Search - Paul Westerberg :: Grandpaboy

A hot'un full of twangy surprises!

07/08/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"First off, for those who don't know, Grandpaboy is actually Paul Westerberg. Due to restrictions placed by his former label "grandpaboy" is not allowed to release anything under his own name. But enough with the trivia....I have been wanting this CD for a quite some time, having first gotten a taste of grandpaboy from THE modern rock station, 97x. Three songs (lush and green, hotun, and homelessexual) were in heavy rotation for a while. L&G was the first one out. I found it to be rather serious and deep. When it was followed by the playfully perverted "HotUn" I was delightfully surprised to find out it was by the same artist. This ability to pull off a wide variety of songs is usually not attributed to modern rockers. "Homelessexual" juxtaposes country-twang against provacative, "not-nashville" lyrical topics. The sound bites of "Ain't Done Much" and "Psychopharmacology" show much of the same twang/rock juxtapositions. I find the tunes to be quite catchy and the lyrics (aside from the serious "Lush & Green") to be humourous. Listen to these songs once... and you'll be singing them for weeks."

Pure Westerberg For Now People

D. Klees | United States | 11/08/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Following the break-up of the Replacements, Paul Westerberg came on strong as a solo artist with a pair of wonderful songs for the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's movie "Singles", including the excellent "Dyslexic Heart." He followed those bursts of brilliance with full length albums, which never quite gelled and seemed all the more frustrating because of what their creator had already proven himself capable. "Grandpaboy" then was the moment where he seemed to re-capture lightning in a bottle, with five blasts of back-to-basics song-craft.Of course, that last term has a slightly different meaning for Westerberg than it does for many former and would-be alternative rock heroes. In his case, back-to-basics means a return to that precarious balance between snotty and insightful and swaggering that has marked most of his best work. It opens with the winning Rolling Stones-y burst of "Hot Un" and continues through the remaining four songs. The end result is substantial enough to remind us of the prodigious talent Westerberg is, but not so long that the welcome is worn out. The last bit is important, because it must be admitted that the songs here do not represent his best work. That said, there is plenty here to support the belief that not all of that best work is behind him."

Surprsingly Good

Jeff Glass | Chicago, IL United States | 07/21/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Grandpaboy" is an alias for Paul Westerberg, who recorded this EP on a shoestring budget and put it out on a friend's tiny label. When you look at the CD packaging, it seems like a joke.But, as with The Replacements, the joke is deceiving. This CD actually contains two Westerberg classics: the swinging "Hot Un" and the plaintive "Lush and Green." The other songs are goofy, clever filler. In other words, the same approach as The Replacements: 40% great, 60 % percent good. If you yearn for the less self-conscious Westerberg, check this out."