacements' legacy in the musical pantheon. The interviewer suggests that they're famous primarily for ingesting intoxicants. Paul agrees, then mentions that they were hardly pioneers in that realm either. Children by the millions sing for Alex Chilton. THERE'S a guy who was influential.
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but if it weren't for Paul Westerberg's songs even such notorious behavior might have been long forgotten. It's fitting, too, as few songwriters are as adept at infusing even the most slap-dash seeming punk track with loads of pathos and personality, and at his best Westerberg remains near peerless in the pantheon of heartbreakers.
"Lonely, I guess that's where I'm from," he once sang, but if you include all the people Westerberg and the Replacements have impacted or influenced, he's got plenty of company.