Track listing
Show track credits
- 1 Merry Go Round 3:39
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drums
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- 2 One Wink at a Time 3:02
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saxophone
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- 3 Nobody 3:06
- 4 Bent Out of Shape 3:42
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engineer
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drums
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- 5 Sadly Beautiful 3:09
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viola
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- 6 Someone Take the Wheel 3:37
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drums
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backing vocals
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- 7 When It Began 3:07
- 8 All Shook Down 3:16
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ocarina
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- 9 Attitude 2:43
- 10 Happy Town 2:54
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drums
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- 11 Torture 1:51
- 12 My Little Problem 4:09
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drums
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vocals
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- 13 The Last 2:54
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drums
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- Total length: 41:09
Rate/Catalog
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10 Issues
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All Shook Down [p]
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All Shook Down Bonus Tracks, Remastered
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All Shook Down Bonus Tracks, Remastered
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All Shook Down 33 rpm
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All Shook Down 33 rpm
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All Shook Down [translucent red vinyl] Colored Vinyl
36 Reviews
Esoteric Review #78
After another late-night shutting down the bar, three of the Replacements, Paul, Tommy and Chris try to sneak into Tommy's mother, Catherine's house to get some more booze. They accidentally wake her up, but she's not upset. Happy to see her son and his friends, and despite their polite refusals, Catherine reheats some of the chicken parmigiana she had in the fridge. She tells the boys to go sit down and eat. Tommy: Hey ma, can i borrow this bottle opener? Somebody threw some beer at us at the show last night and the top of the bottle...what d'ya call it...the...top part...
Chris: The neck.
Tommy: The neck. The neck of the bottle got stuck in the amp and I gotta hack it off.
Catherine: Oh!
Tommy: Ah, Ma, it's a sin, I can't leave it there...
Chris: This is delicious.
Catherine: Thank you. Did Tommy ever tell you boys about the photo I took...maybe you could use it for your next album cover.
(Catherine pulls out the photograph.)
Tommy: I like this one. One dog goes one way and the other goes the other.
Catherine: One's going east, the other’s going west. So what?
PAUL: Whaddya want from me?
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I only wish this was titled "The Rod Stewart Album"
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The Replacements last album or Paul Westerberg's first solo album depending on who you ask, All Shook Down finds The Replacements going out on a high if not quite riotous note after a career of drinking too much, fighting too much, reaching for the stars, and falling flat on their faces. Making this album simply to fulfill their record contract and featuring a host of guest performers who wanted the "honor" of playing on a 'Mats album, the actual band only play all together on one cut here and spend the rest of the album popping up here and there, but never as the full group of Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, Chris Mars, and Slim Dunlop. In fact band and guest musicians (the likes of which include notables such as John Cale, Benmont Tench, and Steve Berlin) one and all are credited simply as "Contributors", and nothing further. So in this reviewers opinion if you are looking for a 'Mats album here, get ready to make an adjustment. And say hello to Mr. Paul Westerberg, songwriter. You might just like who you meet and what you hear.
The album gets off to a bouncy start with the single "Merry Go Round", and the track finds Westerberg covering one of his favorite topics (being misunderstood) and pinning the troubles on and dishing out the sympathy to the young woman who is his subject. Things continue along this same line for the next two tunes with Westerberg waxing poetic about a gal on an airplane in the slight, very un-Replacements like track "One Wink At A Time" and solid mid tempo rocker "Nobody". One of the stand out songs on the album, this third tune on the record finds Westerberg in his grown up clothes warning an ex lover after her wedding day that "you like the frosting / You just bought the cake" and that she is "still in love with nobody / And I used to be nobody". This song puts Paul's full songwriting skills on display and his word play is indeed catchy from beginning to end, painting a vivid picture of a loser in love trying to convince the one who once loved him she's made a mistake and he wishes it were him. Same themes as we have heard from Westerberg before, but with the stakes just a little higher in the real world of love and marraige and permanent loss. The lovable loser gets a life.
