Customer Reviews

Don't Tell a Soul

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Paul Westerberg once admitted that, with this album, The Replacements really made a serious play for commercial success while trying to hide that attempt. Who could blame them for trying, though? They had put out nothing but brilliant music up until then and had little to show for it but critical respect and a little beer money. This album is great. Not as great as their very best work but great nonetheless. "Rock and Roll Ghost" takes on added poignancy when you know that Paul wrote it about a friend from his early rock days who killed himself and that Paul can't bring himself to sing the song in public. "I'll Be You" is a perfect line-drive that deserved more attention from mainstream radio. And the other songs on the record range from good to miraculous. The Replacements were perhaps the greatest rock and roll band of all time if one uses heart, talent, sense of humor, and soul as criteria. This album is evidence that they knew they deserved more popular attention and were willing to go for it. I just wish it had worked. Then there'd be more kids today having their lives changed like mine was.

It was strange to read the consistent mythos of these reviews: "The 'Mats Grow up and Sell Out (okay or not okay?)" If this really is one of the worst Replacements albums (sorry, I don't even know why they're the "'Mats"), I should just order the rest right now. I was given this disk by a friend of a friend over two years ago, and it has yet to leave my fast-rotation stack. Okay, I was just a bit too old to catch their wave the first time out. Maybe I'm the guy they were selling out to (though since my faves in the day were older Rundgren and Stomu Yamashta, no wonder that ploy didn't work). But this is still brilliant song-writing. I get the calls for better production, better playing, etc. But I think people have to get off being afraid to rate this album highly for fear of sullying the pristine record of the earlier disks. Maybe it's not up to such rarified standards of purity, but it's great listening. It's smooth without being soporific, haunting without ... sound effects, and loaded with unsubtle nuances - interesting small twists on normal pop expectations. People who don't know the Replacements from the Refreshments will hear this album and say "Damn. That's interesting." True-blue Replacementistas, please consider rating this on a scale for all music, not a private, tougher one for 'Mats albums. It won't hurt to have outsiders listen to "your" music; heck, it'll just jack up the price on the used copies of this CD that you probably want to sell anyway.

I think I went the opposite route that most people take in terms of discovering the Replacements. It seems like most people start off checking out more respected albums like "Let It Be" and "Tim." I just happened to listen to this album first which might make me slightly biased since I had no basis for comparison.

First off, let me say that this is a great record. A lot of people find this album to be lackluster but I disagree. It's got all the ingredients of any good Replacements album which, simply put, are great songwriting and great music. It does lean more towards a pop style of music than their previous albums, but I don't mind pop if it's done well (which it certainly is here). The playing is also a bit more restrained here, but there's still enough of the Replacements' trademark recklessness that comes through. Like all their great albums, the songs are eclectic and no two sound the same. Following the low key vibe of "They're Blind" with the rave up, energetic stomp of "Anywhere's Better Than Here" are perfect examples of the various moods that they are capable of.

The only real problem with the album is that it does suffer a bit from the typical, overly polished, 80's style production. There's a lot of reverb on everything, especially the drums, which sort of saps the raw energy that tends to give the Replacements an edge. However, the songs are good enough so that it doesn't really matter that much. In some cases, the production even works to a song's advantage such as contributing to the haunting feeling of "Rock N'Roll Ghost."

In the end, I think "Don't Tell a Soul" is a really solid album that holds up over time and repeated listens. Is it their best album? No. But is it a bad record? Definitely not. Is it worth checking out? Absolutely!

In comparison with their other albums: 4/5 stars
On it's own: 4.5 stars

P.S.-"Talent Show," the first track, is one of my favorite Replacements songs.

The 'Mats' sixth studio album is the one that almost all fans hate. Dismissed as too mainstream and too slick in its production, Don't Tell A Soul is often disregarded in discussion of The Replacements' legacy and influence.

In reality however, the album is a progression from the rawer (and similarly brilliant) Pleased To Meet Me (1987), and is Paul Westerberg's most accomplished work as a songwriter.

The album stands as the band's most melancholy work, Slim Dunlap's lead guitar is refined and understated (replacing Bob Stinson's wild-man solos); Tommy Stinson's bass work is tighter than ever; Chris Mars' drumming is pure precision; and whilst Westerberg's songs are still built on attitude and alienation they are tinged with an air of acceptance and resignation: the band's first and only hit, 'I'll Be You,' hints at the band's desire to become, if only fleetingly, the stars they should have been, had their loutish, beer-soaked immaturity not got the better of them. The problem is, this belligerent f**k-'em-all gusto made The 'Mats so endearing, and the trouble fans have is refusing to acknowledge that even these beautiful losers had to grow up sometime, disavowing the fact that 'Achin' To Be' 'I'll Be You' 'Rock n Roll Ghost' and 'Darlin' One' are some of the most sophisticated rock songs ever written.

As someone has said earlier, if anyone thinks the band had sold out on Don't Tell A Soul, then Westerberg's tortured scream at the opening of 'Anywhere's Better Than Here' should tell them otherwise.

Don't Tell a Soul is just breath-taking. This is easily the best work they ever did.

