Month: June 2022

I am not afraid to call myself the foremost global expert on boxed mac & cheese. Not like that’s some incredible thing to brag about, but still… I’m the guy. It’s me.

Here’s my reasoning:

1. I actually like boxed mac & cheese. A lot. I’ve had boxed mac meals that I’ll remember longer than certain middling pasta dishes in Italy.
2. I still eat boxed mac. Some might say too often. Probably at least five times a month. And I generally like it more than the fancier versions at restaurants where the chef has a butchery chart tattooed on his forearm.
3. I can place it in a very broad context. I get to taste some incredibly elevated dishes as a food writer and have traveled to 50+ countries as a travel writer. So when I talk about this dish, I’m able to reflect on it both globally and on the massive food spectrum from “mass-produced slop” to “haute cuisine” — I will now wedgie myself for typing all of that.
4. I care enough about the dish to brag about my authority on it. Who the hell else would do that? What a dork! But I stand by my dorky brag.

Anyway, don’t expect any expert quotes here. I’ll be relying on myself as a resource and you should be damned glad to have me. Because I have some serious thoughts about what makes a good boxed mac & cheese:

1. Noodles that stay al dente AF. Boxed mac is cheap. Sometimes that means that the noodles are terrible. I have no idea how much money a brand can save by ditching cheap-but-good noodles for slightly-cheaper-but-trash noodles but I guarantee that the purchasing agents at some of these brands know. And they occasionally opt for slightly-cheaper-but-trash.
2. Cheese that hits you in the sharp cheddar pleasure centers. Aged, sharp cheddar should have pieces of calcium lactate in it. Those “flavor crystals” ignite your salivary glands in a way that few foods can. Good mac and cheese can have a similar effect — it sounds crazy, but it’s true. That’s the goal, to hit the salivary glands like a proper sharp cheddar.
3. It can’t have a bunch of mess-ups in the name of cost. Remember that for a box of mac to sell at your grocer for $1.75, it has to wholesale at around $0.88. This means it probably gets made for a raw materials cost of $0.44 (grocery markups are usually 100% up and down the supply chain). The result of this cheapness is that (at least) one wrong decision is often made in the name of price.
4. It can’t have a bunch of mess-ups in the name of being the new, cool kids of mac. We’re in the midst of a Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) revolution. Barriers to entry are lower than ever and brands can advertise on social media. It’s a boom that mac & cheese has very much been part of, as chefs who grew up with Kraft think “Maybe this is a category that I can improve and profit off of!” The problem is that trying to overthink boxed mac often makes it worse.

If you read all of that and you’re still interested, well, you’re in the right place. Because I bought up every dang box of mac & cheese I could find on the grocery store shelves and prepared them all to the exact specifications outlined on each respective box. Note: That means a ton of butter and milk and a generally soupy mac in many cases. In reality, I think the right preparation is probably something like Cliff Booth does it in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood — pasta water, maybe a little butter, and the cheese packet. (Add a little bulk powdered cheese and a white cheddar cube if you want to overload it.)

Okay, preamble over — on to the rankings!

GENUINELY HORRIFYING

31. Kraft — Triple Cheese (Instant Microwave Edition)

Price: $4.74 (4 Pack)

Tasting Notes:

Holy hell, this is poison. I mean literal death. And I love Kraft. Spoiler, it ranks very highly here. And yet… yuck. Pasta is not meant to be microwaved and…

How much do I have to write? It’s gross. A slurry of mealy-yet-soggy noodles in a cheese sludge. No more explanation needed — I feel like if I go on any longer I’m going to just use the word “sludge” over and over, which is dull.

The Bottom Line:

Seriously, do not buy this under any circumstance. When the end of the world comes and we all storm 7-11 for food, take the gum first. Grab the frozen burritos. Eat cigarettes. These are not meant to enter a human body under any circumstance.

I’ve never un-recommended a food more strongly since the Cup Noodle pumpkin flavor.

AGGRESSIVELY BAD

30. ANNIE’S — Macaroni & Classic Cheddar With 12g Added Protein

Price:. $4.49

Tasting Notes:

What a f*cking mess. Whatever method they used to add protein to this was the wrong one. A little packet of toasted walnuts to sprinkle on top would have been waaaayyy better. Also, how desperate are you to get 12g of protein in your body if you need your mac & cheese to deliver it? Buy some pistachios!

Okay, the taste — yeeeech. You know that line from “Rapper’s Delight” where he says “the macaroni’s soggy, the peas are mush, and the chicken tastes like wood”? No? Well, I queued it up for you.