The band shows up in total for the first and last time on the album for the next track up, the very Replacements like rocker "Bent Out Of Shape", which finds Paul once again lamenting the loss of a lover he didn't want but needed, as he tells her "you kept me straight", and with her he "never felt better". The band rocks hard here and Paul delivers his lyrics of a downtrodden lover with just the right amount of edgy angst and self pitying anger (the same thing, most likely) to get the job done in classic 'Mats fashion. Albeit the more mature version of the band. And if you can't imagine that, this song will do it for you.
Quieting things substantially for the tender and affecting ballad "Sadly Beautiful" and uneven, mid tempo, nowhere is home tale "Someone Take The Wheel", the album settles back down into the easy going song craft of the songwriter, and by the time the second half of the album kicks off with the light hearted and whimsical "When It Began" it's clear that this really isn't a Replacements album at all, but Paul Westerberg wrapping up the band with a set of tunes that are his and his alone. Which is nothing new for him being the songwriter in the group, but you can tell these songs weren't written for the Replacements. Which isn't a bad thing, as these are for the most part very solid tracks. But they are Replacement tunes only in name. So if that is what you are looking for, you may want to look or start elsewhere with this band.
After the musically vague throwaway title track and lightweight solo acoustic pop of "Attitude", things get rocking (kind of) once again with the failed dreams and surviving tune "Happy Town", where Westerberg warns "The plan was to set the world on fire / But it rains everyday on the liar", and the song finishes in a semi shambiling mess. For old times sake, I suppose. Next up we find one of the better and shorter songs on the album in the acoustic guitar dominated breezy pop of "Torture". Never a stranger to a great pop hook even in his garage/pop/punk days, the simple melody and flowing word play gets the listener from the very start here. Again waxing romantic and with lyrics like "A million baby kisses / From a kissing booth on wheels / This sign is pretty poison / On the envelope she seals / And your love is by the way / Who knows exactly how she feels" it's hard to say what the singer is going on about? But he let's us know in the choruses whatever it is "without her / It's torture". And we really don't care what he means by songs end. It's just one minute and fifty one seconds of catchy, hummable music. Same as with the old band. And so as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The album wraps up with the forced and unremarkable rocker "My Little Problem", featuring Concrete Blonde singer Johnette Napolitano on raving guest vocals. This song manages the unfortunate feat of sounding neither like a Replacements or Westerberg track as it scurries around without ever taking off, and simply falls off the end of the record. The closing tune, "The Last", finds Westerberg alone at the piano accompanied by gentle bass, guitar, and brush drums and once again taking on the romances of a female loser in love as he asks "Would it hurt to fall in love a little slower / I know it hurts at any speed" and advises of a recent relationship "Make this one your last / 'Cause this one child is killing you". And with that The Replacements do indeed take their last breath as an idea, a band, and a vehicle for Paul Westerberg's ever evolving tales of lovable and unloveable messed up, broken, sometimes drunken, but oft times spirited losers.
All Shook Down is a very good album. Full of well crafted and well performed songs, featuring a host of top notch guest musicians, and produced by REM collaborator Scott Litt, it's got a little something of everything. From pop to rock to ballads to a rave up or two. However you choose to view the album is besides the point. Call it The Replacements last or Paul Westerberg's first, nothing changes the fact that it makes a pretty good (if somewhat different) finish for one of rocks great rock n roll bands or a fine start for one of rocks better songwriters beginning to branch out on his own. Accepted on it's own terms All Shook Down will shake you up just enough to get your butt shaking, heart racing, and toes tapping throughout. And that's just about as much as you can ask of any record. No matter who it's by or what you call it.
