at a glance...

Hometown:
Minneapolis, MN

Personnel:
Paul Westerberg: guitar, vocals

In the Family :
Grandpaboy, The Replacements

Notes:
It looked, for a few minutes there, like Paul Westerberg might become some kind of solo pop star. It was 1992, Seattle ruled the world, and Westerberg, as a man who knew a thing or two about emotive, intelligent, rough-edged rock 'n' roll (see: The Replacements), had been invited to contribute a couple of songs to the soundtrack of GrungeFilm Singles. His charming near-novelty number "Dyslexic Heart" was getting strangely popular, the way songs like that did back then (see: The Lemonheads), and it seemed as if the man who had led Minnesota's greatest rock band through so many artistic highs and career-sabotaging behavioral lows might, after so many false starts, "break through." It didn't work out; these things never did for Paul or his band. But that, like "You Be Me" before it, and like so many catchy tunes by artists whose catalogs run deep, ended up as a footnote on a solo career that despite record label hostility and massive changes in the musical landscape has provided some wonderfully rewarding music (see: Stereo and Mono) for fans of pure-bred, raw-edged rock and pop sung by one of the great voices of the late 20th century.