Customer Reviews

All Shook Down (Exp)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To dismiss this album as a "weak, Paul Westerberg solo project" is ignorant. I think it may be what he was trying to say all along, from "Sorry Ma" 'til the the end. How long did it take from the momement you heard anything by the 'Mats 'til you realized they were the reason you listened to Rock ' Roll? It wasn't instantaneous, but when it hit you, you knew. And you knew they were the band you were WAITING for. These songs sum up everything he was/is about: Longing for- acceptance, substance, and love, no matter the year or style, and no matter who you are or who the world perceives you to be. If you won, you will soon be a loser just like the rest of us; if you lost, who knows?, but you must stil be true to yourself...

Some claim this to be Paul's first "solo" record. While others claim a final whimper from an incredible rock and roll band. When it's all said and done it's 13 more beautifully crafted Paul Westerberg songs. Listen to the words sung in "Nobody". Facing marriage and still flipping it the middle finger. The longing and desire for a woman in "Bent Out of Shape". The frightening "All Shook Down" which to me really describes what this band state of mind/shape it was in when this was recorded. Then to the final song on the record,"The Last". Total closure on a ten-year ride in rock and roll.


The great thing about Paul's songs is that you do not need to know what he was writing about or what his feelings are about a specific song or record. I truly believe more than any other rock band on this earth that no one has written songs where once you let them into your life those same songs when heard ten years later you still feel that same emotion that you first felt when it reached your ears.


It's amazing that this man, his band and his music fell through the cracks. The biggest crime of all is that not enough people were aware of a band in a decade of vapid pop and schlock heavy metal bands that all sounded the same and looked the same. A true original goes unnoticed again. Isn't that always the way.....

I got to the Replacements a few decades too late. The first I ever heard of Paul Westerberg was on the "Singles" soundtrack, which is one of the first CDs I ever bought when I was fifteen in 1992. "Dyslexic Heart" made an impression, but I didn't think about Paul and his music until I developed a taste for "Alt-Country" (bands influenced by Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks) later in the 90s. I found out that the Replacements were kind of an influence on some of the music I was listening to, so I went out and bought "Tim." I liked it well enough, but didn't really get anything else by them for a while.

Then, somehow, I found out that this one existed, read some glowing reviews, and thought I'd take a chance when I saw a copy sitting in my local indie record shop for $8. Let me tell you, the best $8 ever spent. This is one of the most complete albums I have ever heard, with a solid feel or mood throughout. It is also very honest, as it shows a very self-critical man looking back on the choices of his youth, not always pleased with the outcome. If the early Replacements work was the drunken party, this album is the morning after when you wake up with a bad taste in your mouth and a headache, wondering where your life is headed.

It's really a timeless record, with a sound that is similar to the Westerberg-penned tracks on the "Singles" soundtrack but not so uniquely "90s" that it won't be just as meaningful ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road. There's no one standout track either, no obvious single, just a song cycle that is best listened to as a whole. Want an album that makes it OK to look back on your mess-ups with a smile? Want to feel less alone as you find yourself creeping into adulthood? Try this disc.

The bad news is that All Shook Down is not truly a Replacements album. The great news is that it is a Paul Westerberg album. Many longtime Mats fans, already jaded by the glossy "Don't Tell A Soul", probably ran screaming when they heard the fine tunes on this effort.

Even though it ain't really the Mats, this CD has some of the best songwriting Paul has done. 'Sadly Beautiful' is an excellent tender ballad. 'Nobody' and 'One Wink at a Time' are also great songs. This CD also is a great example of Westerberg's evolution as a songwriter. Yes, these songs were written by the very same man who wrote "Customer", "Bastards of Young", and "Alex Chilton."

