With "Bastards of Young," the Replacements' Paul Westerberg finally delivered the rock & roll anthem he'd always threatened — a rallying cry for a generation of misfits and ne'er-do-wells raised on false hopes and dim aspirations, it's less about thwarting fate than accepting it, a celebration of resignation and defeat in the absence of anything else worth clinging to. "Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled/It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten," Westerberg asserts, his ragged, world-weary voice pitted against a muscular guitar riff distilled from endless hours of classic rock radio; the matter-of-fact profundity of couplets like "The ones that love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest/And visit their graves on holidays at best/The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please" is startling — in his offhand, sheepishly poetic way, he captures life's most bitter ironies to perfection. Yet it's frustratingly appropriate that much of "Bastards of Young" is unintelligible, the poignancy and sensitivity of Westerberg's lyrics obscured by his deliberately half-assed diction — even the final, acerbic cries of "Take it, it's yours" blur together as the song crashes and burns. Also noteworthy is the "Bastards of Young" video clip — comprised of a single black-and-white take of a stereo blasting out the song, its utter contempt for the music video medium and the culture which spawned it is so hilariously palpable that in its own unique way, it's one of the landmarks of the form.
(by Jason Ankeny, allmusic.com)