This mac fits all three of those descriptors — soggy, mush, and tastes like wood. Yes, I cooked it right. It’s HARD to mess up noodles with gluten in them, but Annies did it!

The Bottom Line:

This mac & cheese fails the number one rule of transforming non-healthy foods into semi-healthy foods: IT STILL HAS TO TASTE GOOD.

29. FREAK FLAG — Kale & Cheddar

Price: $14.99 (6-Pack)

Tasting Notes:

This is wretched. Again, there have to be better ways to consume kale quickly. Like, considering the amount of actual kale, maybe… just freaking bite a piece of kale? One leaf should do it. And then eat your regular mac and cheese, y’know? Doesn’t that make more sense than dumping chlorophyll-infused cheese powder on noodles and having the whole thing look vaguely green in an off-putting way and tasting of strange health food powder made from seaweed?

Look, I often add kale to my boxed mac. All the time. Mac & cheese & kale is pretty much standard at hipster restaurants. But making the kale into a powder is the wrong call. It just doesn’t even come close to working.

The Bottom Line:

Someone should have stopped this somewhere along the way to say, “Team, this just doesn’t work — flavor-wise — so let’s go back to the drawing board.”

28. CHEETOS — Flamin’ Hot

Price: $1.34

Tasting Notes:

If we’re being honest, this should be filed under “unranked” — it’s so far outside the parameters of what we’re trying to do here. Still, I like being complete, so here goes:

From my — clearly anguished — tasting notes:

“Here I am, taking boxed macaroni & cheese incredibly seriously. A man in the middle of his career intellectualizing food that he’s been eating since he was six. And then into the mix we throw this… neon pink mac & cheese that tastes exactly like a neon red snack it’s made from. But this is meant to be a meal and is therefore far more embarrassing than even a bag of flaming hot Cheetos, which is already a relatively embarrassing snack for an adult human to eat.”

“Am I supposed to review this? How? It is precisely what it promises. There is no cheese flavor anymore, it just tastes ‘flamin’,’ which is the worst type of spice — more acrid and scalding than any sort of chili pepper flavor. To be more precise, it tastes of spice conveyed via chemicals that are not particularly fit for human consumption, with a slight overtone of instant ramen — a flavor note I have always gotten from Flamin’ Hot Cheetos products. As if there is perhaps a little bit of chicken seasoning inside the whole mix to give it a false sort of heartiness.

I could go on, but that would be futile. The packaging is truthful here and tells you what you need to know.

The Bottom Line:

These are for the person who looks at the grocery store shelf, sees Cheeto Flamin’ Hot Mac & Cheese, and says, “Yes, I want to eat that.” If you are that person, you will not be disappointed. The rest of us should stay miles away.

27. CRACKER BARREL — Sharp White Cheddar

Price: $3.68

Tasting Notes:

I’ve never eaten at a Cracker Barrel but it sounds like a place that would be absolutely overloaded with salt. So I was precisely 0.00% surprised when I discovered that this is overly salty. It does have more of true white cheddar taste than Kraft or Velveeta — which I like — but really… the flavor here is 99% just salt.

I feel like even these noodles and the box are probably made out of salt — the way Catherine Zeta-Jone’s character made trinkets out of cocaine in Traffic. It’s silky and smooth and the noodles are al dente but what reasonable human would prefer this salt bomb when there are so many options on the market?

The Bottom Line:

From my tasting notes: “Salt. Salt. Salt. Salt.” Clearly, I’m a food reviewing talent to be reckoned with.

DEFINITELY NOT PARTICULARLY FUN TO EAT

26. FULL CIRCLE — Mac & Cheese

Price: $1.99

Tasting Notes:

Considering that this is a pretty straightforward entry and the straightforward entries do well in this ranking, there’s actually so much about this brand that I don’t like. The powder is sort of grainy and the cheese tastes faker than most of them. Yes, I realize that this effect could be some sort of switcheroo and that my palate is calibrated to something more fake so an un-fake product seems to taste fake but… whatever. I don’t like the cheese.

Fake or real, what cheesiness there is gets delivered with a whole lot of salt. The noodles are fine and springy in a way that I enjoy but that graininess is hard to get over upon multiple bites. It might seem small but it’s definitely something that would make me specifically avoid this brand, which is saying a fair bit in a genre where almost every product is at least “passable.”

The Bottom Line:

Eating this is like voluntarily getting sand in your teeth. Though, feel free to take that with a grain of salt… Of which this brand contains waaaaay too many.

25. FREAK FLAG — Four Cheese Mac & Freak

Price: $2.99

Tasting Notes:

This mac is like the “Seven-minute abs” convo from Something About Mary. The competition is doing three-cheese? We’ll do four!

