Minneapolis' indie rock darlings The Replacements started out as a party-heavy punk rock garage band. In the early '80s they worked their way up the college music scene through their albums, which improved with every release. Their album Let it Be drew rave reviews and put the band in a position to sign with a major record label.

In 1985, The Replacements made the move to Sire Records and subsequently recorded their finest album. The record was simply called Tim. I'm not sure who Tim is named after, if it is named after anyone at all. It could be an acronym for two of the group's monikers--The Impediments, the original name of the band, and the 'Mats, as the group was sometimes called by their fans.

Tim sits on the precipice of young adulthood—the inebriated rowdiness from the band's early career is still there but it is tempered by the more sobering thoughts of regret and responsibility. The cover picture shows a long corridor with doors or passageways all along the sides, perhaps to represent the various choices we have to make in our lives.

That idea is evident on the opening “Hold My Life,” an exuberant song about living carefree but knowing that at some point in the future it will be "time for decisions to be made". The band rocks out with Tommy Stinson's bass mixed up front. On the chorus, lead singer and songwriter Paul Westerberg pleads in his nicotine stained voice:

Hold my life
Until I’m ready to use it
Hold my life
Because I just might lose it

The next two songs, “I’ll Buy” and “Kiss Me on the Bus” continue in this joie de vivre lifestyle. “I’ll Buy” is more edgy musically, acknowledging their punk rock roots, while the latter song scores points lyrically when it acknowledges the juxtaposition of playfulness turning into maturity as the singer asks for a smooch on a crowded public vehicle (“If you knew how I felt, now/You wouldn’t act so adult, now”).

“Waitress in the Sky” is a mean putdown of a snobby stewardess, played as a mid-tempo rockabilly number. I don’t know anybody who has not had a bad adventure flying in an airplane, but Westerberg puts his finger on most passengers’ travails with the line “Don’t treat me special or don’t kiss my ass/Treat me like the way you treat ‘em up in first class.”

Tim is one of those albums where the second side is stronger than the first. Leading off Side 2 is Westerberg’s misfit elegy “Bastards of Young.” The music is first-rate bar band rock, so much so that Westerberg has to shout over the top of the band during the chorus. “We are the sons of no one/Bastards of young/The daughters and the sons.” There are sharp observations about missing the first rung on the ladder of success, unfulfilled dreams, and unskilled graduates. Along the way, he articulates the keynote of the album, indeed of the slacker generation:

The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
We visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them

Westerberg seems to indicate that we take for granted those who show us the most affection, be they young friends or old grandparents. Yet we go out of our way to impress those who could care less about us, be they cruel family members or cold, corporate bosses.

The crunchy, catchy rockers continue with “Left of the Dial,” an affectionate ode both to college radio stations (which are at the left end of the FM spectrum) and to a (fictional?) female guitarist. The video to the song maintains the alternative spirit, with a boombox being the “star” of the clip.

The next number, “Little Mascara,” might serve as "Left of the Dial"'s sister track in that it takes a peek at the female guitarist down the road. Older and with kids, her life not working out the way she had planned, the song serves as a warning for anyone who settles for “someone to take care of ya.”

When The Replacements revert to the looser, more sloppy sound of their indie records, Tim starts to bog down. Not that the songs are bad, but compared to the rest of the album, they look like filler. “Dose of Thunder” and “Lay it Down Clown” are the two suspects here. Yet, even these songs are not without their merits. Bob Stinson gets to wail on his guitar and the band sounds like The Rolling Stones on amphetamines.

The two songs that anchor the album are “Swinging Party” (which closes Side 1) and the finale, “Here Comes a Regular.” Both songs are about the pitfalls of drinking as played by guys who realize they are living unfulfilled lives (“quittin’ school and goin’ to work and never goin’ fishin’”) and spending far too much time at the neighborhood tavern (“a fool who wastes his life, God rest his guts”). The bravado that was found in “Hold My Life” has been replaced by melancholy and hopelessness. In keeping with the mood, the tough rocking music played on most of the album is gone. Instead, “Swinging Party” is set to an easy, loping melody, while “Here Comes a Regular” is stripped down even further with just acoustic guitar, a piano interlude, and a cello on the fade out.

“Swinging Party” begins as an all-nighter, with a world-weary Westerberg singing:

Bring your own lampshade
Somewhere there’s a party
Here it’s never ending
Can’t remember when it started

But in the chorus, the image of “swinging” takes on a darker meaning:

If being afraid is a crime we hang side by side
At the swinging party down the line

Far from a temperance lecture, Westerberg recognizes that drinking arises out of fear and frustration, but admits it is a hard habit to break.

Those images seem much more real on “Here Comes a Regular,” where Westerberg, pictured alone in a bar and living a life where “opportunity knocks once and the door slams shut,” utters in a cracked voice:

Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one who feels ashamed?

If there is a parallel universe, it is broadcasting re-runs of a Cheers-like drama, and “Here Comes a Regular” is the theme song.

Tim ends on a downer note, and I think it is great that it does. Westerberg takes a cold, hard look at misspent youth and does not like what he sees. The question he raises is where to go from here with your personal life. Does one continue the downward spiral or try to break free of the cycle? That question is not answered here, but discovering the problem is a healthy first step.

Tim should have been the album that broke The Replacements to a wider audience. But the band's contempt for music videos, coupled with an infamous drunken gig on Saturday Night Live, curtailed any momentum the album received from its enormous critical praise. Instead, Tim rests in the middle of the group's holy trinity of albums, after Let it Be and before Pleased to Meet Me, as inspirational records that the next generation of alternative acts would imitate and turn into commercial gold.

Recommended: Yes