All Shook Down

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  1990

  James

  By this point the band was barely functional, and the exhaustion of the whole project hangs over the entire record. Inverting the title of one of rock n' roll's most famous rave-ups, "All Shook Down" possesses a fragility that works in its favor. Songs like “Sadly Beautiful” and the title track feel intimate in a way that was still surprising for a band that reveled in chaos for so long. Westerberg's writing is less sarcastic here, letting loneliness sit plainly inside the songs. It sounds like the weary end of something, but also like hard-earned clarity.