> Some of us
>old-school Mats fans don't necessarily want Westerberg to return to the
>"drunken poet" era of yesteryear--even though we may see all of his
>post-Pleased To Meet Me stuff as lesser works to one degree or another. For
>me, the "lesser" in question isn't contingent on "to drink or not drink." To
>me, the lesser at work is one of taste and passion. I just feel like he's
>mailin em in these days--and has been for some time. Live, he may
>resuscitate his earlier passion, but on disc it just doesn't sound like he
>cares whether I care or not. Maybe he does, but regardless, to suggest that
>I don't like PW's work because of some fantasy of juvenalia is as much a
>generalization as my earlier generalization was.
Yeah, what Lance says. I've long since consigned the memories of my Mats,
er, experiences (all of 'em, good and bad) to the category of fond memory,
and I don't spend a lot of time waxing nostalgic for those days. So I tend
to assess anything Paul does nowadays as I would the work of any artist;
maybe I'm more predisposed to like stuff he does before I hear it, but so
far, he hasn't failed to disappoint me on that score. I won't weigh in too
heavily on the new record because I haven't heard all or even most of it
yet, but what I have heard only confirms my ongoing assessment of
Waterbug's recent work: irrelevant, in a word.
I think Lance hits on something key when he says "it just doesn't sound
like he cares whether I care or not." Paul makes records for himself and
only himself (in a way that just wasn't true in the past; for all that the
Mats had a fuck-you attitude toward the world, they would have liked
nothing better than a big hit record), and increasingly, as he's shut
himself away in his house and refused to listen to anything by his peers
and contemporaries, his insularity has been reflected in his music. That
article that chronicled his emotional struggles was affecting enough, but
he doesn't seem to be able to translate all that emotion into his music
(though it sounds like maybe he does so on the new one), and instead just
expends effort on one-liners and retreads.
Done talking about Westerberg for this week,
Amy
