New music review: Paul Westerberg - 49:00

It’s been an embarrassment of riches lately for fans of the Replacements what with the spurt of expanded reissues packed with outtakes and rare tracks, but despite issuing a couple of decent newly-recorded tracks on their “hits” collection  the ‘Mats themselves haven’t made the obvious full-fledged reunion move since bassist Tommy Stinson seems firmly stuck in the solo band Axl Rose likes to call Guns ‘N’ Roses.  Fortunately, in his absence, Paul Westerberg hasn’t just been sitting and biding his time.  Here, Westerberg reinvents the album form as a single mp3 file the length of a single side of a cassette tape — despite the title, 49:00 comes in at 43:55 precisely — which is appealingly homebrewed and packed with tantalizing Guided By Voices-like snippets and fragments in between the more finished-sounding tunes, dropped on the listening public with little advance notice or fanfare suddenly last weekend.  Westerberg’s rudimentary drumming continues to be the main downfall of his recent solo work, but he’s succeeded in recapturing a significant amount of the ragged spirit of fun that once seemed so effortless within the context of the Replacements but which drained quickly out of Westerberg’s major-label work.  Even the Mats’ predilection for unrehearsed cover tunes is back in the form of brief clips of Westerized versions of tunes like “I Am A Rock”, “I’m Eighteen”, “Born To Be Wild”, “Rocket Man”, and “Hello Goodbye”. Word is Paul has been working on a mountain of new material, a rumor that seems far likelier to be true considering he’s selling this solid album-length chunk of new stuff for a mere 49 cents. No, this isn’t the world-shaking type of attention-grabbing gesture made by such as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, nor should it be expected to be, but this only makes 49:00 even easier to like.   I’m not gonna expect all of Paul’s future work to hit this price point, but as long as it all hits this level of quality I’ll be satisfied.

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00