The Replacements

Disc one is a review of the 'Mats major label career that helps highlight some fine songs on their last two (underwhelming) albums. The second disc contains stellar rarities, throwaways and alternate versions and is essential for fans -- either version of "Can't Hardly Wait" is one of the best pop songs ever.

I never bought the theory that Warners tamed them--life generally has that effect anyway. But the all-for-nothing disc's selection from the slide made inevitable by Let It Be, which stands beside Wild Gift as Amerindie's very peak, short-changes the wild ("I Won't") and the tasteless ("Waitress in the Sky"); you'd be better off with Tim. The miscellaneous arcana on the nothing-for-all disc, however, are pretty unkempt for a pop band in the process of mastering its craft as it loses its purpose--a blues, a lo-fi proposition, a Disney cover, B sides, what-all. In fact, although or because it's a mess, it's got more pizzazz than either of their two final albums. No "Aching to Be," that's for sure. (Grade - A-)