The always delightful Aquarium Drunkard weighs in on 49:00 with a thoughtful review that includes this wonderful summation:
As surprising and unexpected as the delivery method is, just as surprising and unexpected is how good Westerberg sounds across all nearly forty-four minutes. Replacements fans who had given up on Paul, Paul fans who had given up on Paul, rock and roll fans who had given up on rock and roll
Eye Weekly.com gives 49:00 four out of five stars.
The San Antonio Current does a bit of math and figures how 49:00 might just be Our Man Paul’s most profitable record ever.
Out of curiosity, I took a gander at the latest issue of Billboard. 49:00 doesn’t appear anywhere in the current Top 200 Albums chart nor does it appear on the Top 25 Internet or Digital charts. Now maybe this is due to some technical/political thing where Billboard doesn’t acknowledge Amazon.com sales, or maybe it means that being #1 on Amazon isn’t really saying all that much. In any event, at least the people who have bought it seem to like what they hear.
I dig this line from a review by Tjames Madison over on LiveDaily:
“Westerberg always did his best work when he was clinging by his fingertips to something that was trying desperately to throw him off.”
Westerberg writes with one hand & erases with the other.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/drinking-with-ian-laurie-lindeen-and-moon-maan/1881435683
Laurie’s interview with Ian