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“TIM”, The Replacements (Rhino)

If you believe that the worst thing a band can do is sign to a major record label, then 1985 was the year of the Replacements demise.

But it’s obvious in Rhino’s new rerelease of the band’s ’85 gem “Tim” that jumping to the big leagues didn’t faze the ’Mats much at all.

The band continued the bull-in-a-China-shop romp it had always made through the rock ‘n’ roll cannon. Taking bits from Duane Eddy, Alex Chilton, the Faces, the Rolling Stones and Roy Orbison, the band distilled their influences through the contemporary underground rock scene of the 1980s. Though they are often associated with the hard core punk rockers Minneapolis was churning out at that time, they did get some inspiration for their early records from those acts, as well as contemporaries like Hüsker Dü.

But by the time “Tim” came around, the band was more like an underground Springsteen, writing bar-band anthems that boasted tight, aggressive instrumentation. Critics of the band’s later years (’85 on) say that the ’Mats lost their edge, that sloppy drunk playfulness that made people forgive the band’s occasional flubs. They say the band was neutered by the clean quality of the major label recording equipment.

But listening to “Tim” again, the clean sound only adds to what was frontman Paul Westerberg’s best set of songs. There are three genre defining anthems, “Bastards of Young,” “Left of the Dial” and “Here Comes the Regular.” But more importantly, there aren’t any bad songs. For once the band took itself seriously, even when it wasn’t being entirely straight, so there weren’t any songs like “Gary’s Got a Boner.”

That doesn’t mean every song was reserved. The Replacements were still a rock ‘n’ roll band, first and foremost, with one foot firmly planted in the Clash and Ramones school of punk on “Dose of Thunder.” There were definite nods to Chuck Berry on “I’ll Buy” and the ode to young lust “Kiss Me on the Bus.”

The latter was the first Replacements song I ever heard. A friend gave me a mix tape of ’80s indie rock about eight years ago. There were plenty of familiar bands — The Cure, Pixies, The Jesus and Mary Chain and R.E.M. — but it was “Kiss Me on the Bus” that I couldn’t stop playing. It was so simple and rubbed red. Westerberg’s lyrics didn’t beat around any bushes. He took the straightest line possible. It was easy to identify with.

And while I’ve come to appreciate much of “Tim” as being better than “Kiss Me” (especially “Left of the Dial” a love song that’s become an anthem for the joys of college rock radio) that song represents the perfect middle point between the loose ’Mats that critics tend to favor and the more intelligent Replacements that would unfortunately inspire a legion heart-on-the-sleeve rockers like Goo Goo Dolls.