My Album Of The Week for the week of July 29th-August 4th, 2013:
Paul Westerberg - Stereo
I've been a fan of Paul Westerberg's solo stuff for quite some time and I'll be the first to admit that his solo catalog doesn't contain a lot of variety. Pretty much every album is filled with mid-tempo, most acoustic indie-folk. Each album is good for one or two pretty good singles, some great "kiss-off" lines and that's about it. To be completely honest, if Westy was just another singer/songwriter type and not "the guy behind The Replacements" I probably wouldn't have given his albums near as much time to grow on me.
However, he is the guy behind The Replacements and being able to follow his career from the early 80's up through today has been a richly rewarding experience as a whole (even without much variety). Stereo is one of those albums that I've had for years but hasn't received many spins. Frankly, it's just about the most mundane of the Westerberg solo albums I own. 80% of the songs on this one don't even have bass or drums, just some guitars and Westerberg's nasally singing. Whenever I'd try to listen to this one casually I'd find myself checking out halfway through because each song pretty much sounded like the last one.
Fortunately, that's why I do these Album Of The Week things. Albums that seem drab or mundane tend to reveal themselves if you're willing to put in the time. Spending a week listening to this one first thing in the morning will (hopefully) bring the differences in each song to the forefront and give the album a bit more color. Hopefully.
