The Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me (Deluxe Edition) (2020) Hi Res

Addition by subtraction? A punk band selling out? Audio distortion as an artistic principal? The sound of a boom box cranked up? Where's Bob? The Replacements' Pleased to Meet Me continues to answer all these questions and more.

In 1986, like a snake shedding its skin, the Minneapolis foursome parted ways with guitarist Bob Stinson, leaving a trio of his younger brother Tommy on bass, drummer Chris Mars and singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg. Westerberg's poppier, more intimate songs and growing ambitions for success immediately began to transform the band. For their fifth album the threesome ended up at Memphis' Ardent Studios in the capable hands of Jim Dickinson, the producer of Big Star's Third, the pianist heard on The Stones' "Wild Horses," and a collaborator with Bob Dylan and Ry Cooder. Described in the liner notes by friends as a "Southern mad scientist," Dickinson engaged in a psychodrama-mind meld with the band and the result was an album that both band and producer would forever after be known for.

Because record labels have come to realize that extras are needed for reissues to succeed, two ideas predominate: demos to show how songs were shaped and unreleased concert material to show how the material matured when played live. First reissued with extra tracks in 2008, Rhino's new Pleased to Meet Me reissue is a deep dive into how the tunes evolved from early demos, through rough mixes, outtakes, alternates and tracks that appeared only as singles to a 2020 remaster of the original album. Of the 55 tracks in this reissue, 29 have never been released before. The early demos from Blackberry Way Studios in Minneapolis—which contain Bob Stinson's last recordings with the band—show that the material had structure and rudimentary arrangements before Memphis. The rough mixes of tunes like "Alex Chilton" by Ardent's John Hampton, have a clattery, spacious ambiance and show how much tightening had yet to be done. Of the rough mixes, "Can't Hardly Wait" is a tick slower than the issued take and Dickinson's rollicking piano part on raucous opener "IOU" is lifted up in the mix.

An early digital recording which made extensive use of a Fairlight sampler, the sound of Pleased to Meet Me has always been aggressive and embellished, tarted up with touches like the broken glass in "Shooting Dirty Pool," the opening distortion of "Red Red Wine," and Chris and Tommy's opening laughter, their zombie Greek chorus and the mid tune sax growl in "I Don't Know." The oddball lounge jazz of "Nightclub Jitters" is appropriately atmospheric and cool while the "The Ledge," the album's chosen single has the requisite "big" sound which was then attractive to alternative radio and MTV. Visceral but melodic, tender but defiant, as fierce a rock record now as it was the day it was released, Pleased to Meet Me, still epitomizes what producer Dickinson calls in the liner notes, "recording the feeling in your soul while you're playing."