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Sunday 6 June 2010

The Replacements 'I Will Dare'


The Replacements started as a punk inspired band in early 80s Minneapolis, but swiftly moved beyond the hardcore stylings into something less hectic. Lead songwriter Paul Westerberg hit his stride with 1983's Hootenany and then perfected it with 1984's Let It Be. The band repeatedly blew major opportunities, usually due to alcohol consumption and fear of success/selling out. The Let It Be album is their high water mark, containing some great songs (I Will Dare, Unsatisfied, Answering Machine, Androgynous, Sixteen Blue) but being a Replacements album they still sabotaged their best shot (songs on the album included Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out and Gary's Got A Boner). This song is a U.S. alt-rock classic, contains a Peter Buck (from REM) guitar solo, and rattles along brilliantly, the right side of shambolic, with a great vocal. Westerberg said it was about how the band would 'dare to do anything... dare to fail', which kind of sums them up.

13 I Will Dare.wma

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