But the four cheeses are the wrong ones. It’s too funky and just generally un-harmonious. It’s a nice concept but it’s not working — in part because mac & cheese really only needs one cheese: sharp cheddar. Anyway, this is odd on the palate, it’s confusing and muddled and the gorgonzola notes push it in the wrong direction.

The Bottom Line:

A mildly good idea with a specifically bad execution.

24. CHEETOS — Mac ’N Cheese Cheesy Jalapeño

Price: $1.79

Tasting Notes:

Another really interesting idea with sloppy execution. I often dice up jalapenos or serranos in my boxed mac. But powder-fying them takes away everything about the peppers that is green and bright except the color itself, which is the one part that you don’t want.

Anyway, I’m happy to see rotini getting some shine (my favorite noodle!) and they stay al dente, but the spice and cheese and color don’t quite work. Copy this with a better mac and real jalapenos and you’re in for a treat.

The Bottom Line:

Solid idea made bad because of the limits of factory-produced food.

23. WHOLE FOODS 365 — Macaroni & Cheese

Price: No Price Listed

Tasting Notes:

These noodles beg to get soggy. This is wild because all the other organic noodles I’ve ever tasted in my life do a great job staying al dente. But these… well, you need to track them with a 10-digit timer to make sure you get them cooked right. I haven’t messed up noodles in decades and I messed these up.

Even if you didn’t make that mistake, the powder is too fine. Rather than clumping in a way that makes them feel extra cheesy like Kraft, this powder feels like it’s trying to polish your teeth. The cheese taste doesn’t taste chemical-y, but it doesn’t have any piquancy or sharpness either. It’s bland.

The Bottom Line:

This mac & cheese is trash. You had GLUTEN to work with! You had DAIRY! How could you possibly mess these up this bad?

The Bottom Line:

It’s so hard to get me to say “meh” about mac, but I said it here.

22. CHEETOS — Bold And Cheesy

Price: $1.34

Tasting Notes:

I guess what I have to say here is that these taste exactly like Cheetos and what I have to say about that is that Cheetos probably should not be turned into an entrée. It is a lot of Cheeto-ness, which is distinctly different from “cheesiness.” This cheese actually tastes like Cheeto dust. That tastes a lot better on a puffed corn tube than it does on rotini.

The Bottom Line:

Cheetos are the right form factor for Cheetos cheese. Not pasta.

THE LONG, UNINSPIRED MIDDLE

21. FULL CIRCLE — Cheddar (Gluten Free)

Price:

Tasting Notes:

These are pretty “fine.” The noodles aren’t the best gluten-free entry on this list, but they’re not terrible. The cheese is a little too powdery. The flavor is just okay. Not much more to say — with such a saturated market, there’s literally no reason you can’t do better.

The Bottom Line:

This product is not offensively bad but nothing should compel you to purchase it.

20. KRAFT — Deluxe Sharp Cheddar

Price: $3.06

Tasting Notes:

All of my complaints about “sauce” mac & cheese vs. “powder” are evident here, so I might as well lay them out once, so I can re-reference them:

1. Liquid sauce macs always read a bit too salty to me. You get some of that classic Kraft boxed dinner taste but you also get some really strong sodium.
2. While I like the creaminess of fake cheese, it’s almost a bridge too far — you taste the fakeness more because the cheese is too silky.
3. The noodles are the wrong size. Mac & cheese should be coated with sauce (with a tight noodle that’s almost like bucatini) not filled with sauce, which happens when you use a broader noodle. It throws off the golden ratio.

The Bottom Line:

Not terrible. But I am definitely confused by people who buy this over traditional boxed Kraft boxed mac. It’s worse in literally every way.

19. WALMART GREAT VALUE — Shells & Cheese (Three Cheese)

Price: .43¢

Tasting Notes:

As I was leaving on an international trip, I raced to Walmart because some cornball on OTHER SITE REDACTED who copied our blind tasting format named this brand the best. As a person who actually writes about food, I’m here to tell you — it is not. Not even particularly close. Even considering the absurdly low price.

The noodles stay al dente, which is nice, but there’s a general fakeness and cheapness that permeates every part of this product. It has some residual cardboard taste. The cheese is grainy in an offputting way. It’s mac & cheese that’s been pushed way too hard to be cheap.

The Bottom Line:

Not trash. Just too cheap — with small but noticeable flaws (to the refined palate!) that signal as much.

18. CRACKER BARREL — Sharp Cheddar Mac & Cheese Dinner

Price: $3.68

Tasting Notes:

It’s not as bad as the Cracker Barrel “Pure Salt” flavor but it’s still overly salty and the silkiness is still weird and chemical-feeling to me. You’d have to really like Cracker Barrel to seek this out. Do people stan that brand hard? Hard enough to want to but this with 17 better options on the market?

