silence kit #21

Paul Westerberg
Stereo/Mono [Vagrant, 2002]

It’s always fashionable to come across like a bit of an insufferable mope, and I remember 2002 being “chock-a-block” (fucking bureaucratic language) full of sad-sack records to mope along to. Let’s see, there were Aimee Mann’s Lost In Space and Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for sulky starters. Beck released Sea Change, which a lot of his fans hated but which I love because it pretended to sound like the saddest shit. Listened a lot to Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights that year too, but not sure if it falls under this category of discussion (though “NYC” definitely sounds mopey as hell). Another one would be the double album by one of my favorite songwriters, Paul Westerberg. A lot of the songs on Stereo/Mono don’t come across as really all that gloomy to begin with (particularly Mono, credited to his Grandpaboy moniker, which contains several really good, Replacements-like rock tunes), but if you read enough of the interviews Paul was giving at that time, you’d notice he sounded totally depressed, disgusted with the time he spent on a major label (three average, commercially dismal solo albums on Reprise and Capitol, if I remember correctly, each containing a few stunning songs still, of course) and eager to disappear completely. These two albums were Paul’s basement tapes, performed and recorded all by himself. I listen to Stereo a lot more (mainly because I don’t have a clue where my Mono CD is) so I am more acquainted to its songs. I have always been drawn to the softer, sadly beautiful side of his songwriting more, and Stereo, while admittedly an uneven listen, got quite a few of these songs: “Boring Enormous”, “Let the Bad Times Roll”, “Nothing To No One”; and “Only Lie Worth Telling”, which to me is quite possibly one of most heartbreaking songs Paul has ever written – only if you’re in the mood for that kind of sad shit though.