The album is quiet and introspective and very good if listened to in the right perspective. Give it a try, but spread the listening out between doses of the classic Replacements albums

the replacements album that replacements fans weren't thrilled about is my personel favorite (and I had been a fan for years,in fact,when I was putting a band together several years before,while advertising for a guitarist,I requested that anyone auditioning should have a rolling stones mind and a replacements heart.) All Shook Down probably has a sentimental value to me,but I dunno,I think Westerberg's song writing on trhe record had finally hit a real apex,a real roll,one that he would carry over into his solo work.(Another complaint from replacements fans was that it was really a Paul Westerberg solo album. I saw them twice during the All Shook Down tour. Once at the Beacon in nyc and at Madison Square Garden where they opened for Elvis Costello and believe me,they sounded like THE Replacements (only not a drunken mess.)

Don't listen to the jaded and cynical who think you have to dislike everything after "Tim." Or everything that isn't "approved" by the critical intelligensia. This is a flat out, old school classic, and I grow tired of hearing people who were in elementary school when it came out, whining that it isn't authentic like "Let it Be."
It is as if this album was recorded for me and my peers: spaced out, confused, messing around with women, drugs, and booze and losing almost every time.
We felt this because we lived it.
And we feel it now, whenever we listen, like a little postcard back, from the blurry days of college and young adulthood.
Thanks Paul.

Also recommended: "Flip Your Wig" by Husker Du, "Up on the Sun" by The Meat Puppets, and "Blood and Chocolate" by Elvis Costello.

Inconsitant and often frustrating, this album is hardly the way most pictured the mats going out. Yet it certainly has its moments of raw power, albiet quiet moments. "Sadly Beautiful" and "Nobody" are stunners and "Merry Go Round" bounces with that patented mats strut. "Happy Town" may be embaressingly silly but the albums closer more than makes up for it. Is "The Last" about the band, about Bob Stinson, as it was so eloquently put below, or is it just Paul trying not to give up? Anyway you look at it "The Last" is one of the most desperatly beautiful songs ever recorded. "Would it hurt to fall in love a little slower? I know it hurts at any speed." We miss you guys.

I love "all shook down"---------never tire of it, and have bought it for any Replacement virgins I run into--- I Rank it as High as:
" Pleased to meet me" and " Tim" Or any of the others----to me its one of their 3 BEST. Great disc!
Had to write this because I can't see eye to eye with anything less than 5-stars on this one.

a lot of people crucify this album, but i really dig it. not as a 'mats record, but as the best paul westerberg solo record. what a lot of people forget, or just don't know, is that this was supposed to be paul's solo debut, but due to contractual obligations, the replacements' name was put on it. chris, tommy, and slim barely played on any of the tracks, and bob had been long out of the band by the time it was made.
what this is, is an amazing, calm, sober solo outing from an established artist, much like rod stewart's "every picture tells a story," and it rates right up there with the replacements' latter-day work on "don't tell a soul", and it's definitely better than most of the mainstream early-'90s pop that it inspired. and it's by far the best paul westerberg solo album.

if you're just all about the messy stuff the 'mats did in the bob days, then avoid it. but if you're open to it, it's a pretty amazing record. sure, it falls flat a few times, but there are very few albums that don't.

Maybe the last Replacements album was so good because Paul Westerberg intended the songs to be his debut solo effort. After all the stormy angst of The Replacements, these songs are breezy, bouncy and largely cheerful -- perhaps no coincidence given that Westerberg was finally dealing with his alcoholism when he wrote these songs. "When It Began" is a lovely little pop-rock song, as is "One Wink At A Time." "Bent Out Of Shape" is another good song and "My Little Problem," with Westerberg joined by Johnette Napolitano, is the second best duet of 1990. (It had the bad luck to come out the same year Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson did the incomparable "Candy.") The album is chock full of good songs that are easy on the ears, and that is really my only criticism. In what was probably a healthy move for himself personally, Westerberg lost a lot of his edge, or maybe Chris Mars had supplied much of the band's edge all along, because "All Shook Down" is missing a lot of the angry passion that made so much of The Replacements' music so good.