Tim by The Replacements

Tim, the Replacements' fourth album, came out on Sire in September 1985, and it was the scrappy band's first major-label record, though you'd never know it from how little they cleaned up. Tommy Erdelyi, better known as Tommy Ramone, the original drummer of the Ramones, produced it, and he leaves the guitars loose and the edges ragged.

This is a record that swings from beer-soaked bash to sudden, bruised tenderness and back, sometimes within the same song. "Bastards of Young" is a roaring, rattling howl, "Left of the Dial" charges ahead on jangling guitars and a big, aching melody, "Kiss Me on the Bus" is loose, goofy and sweet, "Waitress in the Sky" is a rowdy barroom joke, "Hold My Life" snarls and staggers, and "Here Comes a Regular" sinks into a heartbroken hush. Chris Mars keeps the drums tumbling along, and the whole thing sounds like a great bar band discovering it can write songs that cut deep.

It was the last album by the original lineup: guitarist Bob Stinson was thrown out of the band toward the end of 1986. Like the records before it, Tim won raves from critics but only modest sales, stalling at number 183 on the Billboard Top 200. Time has been kinder. A 2003 rundown of the 500 greatest albums ever put it at 136th, the 2012 update at 137th, and it came in 4th on a list of the top 99 albums of 1985 to 1995.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.