Tim (1985)

"Kiss Me on the Bus" Expectations for the Major Label debut ran high, but these guys were never going to be stars. Nobody wanted it enough. So, like a sports team on a losing steak, here's where they started to tear apart at each other. Overlooked by all of them, maybe, was the incredible run they were on. This was at least their third great one in a row. Some, even in retrospect, sniff that it's a notch off, but to me it feels loose and warm and fun and stuffed with inspiration. They whip up the most beautiful little bittersweet things: "Kiss Me on the Bus," "Here Comes a Regular, "Hold My Life." They go to the roar dependably on "Bastards of Young" and "Left of the Dial." And shot through all of it, that sad, hangdog personality, radiating pain and sweetness with his darts of line and melody, whom we would soon know as Ziggy Stardust. Er, I mean, Paul Westerberg.

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