Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Possibly Westerberg's Best Yet., February 26, 2005
Possibly Westerberg's best yet.
When you strip away whatever youthful nostalgia you might associate with older works from the Replacements, and measure things up track by track, this album takes second place to none. Some of its songs could secretly wedge themselves into older works and never sound out of place.
Folker vaults Paul from the netherworld between youthful angst and middle age reflection. True, there are some retrospective ballads on Folker, but there is, nevertheless, a gratitude and humility in Folker, and a sincerity that comes from a man who has finally shaken off the past and settled into the present. For its quality and deftness, this album floats on a plane above all of his recent work.
For those who found Grandpa Boy a bit thin and half-hearted, with its bare-cupboard home studio sound and distracted themes, this album will please. Its production values are robust and rich, but not overdone. It is well balanced, with none of the aging-star desperation that seemed to undergird All Shook Down; remember how techy and awkward and forced much of that sounded compared to the authentic and moving Let it Be and Tim?
Folker brings at least five tracks that in and of themselves justify the silica that gave their lives for this disc. Below is a list of Folker's tracks. See asterisks for the album's best tracks.*
1) Jingle - A sarcastic, Beatlesque song-as-tuning-fork.
2) *Now I Wonder - Vague, forgivably overwrought, spiritual, and moving.
3) *My Dad - A clever and surreptitiously sentimental love song to his ailing father.
4) *Lookin' Up In Heaven - A spacious, rhythmic, tireless and nostalgic paean for love lost.
5) *Anyway's All Right - Painted from the everwet pallet of the romantic Replacements artiste, this rolling ballad has an hypnotic attenuation to it. Truly beautiful with its haunting harmonies. The album's best track.
6) $100.00 Groom - Paul flaunting his reckless metre
7) 23 Years Ago - an unremarkable interregnum between good songs on either side of it.
8) *As Far As I Know - The Monkeys, had they been talented. An anthemic pop song, and a tuneful diagnosis for the FHM generation.
9) What About Mine? Fills the last 50 meg of a 700 meg CD.
10) How Can You Like Him? Dissonance tamed, in a way only Paul can.
11) Breathe Some New Life - Second half of song could be good; I wouldn't know.
12) Gun Shy - Coherent, yet unremarkable and blandly enumerative.
13) Folk Star - Rhymes with "plastic red guitar" ... a deliberately shallow self-parody of Paul's emerging rep as a Folker.
One professional reviewer has declared that Folker embarrasses everything around it, and you know what? That is about right. Paul Westerberg set the bar pretty high for himself a long time ago, and he has hurdled it again.
I got a chance to see him in concert in February of this year (2005) at the Showbox in Seattle, and he was better than ever. Paul is not solo on this tour; he is backed with a full band. He sounded clear and strong. Much better than during his Seattle concert for the release of Grandpa Boy a couple years back. I honestly think his range is better than when he was in his twenties. This recent concert was two hours of uninterrupted High Folkage, with a four minute break in the middle. You gotta love that kind of focus in today's music world.
Obviously, Folker is a must-buy for 'Mats or Westerberg fans.
Thanks to my brother Mikey who sprang for the CD, so I could hear it from start to finish.
Liam Pierce
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good tunes; one classic, October 5, 2004
This is a good album. How can anyone hear As Far As I Know and not get what a great pop song is?
For that song alone, Paul gets 4 stars. But My Dad, Breathe some new life, Looking up in Heaven -- all terrific tunes.
I think the expectations were a wall-to-wall masterpiece. This isn't. But I ask: When has Paul made such a thing?
It's simple, if you like Paul: When he's good, he's greater than anything else. And when he's less than that -- well -- it's a processs. Those great ones come out of that processs. So, hate track 3, 4, 9 -- but the best tracks -- they're rock and roll with all the beauty and twisty honesty only Paul can make.
Perfect? No.
Paul? Yes.
Good Paul?
I refer you to As Far as I know.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Westerberg's Latest Worth a Listen, February 19, 2005
Every song on this album is well performed and well placed. The songs Mr. Westerberg delivers here show an increasing comfort with the way he wants to make music and express himself. There are some lonely songs that bring the world into the basement window. This album is probably closer to the music and process he wishes he could have made and released all along. This album is Lennon's "Double Fantasy" without all the studio dumbing up, overdubs and fluff (and Yoko). Listening to Lennon's home demos from the recent "Acoustic" release, one realizes the warmth and feel that was lost in the studio. This album isn't as easy to digest right out of the gate, but with a few listens, the substance, emotion and raw expression seep out of the cracks. "Gun Shy" is the album's single, so of course it's track 12 of 13. Mr. Westerberg has always been prone to burying the most appealing songs at the back of the drawer. If you like "Stereo" or "Suicaine Gratification" you'll be pleased to own this CD. Some themes come up a few times on the album, but that may be a reflection of where Mr. Westerberg's head is spending most of it's time and isn't a drastic change for those that have followed the Replacements and beyond. It's a very personal album with a solid mix of upbeat, slower, acoustic and electric songs.
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