World Class Fad

The Zoo Crew has got this one spinning right now for all you Zoo Freaks out there tuned in to THE ZOO, and “World Class Fad” off Paul Westerberg’s 14 Songs hits with that raw edge the man has always delivered. It’s one of those tracks that grabs you with the crunch of the guitars and the way he spits out lines about chasing something bigger while reminding you not to lose the trail back home. The song sits third on the album that came out in 1993, right after the Replacements had called it a day, and it climbed all the way to number four on the alternative rock singles chart. That was no small deal for a guy stepping out on his own, and college radio latched onto it hard while the rest of the record mixed those straight-ahead rockers with the quieter moments that showed Westerberg still had the heart of a poet under the snarl.

In the booklet that came with 14 Songs, Westerberg mentioned the title itself came from a nod to J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories. A friend of his named Laurie floated the idea of calling it Nine Songs, but with fourteen tracks that just wouldn’t have worked, and he didn’t want one of those jokey band names the Replacements used to pick. He wanted the songs to be the star of the show instead of the guy who wrote them. When Rolling Stone asked him what the record sounded like, he put it plain: it was just him, the sound of a thirty-three-year-old guy who lives alone and enjoys it, not part of a group anymore and comfortable right where he was. Years later he looked back and said the album had some overly written songs with huge expectations, but plenty of fans still swear by it, especially the way “World Class Fad” snarls like the old days while warning about what happens when you want it that bad.

A lot of folks figured the song was aimed at Kurt Cobain, given the timing and the lines about looking fantastic in a cast-off casket and whose suicide you’re on. Westerberg shut that down more than once. In one interview he said he never respected Cobain enough to write something about him, that he was never a big Nirvana fan because the music had too much plod and didn’t swing, with that allegiance to metal he never cared for. Later he admitted he knew for a fact Cobain thought the song was about him, and he felt bad the man died because he was a major talent. Still, he pointed out the Replacements had too much humor to go out like that, and he saw echoes of what happened to their own Bob Stinson if the band had gotten huge before they figured out how to handle it. The lyrics themselves talk about leaving a trail of crumbs and remembering where you started from if you really want it that bad, which feels like advice he might have been giving himself as much as anyone else chasing the spotlight.

Josh Freese played drums on the track in the studio, a friend of producer Matt Wallace, and the whole album brought in folks like former Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan plus backing vocals from Joan Jett. Westerberg handled most of the guitars and the lead vocals himself, keeping that slightly messy feel the Replacements were known for even as he stepped into the solo lane. The video that went with the single showed him sitting and playing guitar in his bed, looking in the mirror, and it turned out to be directed by Zack Snyder way back at the start of that guy’s career. It all fit the moment: Westerberg had already put a couple of songs on the Singles soundtrack the year before, and 14 Songs locked in that he could carry a full record on his own without the band around him.

Westerberg got his start the old-fashioned way out in Minneapolis. He was born on the last day of 1959, and by the time he was twelve he bought his first guitar off his sister for ten bucks after mowing the family lawn enough times to scrape it together. The neck was bowed so bad he could barely play a chord at first, but that just made it better practice. He dropped out of high school, picked up work as a janitor in the offices of Senator David Durenberger, and one day walking home he heard a band called Dogbreath practicing in a basement. They were tearing through Yes’s “Roundabout” at ridiculous speed and volume. He started walking past that house every day, then showed up at one of their house shows and talked his way in. He convinced the singer the other guys were about to fire him, the singer quit, and Westerberg stepped up. The band became the Impediments, then the Replacements once they started getting gigs and needed a name venues would actually put on the marquee.

He wrote songs in his parents’ basement during the day, ripping off Johnny Thunders riffs at first and mixing in the Who, the Raspberries, the Sex Pistols, and all that seventies pop radio he grew up on. Tommy Stinson was just a kid on bass with an amp bigger than he was, Bob Stinson on guitar, and Chris Mars on drums. Westerberg became the singer and the main songwriter because somebody had to, and he liked the Stinsons’ sister enough to stick around. The Replacements played those early Twin Cities shows drunk and loud, three albums and an EP on the local Twin/Tone label before Sire came calling. They never turned the critical love into big sales, but the songs stuck with people, and when the band finally wrapped it up in 1991 Westerberg was ready to keep going on his own. The same restless energy that got him into that basement band is still in tracks like “World Class Fad,” the kind of thing that reminds you rock and roll works best when you remember the dirt you started from.

You can dig deeper into all of it over at the fan archive that keeps the discography and stories alive, including the full track list from 14 Songs, right here at paulwesterberg.net. The old X account is still out there at @PaulWesterberg if you want to scroll back through the occasional posts. Fans gather in the Facebook group Paul Westerberg & The Replacements and the unofficial page at Paul Westerberg - Unofficial where the stories and old photos keep circulating. Spin it again if you want, Zoo Freaks. The needle’s still in the groove and the record’s got plenty left.