Besterberg, Where’s the Resterberg?
What a disappointing decade and a half it’s been for fans of Paul Westerberg. The mercurial former lead singer for the mighty Replacements moved from glossy pop rock to over-produced singer-songwriter navelgazing to under-produced home recording reclusiveness, from major label “next big thing” to indie label “has been,” from sober to drinking again. Westerberg’s cult status is consecrated, to an extent, by the Rhino collection, “BESTerberg: The Best of Paul Westerberg,” a curious 20 song collection culled from six of his nine albums, plus assorted extras, that feels like a condensed version of what should have been a three record set. B-sides and soundtrack contributions, like his anemic cover of “Nowhere Man” and the AIDS-themed rocker “Stain Yer Blood” (finally available without the “witty banter” from the tv show “Friends”) properly belong on a fuller collection of odds and sods (call it “RESTerberg”), along with some good stuff that didn’t […]