Under Warner, the band moved toward a more polished sound, but its volatile chemistry was disrupted. Unfortunately, the essential songs from this period-"Answering Machine," "Unsatisfied," "Color Me Impressed"-are not included on the compilation, which picks up the band's story only after it switched from the Minneapolis indie Twin/Tone to the major label Warner Brothers. Like X, the Replacements came out of a hard-core punk background, only to slow the tempo, pump up the soul and find a truly original voice on albums such as "Hootenanny" and "Let It Be." On these landmarks, songwriter Paul Westerberg perfected a persona that suggested a stray dog caught in the rain, equally poignant and comical. X, the Replacements and countless other faceless combos were lumped under the umbrella of "post-punk," "modern rock" or "indie rock"-a movement that planted the seed for what became known as "alternative," the mainstream guitar rock of the '90s. "We are the sons of no one/Bastards of young," the Replacements declared with a mixture of defiance and delight in 1985. Most just faded away, unmourned except by a knowing few.
Their bond was punk's liberating, anyone-can-do-it aesthetic, and the question they all faced, and answered with varying degrees of success, was what to do when it became apparent that the music would not find the broader audience it deserved. Rock 'n' roll was no different: The music of X was forged in a new subculture, a secret society of bands and listeners joined by mutual disgust for the mainstream in general and mainstream rock in particular. White-trash post-punk bands like X were on the outside looking in at this world-is it any wonder that their music sounded more urgent than just about anything else produced in the '80s? Ronald Reagan was settling into the White House for a long stay, and everywhere in society the gulf between the haves and have-nots was about to widen.