Kelefa Sanneh continues to dote on Chris Carraba in the Times, while Nerve is, predictably, interested in better things.

With the Replacements on in the background, plenty of not-so-smart things seem like wonderful ideas….Westerberg’s sensitivity worked because, as much as he was a nice guy, he was also a bad boy: always drunk, falling down, unreliable. He wouldn’t have been a good boyfriend. For starters, he would never remember your address (“Can’t Hardly Wait”). But from afar, he would watch you walk through a city in winter (“Skyway”) and would not be shy about mauling you on public transportation (“Kiss Me On The Bus”).

Awww. Then there’s this assessment:

And if Paul Westerberg hadn’t been such a smoldering antihero, he still would have owned the ’80s alternative world by default. The stars of the college rock scene were about as asexual a crowd as have ever made music. Billy Bragg and the Johns from They Might Be Giants? Hardly sex gods. Michael Stipe? Too shiny and happy. The Spin Doctors’ Chris Barron? Too boorish-pothead. Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus? Too damp-handshake pretentious. The Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano? Too hippie-neighbor sleazy. Guided By Voices’ Robert Pollard? Too sleepy-sloppy. Jonathan Richman? Too neurotic (and word was he only went for suicidal strippers, anyway.) And if you don’t retch imagining yourself in bed with Evan Dando, I don’t want to know you.