All Shook Down (studio album) by The Replacements

All Shook Down, the final album under the name The Replacements, is primary Paul Westerberg, with help from several musicians and some contributions from the other band members.

All Shook Down is another solid entry in the group's catalog. After the glossy production of Don't Tell a Soul, All Shook Down returns to a cleaner, crisper sound. It also brings back the Memphis horns, a nice touch for this bittersweet album. The heart-on-sleeve approach makes even a handful of OK tracks sound charming.

The influence on Wilco is very apparent here, especially with the sparse acoustic production.

Highly Recommended.

Condensed to a 7" Single:
A-Side: Merry Go Round
B-Side: When It Began

Underrated by 'Mats fans and I get why. It's more of a Westerberg solo album than a band effort. But if you don't know those things, if you are just a 15 year old kid in Indiana buying albums in 1990 and you buy this record because you saw the Merry Go Round video on 120 minutes then you can listen to this album as just an album without baggage. And here's the thing, it's an amazing album. And put any other band's name on it and it would blow people away instead of disappointing them for not being what was expected. All Shook Down is one one of my favorite albums by anybody at any time.

From Brad1770 12/15/2018 05:13

Even though this album is widely considered a Paul Westerberg solo album for the purposes of this review it will be considered as The Replacements final release

The Replacements in many ways echo the career of R.E.M with 'All Shook Down': both darling indi bands who find major label success only to misfire late in their careers (R.E.M with 'Around The Sun' and 'Accelerate' , The Replacements with 'Don't Tell A Soul') , only to ultimately find redemption with good final albums - R.E.M with 'Collapse Into Now' and The Replacements with 'All Shook Down'

'All Shook Down' is largely an acoustic piece with its strong point lyrical content rather than musicality . There's a real sense with this album that Westerberg knows this is the end and there's a sad reflection throughout in terms of where did it all go wrong ? Westerberg's self deprecation has always been front an centre and the theme continues on 'A.S.D' , take for example these lines from track 6 "Someone Take the Wheel":

'I see we're fighting again
In some fucking land
Throw in another tape man
Someone take the wheel
And I don't know where we're going
Anybody say what you feel
Everybody's sad, but nobody's showing'

This track perfectly encapsulates where the band were at this junction in time

Interestingly the 2 best tracks on this album feature guest contributors with John Cale (Velvet Underground) playing viola on the excellent "Sadly Beautiful" and Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde) dueting with Westerberg on "My Little Problem." .

And so this incredible phase of The Replacements career comes to a close with the prophetic "The Last" very much like to the Beatles 'The End' on Abbey Road

Like a shooting star The Replacements came into our lives in 1981 and by 1990 the star had re-entered earths atmosphere and disappeared but not before it left an indelible mark on music with some timeless tracks "I Will Dare" , "Here Comes A Regular" , "Bastards Of Young" , "Skyway" , "Can't Hardly " .. just to name a few , and that incredible quad release of albums starting with 'Hootenanny'(1983) , followed by 'Let It Be' (1984) , followed by 'Tim' ( 1985) , followed by 'Pleased To Meet Me' (1987) .. 4 albums that were quite simply breathtaking

It has been remarked that Paul Westerberg is either the greatest song writer in the history of rock or the luckiest , from someone that has followed their career closely the truth be told is some where in the middle

The Replacements: The Greatest Band That Never Was

All Shook Down: 55/100

The Replacement Legacy: un-quantifiable