The album gets off to a bouncy start with the single "Merry Go Round", and the track finds Westerberg covering one of his favorite topics (being misunderstood) and pinning the troubles on and dishing out the sympathy to the young woman who is his subject. Things continue along this same line for the next two tunes with Westerberg waxing poetic about a gal on an airplane in the slight, very un-Replacements like track "One Wink At A Time" and solid mid tempo rocker "Nobody". One of the stand out songs on the album, this third tune on the record finds Westerberg in his grown up clothes warning an ex lover after her wedding day that "you like the frosting / You just bought the cake" and that she is "still in love with nobody / And I used to be nobody". This song puts Paul's full songwriting skills on display and his word play is indeed catchy from beginning to end, painting a vivid picture of a loser in love trying to convince the one who once loved him she's made a mistake and he wishes it were him. Same themes as we have heard from Westerberg before, but with the stakes just a little higher in the real world of love and marraige and permanent loss. The lovable loser gets a life.
The band shows up in total for the first and last time on the album for the next track up, the very Replacements like rocker "Bent Out Of Shape", which finds Paul once again lamenting the loss of a lover he didn't want but needed, as he tells her "you kept me straight", and with her he "never felt better". The band rocks hard here and Paul delivers his lyrics of a downtrodden lover with just the right amount of edgy angst and self pitying anger (the same thing, most likely) to get the job done in classic 'Mats fashion. Albeit the more mature version of the band. And if you can't imagine that, this song will do it for you.
Quieting things substantially for the tender and affecting ballad "Sadly Beautiful" and uneven, mid tempo, nowhere is home tale "Someone Take The Wheel", the album settles back down into the easy going song craft of the songwriter, and by the time the second half of the album kicks off with the light hearted and whimsical "When It Began" it's clear that this really isn't a Replacements album at all, but Paul Westerberg wrapping up the band with a set of tunes that are his and his alone. Which is nothing new for him being the songwriter in the group, but you can tell these songs weren't written for the Replacements. Which isn't a bad thing, as these are for the most part very solid tracks. But they are Replacement tunes only in name. So if that is what you are looking for, you may want to look or start elsewhere with this band.
After the musically vague throwaway title track and lightweight solo acoustic pop of "Attitude", things get rocking (kind of) once again with the failed dreams and surviving tune "Happy Town", where Westerberg warns "The plan was to set the world on fire / But it rains everyday on the liar", and the song finishes in a semi shambiling mess. For old times sake, I suppose. Next up we find one of the better and shorter songs on the album in the acoustic guitar dominated breezy pop of "Torture". Never a stranger to a great pop hook even in his garage/pop/punk days, the simple melody and flowing word play gets the listener from the very start here. Again waxing romantic and with lyrics like "A million baby kisses / From a kissing booth on wheels / This sign is pretty poison / On the envelope she seals / And your love is by the way / Who knows exactly how she feels" it's hard to say what the singer is going on about? But he let's us know in the choruses whatever it is "without her / It's torture". And we really don't care what he means by songs end. It's just one minute and fifty one seconds of catchy, hummable music. Same as with the old band. And so as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The album wraps up with the forced and unremarkable rocker "My Little Problem", featuring Concrete Blonde singer Johnette Napolitano on raving guest vocals. This song manages the unfortunate feat of sounding neither like a Replacements or Westerberg track as it scurries around without ever taking off, and simply falls off the end of the record. The closing tune, "The Last", finds Westerberg alone at the piano accompanied by gentle bass, guitar, and brush drums and once again taking on the romances of a female loser in love as he asks "Would it hurt to fall in love a little slower / I know it hurts at any speed" and advises of a recent relationship "Make this one your last / 'Cause this one child is killing you". And with that The Replacements do indeed take their last breath as an idea, a band, and a vehicle for Paul Westerberg's ever evolving tales of lovable and unloveable messed up, broken, sometimes drunken, but oft times spirited losers.
All Shook Down is a very good album. Full of well crafted and well performed songs, featuring a host of top notch guest musicians, and produced by REM collaborator Scott Litt, it's got a little something of everything. From pop to rock to ballads to a rave up or two. However you choose to view the album is besides the point. Call it The Replacements last or Paul Westerberg's first, nothing changes the fact that it makes a pretty good (if somewhat different) finish for one of rocks great rock n roll bands or a fine start for one of rocks better songwriters beginning to branch out on his own. Accepted on it's own terms All Shook Down will shake you up just enough to get your butt shaking, heart racing, and toes tapping throughout. And that's just about as much as you can ask of any record. No matter who it's by or what you call it.
