Paul Westerberg: 14 Songs : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

At first, the diffidence of "14 Songs" seems like a strategy designed to downplay messianic expectations. Certainly, the stakes are high. Paul Westerberg, after all, helmed the Replacements, whose eight albums of anguish, truth-telling and glorious noise faced serious competition only from R.E.M.'s craftier pop in the college-radio wars of the '80s. Rather than a pronouncement from on high, Westerberg's solo debut comes on as pleas, gasps and chuckles. With guests like keyboardist Ian McLagan and bassist Rick Price, Paul assays jam-session rockers ("Silver Naked Ladies," "Knockin on Mine") and ballads ("Runaway Wind") whose strained poetry lacks the colloquial grace at which he excels.

But "14 Songs" grows on you. It's missing a slow song of the aching tenderness ("Here Comes a Regular," "Skyway") that was one of the Replacements' sweeter hallmarks. It doesn't boast the jazz-to-punk scope and daring embellishments that made "Pleased to Meet Me" an undeniable Mats classic. But it flourishes Westerberg's