Ten years ago, Paul Westerberg was one of the angriest brats in rock. His former band, the Replacements, played walloping three-chord punk songs like “Take Me Down to the Hospital” and “Gary’s Got a Boner” and regularly went onstage too drunk to perform. As Westerberg grew older and more sober, his songwriting grew more tentative; too often he sounded like a watered-down version of his brash young self. But with his new solo album, “Eventually,” he’s finally come to terms with the wimpiness within. Every song is a pretty pop gem, unapologetically bright and sweet, decorated in ooo-ooo’s and whoa-oh’s that would sound corny if they didn’t come from such a rough, craggy voice. “MamaDaddyDid” puts a bouncy guitar melody against some hard-won sentiments: “Decided not to raise some goddamn kid/Just like my mom and daddy did.” “I’m mightily tired of loud guitars posing as rock and roll,” Westerberg says. “A loud guitar does not signify rebellion to me at all. The most rebellious thing I can do is turn the guitar down. You can’t hide when it’s stripped down, and I’m proud of that.”
Mark Eitzel’s been fighting the wimpy-guy fight for years now. Since 1985, he’s recorded several albums (first with his band American Music Club, now on his own) of increasingly ambitious guitar-and-piano-based pop. His breathtaking new album, “60 Watt Silver Lining,” is his most consistently remarkable set of songs to date. “Saved” and “Sacred Heart” combine the baroque melodies of Burt Bacharach with a streak of Randy Newmanesque cynicism. What sets Eitzel apart from the ’60s pop tradition is his impressionistic, self-lacerating lyrics. “This summer the sun was a shotgun pointed down at me/And I was just another ugly American melting in the heat,” he sings in “Southend on Sea,” against a jazzy, horn-embellished midtempo. “I think what I’m doing is pretty commercial, but nobody else does,” says Eitzel. “It’s too personal. But I can’t do anything else. I don’t have the knack to be trendy. I try. I wear nice clothes. I’ve got Airwalks. Maybe there’s a little bit in me that writes these songs because they’re unfashionable.”
Scud Mountain Boys (yep, that’s their name, don’t wear it out) weren’t cursed with wimpiness, they chose it. A few years ago, they were the Scuds, just another rock band kicking around Northampton, Mass. Then they slowed down, quieted down, changed their name and signed with the hipster Seattle label Sub Pop. Their wonderful album “Massachusetts” flaunts the kind of sources most alternative guys would be embarrassed to admit to: the Eagles, Glen Campbell, the Carpenters. The songs are lush and laid back, with ripe acoustic melodies and lyrics about being too drunk or stoned to care about girls who ditch you. Westerberg, Eitzel and Scud Mountain Boys wisely know that shouting isn’t always the best way to be heard. “When everyone is doing it,” says Westerberg, “no one is listening.” At times like that, wimpiness isn’t so wimpy after all.