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Let's not kid ourselves, this is a Paul Westerberg solo record. If you've heard anything from his six(!) solo records, it always sounds like this: pleasant mid tempo rock. And every single song on here is credited to Westerberg alone. All of the excitement had been sucked out of the Mats by 1990 and I can only imagine that it paid a lot more for the band members and Westerberg --- probably due to their recording contract --- to release this under the name, "The Replacements" rather than under "Paul Westerberg." This kind of feels like an artist that is newly sober; all of the danger is gone. Though, I'm not sure why I enjoy records from binge drinkers and drug-addled artists more than sober ninnies. The cover art is more than apt; a couple of bored, wet dogs standing in some desolate town on a drizzly day. You can't get much more blah than that. "Sadly Beautiful" is a nice ballad. "Someone Take the Wheel" is also nice. And so is "Nobody." It's all very polite. The pop hooks on the two songs that Westerberg contributed a year later to the Singles soundtrack are much better than anything here. Perhaps Westerberg was saving his good stuff for when he got out from under the Replacements moniker. I would actually recommend purchasing Westerberg's solo double album, Stereo/Mono, before buying this.
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All Shook Down is not the Replacements' best album or anything like that, but I think it is quite an upgrade from their prior album Don't Tell a Soul, as I find this album to feel more in their style and just overall better, but still not the strongest.
Published
This is my first Replacements album which judging by the ratings on this website is a terrible idea but oh well, this is the CD that I have stashed in a shoebox in my office closet. There are moments that shine through the 1990-alt-rock-fog where a big fun rockin' guitar part comes through but a lot of this is jangly and uninspired and soft. From the Replacement singles that I've heard they're best when there is some near-punk intensity and emotion behind their songs and these just sound like hangout tunes. Half of these feels like castoffs from when they wrote Androgynous. There's just no excitement on this record so it struggles to rise above passive enjoyment BUT it is enjoyable. This isn't bad but it does feel dated and phoned in. Even the cover looks like a band's late-era album like Chinese Democracy or that 2013 Alkaline Trio record.
Published
Even with my low expectations this one just kind of fell flat. People say it’s ostensibly a Westerberg solo record but this one really feels like it lacks any of the charm, hooks, or immediacy of his normal writing. Even on his solo work Westerberg is capable of crafting some infectious hooks that make the songs worthwhile. This album just is full of plods and a few rockers that don’t really go anywhere or do much. Even the more ballad-y tracks just seem to totally lack character.
The previous record wasn’t amazing either but at least had a few memorable tracks and spawned a fan favorite in Talent Show. Westerberg’s debut solo album that followed this would have more life in one track than this entire album. This really feels like a record made out of obligation above all else.
The previous record wasn’t amazing either but at least had a few memorable tracks and spawned a fan favorite in Talent Show. Westerberg’s debut solo album that followed this would have more life in one track than this entire album. This really feels like a record made out of obligation above all else.
Published
I am still relatively new to The Replacements sound and the previous albums I had heard I had found him to be very angry,
This album is a bit mellow with a jangle pop sound. Paul has a unique style of writing and singing his lyrics, much is left to imagination but he does paint the picture of relationships,feelings and about life in general.
Listen to "Sadly Beautiful" and you can see the depth of the lyrics. Same thing with Nobody a great use of the pun in the title.
Highlights: Nobody; Sadly Beautiful; Merry Go Round; When It Began; One wink; Attitude; Torture
This album is a bit mellow with a jangle pop sound. Paul has a unique style of writing and singing his lyrics, much is left to imagination but he does paint the picture of relationships,feelings and about life in general.
Listen to "Sadly Beautiful" and you can see the depth of the lyrics. Same thing with Nobody a great use of the pun in the title.
Highlights: Nobody; Sadly Beautiful; Merry Go Round; When It Began; One wink; Attitude; Torture
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