I know everyone else loves Twin/Tone era but I find the songwriting from those early albums so incosistent. I mean, everyone's favorite is Let It Be and it's actually got some good material, but a song regarding "Gary's" unmentionable and a really immature song about bassist Tommy's orthodontist adventures. And a Kiss cover?! Why are any of those three things acceptable to anybody? Excuse me, but I don't get it.

Maybe being an 80's baby is my problem, I don't know. The over-polished sound is there on Don't Tell a Soul but I don't mind. I guess I'm more hi-fi than lo-fi. I wish I could write songs half as catchy as what's on this remarkable album. Only one song doesn't blow me away...the honky-tonk, semi-rockabilly "I Won't". But even it's not without it's charm.

I'd suggest this album to anyone that likes power-pop or pop-rock. But definitely not for those looking for the sloppier sound of the twin/tones era.

If I could confess to you something I have noticed for years about my favorite band from the 80's The Replacements. Many of the Replacement fans are idiots. They cannot accept that a man grows older and changes. I remember when I first bought Don't tell a Soul the complaining from Mats fans. Paul sounds incredibly reserved. So the boys who played loud, fast and obnoxious grew up. Must we crucify them. The fact remains that "Rock & Roll Ghost" is a freighting epitaph for a man who has given his life to rock and roll and just disappeared before everyone's eyes. Since the Replacements were essentially ghosts none of the Tom Petty fans seemed to have minded when he lifted the line "Rebel without a clue" line from "I'll Be You" for one of his lame excuses for rock and roll. PETTY HAD A HIT WITH IT! "Darlin' One" hold the emotion of a man screaming the loss of a woman he so desperately wants and cannot have. Is that what the songs is about? I don't know that's what I read into it. That is what the song means to me! "We'll Inherit the Earth" should have been a Generation X mantra. Except it came out 3 years too early. This is a great album with great songwriting. This is one of the Replacements finest moments and the majority of Replacement fans dismiss it.......Simpletons......

A Mats' album that follows the rock n' roll circus that 1987's "Pleased To Meet Me" graced true music fan's is a tough act to follow. Coupled with a catalog that includes a study in the ascent or decline of a hard working American band and the loss of Bob Stinson to Slim Dunlop, "Don't Tell A Soul" may have disappointed many fans with its sly sleek production and accessible pop arrangement's. The truth of the matter is, musical maturity creeps in on this one. "Achin To Be" may be the finest country-rock bar song to come out of the 80's. "I'll Be You" and "We'll Inherit The Earth" may be the finest anthems to never have a stadium. "They're Blind" may be the most beautiful self confessional defense of one's own artistic talent and commercial failure. "Darlin One" is a sly 1980's rock ballad that never was. At a time when Gun's N' Roses, Def Leppard, Poison, and Warrant were ruling the airwaves, it's amazing that as glossy as "Don't Tell A Soul" may sound on it's initial listening, it merits many more years later because of it's heart, singer songwriter, Paul Westerberg. Older and beaten a bit, the sound of a great band descending from its own throne they made, and the rise of musical maturity. A shame and a blessing they were never meant to be had by all. A Big Star for the 80's.

This album hits me from note one and never stops. Absolutely brilliant song-writing and the boys seem to have put the beer bottle down long enough to finally take themselves seriously (literally: you can here a bottle hit the floor in 'Talent Show' - I love that.) Not to take from the attempts the lads took to depart from the normal car wreck approach on 'Tim' or 'Pleased To Meet Me', this release is cohesive and mature - they turned the corner on this one. Those who fell in love with the thrashpop of 80's Mats will no doubt call them a sell-out as 'I'll Be You' received a fair amount of radio time in the early 90s. This is a Replacements masterpiece - buy it now.

This has got to be one of my favorite all time discs by ANYONE - not just the 'Mats. The lyrics - Christ how can you compare this with earlier 'drunken funtime' discs like "Let It Be". DON'T GET ME WRONG here - "Let.." and "Pleased To Meet Me" are EXCELLENT discs in their own right it is just that on "Don't Tell A Soul", Pauly boy puts down his bottle for a minute (you can hear it hit the floor in 'Talent Show' - what a metaphor) and becomes the song writing genius we all knew he could be. Sounds to me that you are all pissed off because this one makes you THINK instead of just DRINK...

Forget for a moment that it probably would have killed him. Die-hard Replacements fans will probably never forgive bandleader Paul Westerberg for abandoning the bands characteristic bathed-in-drugs-and-alcoholism lifestyle (probably best crystalized by two moments: the moment an obviously-druken Westerberg dropped the F word on a live national TV audience during a now-infamous Saturday Night Live appearence, and former-guitarist Bob Stinson's death by overdose in 1995), and lo-fi, drunk-and-disorderly noise rock of earlier albums for the more introspective, carefully-crafted songs the comprise 1989's DON'T TELL A SOUL.

The result is an album that drifts well into the mainstream, leading even to mainstream radio picking up the single "I'll Be You," a song in which Westeberg sings "I could purge my soul perhaps/for the imminent collapse." DON'T TELL A SOUL is just that: Westerberg's attempt to purge himself in preparation for the imminent collapse of the band. "I'll Be You," "Rock and Roll Ghost," "Achin' To Be," "Askin' Me Lies," and "Talent Show" are the albums strongest tracks, and together they offer a complete portrait of the songwriter that Westerberg was at this stage of his career.