The Bottom Line:

Not putrid. But still salty with an overly broad noodle and fake smoothness.

17. TRADER JOE’S — Mac & Cheese

Price: $2.99

Tasting Notes:

This is the first brand that truly feels like it was made for small children. It’s just so mild. So delicate on the palate.

WHAT IS THIS, MAC & CHEESE FOR ANTS?!?!?

There’s not much wrong with it in any technical sense. The noodles are fine but overall everything is just too light and the flavors are faint. The cheese doesn’t really have any punch. That’s probably because TJ’s didn’t use some cool weird chemical that’s horrible for me but nevertheless — it doesn’t taste the best.

16. VELVEETA — Shells & Cheese Original

Price: $3.53

Tasting Notes:

I like Velveeta. I make sloppy joes with Velveeta singles twice or three times a year and Velveeta nachos once a year when I’m ready to indulge. But, once again, these “cheese sauce” macs are uniformly oversalted. And this is coming from someone who has lived and worked in the food industry (where we all blow our palates out with salt) and who definitely enjoys salt in the right measure.

This is the highest-ranked of the liquid cheese bunch simply because Velveeta is comfort food for me and ignites a sense memory. It’s creamy, sure, but these cheese sauce macs have a type of creaminess that hits the uncanny valley — they approximate creaminess with chemicals but the texture reads more “space-age polymers” than “tasty food I like eating.”

The Bottom Line:

The best of the “cheese sauce” macs. But that’s not saying much.

15. BANZA — Mac & Cheese Made With Chickpea Pasta

Price: $24.99 (Six-Pack)

Tasting Notes:

The two major problems with gluten-free pasta are 1) they don’t taste like anything gluten and 2) they don’t stay al dente. For those of us who love pasta and particularly love gluten, those are big hurdles. For what it’s worth, I think the latter is a bigger problem than the former. This pasta doesn’t taste strictly like flour-and-egg-based pasta, but it definitely stays al dente. Impressively so. And once you have the cheese mixed in, you’re really not missing much.

It’s less salty than most of its competitors and still has that sharp cheesy flavor that hits you in the back corners of your mouth. I’m declaring it right now: this is ar GF brand that can box it out with the gluten brands.

The Bottom Line:

I really like this one a lot. It’s not going to hit anyone’s number one but it’s definitely one to grab if you’re staying away from gluten. Very functional.

SOLID BUT NOT ICONIC

14. TRADER JOE’S — Rice Pasta & Cheddar

Price: $7.99

Tasting Notes:

As I try to veer a (tiny little bit) away from consuming 13 pounds of gluten every day, I’ve gotten very into this brand. The cheese is — mysteriously — better than the non-GF version by TJs and the rice noodles definitely stay al dente. (Note: they will get soggy and start to melt together, so you have to keep them really al dente, which I don’t mind.)

There’s actually a mysterious thing that happens in that the noodles sort of… give off a rice liquid in the pot. So when they’re hot and you add butter and cheese and milk, they all congeal and the sauce is incredibly silky. It’s a weird — and welcome — feature. That said, this pasta does carry some “rice” flavor to it. It’s not going to fool you into thinking it’s regular pasta.

The Bottom Line:

A very solid gluten-free product with an incredibly silky sauce. That said, it’s definitely made with rice and you do taste that.

13. ANNIE’S — Shells & White Cheddar

Price: $3.29

Tasting Notes:

White cheddar is an interesting conceit in mac & cheese. Typically, white cheddar is aged longer and therefore sharper. But in this case, it means that there’s an absence of cheddar flavor and instead leans more into other white hard cheeses, like Parmesan or Asiago.

Also, while the powder is a little finer in this cheese, it actually dissolves less readily — so you can get a little bit of grainy mouthfeel. On top of that, shells aren’t really the right form for boxed mac & cheese — they take longer to cook and they can be a little stiff. Overall, this is more of an Italian dish than true ‘merican mac & cheese.

The Bottom Line:

Fine for what it is, but the white cheddar obsession in the mac & cheese market, if well-intentioned, is misguided.

12. GOODLES — Asiago and Parmesan

Price: $15.96 (Pack of 4)

Tasting Notes:

Goodles is an upstart brand big on IG and co-owned by Gal Gadot and this is their “three cheese” or “white cheddar” flavor. It features two hard cheeses — asiago and parmesan. As such, it’s a very good version of the product (which has become a very established mac & cheese subcategory). So good, in fact, that it’s practically not mac & cheese. It pretty much veers into being an instant Italian meal.

(In fact, Goodles, which — spoiler — fared very well in this ranking, also has a cacio e pepe flavor that I’m not reviewing because it’s fully an Italian dish and not what American diners know as mac & cheese at all.)

All of that said, this tastes really good and wisely uses spirals. Whatever is good for us about these (that’s the conceit of Googles — like Freak Flag and other brands) isn’t something you can taste. The flavor actually is rich with hard Italian cheeses, which is — again — really tasty.

Alas, I’m a cheddar cheese loyalist when it comes to mac and cheese. If I want parmesan with noodles, I’ll make it myself.

The Bottom Line:

Great for what it is. But the product is sort of tangential to what we know as “boxed mac & cheese.”

11. KRAFT — Three Cheese Shells

Price: $1.12

Tasting Notes:

I’m not exactly sure what market segment this is trying to fill. It tastes mostly like the regular Kraft mac & cheese, although it’s done with a shell which is kinda-fine but certainly not better. I find it endlessly fascinating that they called this “three cheese” but make absolutely no mention of what three kinds of cheese there are. Not on the box, not on the website.

These cheeses are known only as cheese one, cheese two, and cheese three. Do they think salt is a cheese? That’s my bet.

The Bottom Line:

This is fine but if you’re going with Kraft I don’t think this is any more cheesy or flavorful than the OG. Unless you are a zebra and spend your days at the salt licks of the Sahara and therefore need a little more salt in your life in order to taste something. In that case… maybe.

10. ANNIE’S — Shells And Aged Cheddar

Price: $1.29

Tasting Notes:

What’s different from this and the main Annie’s flavor? The idea that it’s aged? Shells? Are there people who really look for shells? I don’t like them as a mac & cheese form factor (have I said that yet? Should I mention it a few more times?). Part of the shell often stays overly al dente.

Besides that gripe, these are pretty solid — the cheese flavor is good and I like that they just zeroed in on cheddar.

The Bottom Line:

Solid but also pretty forgettable, especially with so many Annie’s varieties on the market.

9. CAMP — Classic Cheddar Mac’N’Cheese

Price: $19.99 (Three-Pack)

Tasting Notes:

This brand is… sort of idiotic in its marketing? It calls itself “plant-based” to mean that the noodles are gluten-free and made with some interesting veggies. Carrots, for example. But… wheat is also a plant, fam. Also, two apostrophes is too many for mac & cheese. Who does your packaging?

That said: This tastes an awful lot like Kraft while still being “healthy.” It’s the best gluten-free brand I’ve found and, as you can see, I’ve tried them all. My partner and I have probably about 10 arguments per year about how often I make mac & cheese and I feel like this is going to be the brand that helps me win the war.

There’s some slight graininess to the cheese, but this definitely doesn’t need a consolation contest to compete. The noodles still fall apart a little bit but it’s something a true Italian might notice, definitely not your kids or your drunk friends at the kicker. The cheddar taste is nice and strong and unlike Trader Joe’s GF option — which is also really good — it doesn’t taste quite so strong of its alternate products used to make the noodle.

The Bottom Line:

The best gluten-free mac & cheese on the market.

8) ANNIE’S — Mac & [EXTREME] cheese (shells & white cheddar)

Price: $1.29

Tasting Notes:

You have to respect Annie‘s for taking a Kraft Macaroni & Cheese marketing scheme from the 80s, “Kraft cheese and macaroni!” — which was deemed too decadent for them — and applying it to a wholesome organic foods brand.

This is exactly the same as the other Annie’s white cheddar flavor but with more cheese. It’s EXTREME. But in lowercase, because it’s Annie’s and super polite. Jabs aside, it’s really tasty and does a better job approximating white cheddar than any other brand except Goodles.

The Bottom Line:

More cheese is, generally speaking, better. If there’s a saturation point, Annie’s hasn’t found it yet.

7) GOODLES — “Shella Good” Aged White Cheddar And Shells

Price: $13.57

Tasting Notes:

As I referenced before, I think the people who make macaroni and cheese are confused about the true difference between white cheddar and orange cheddar, which is really just dye. But even on store shelves, white cheddar is usually aged more and therefore sharper; orange cheddar is more basic, for the mainstream palate.

So you would think that white cheddar flavors would have a sharper cheddar taste, right?

Wrong. Instead, they taste like hard cheeses — parm, asiago, pecorino — but the cheddary-ness is lost, This flavor, in particular, really resembles more of an Italian grana padano than it does any sort of cheddar. Still, some of the qualities that Goodles gets right are in evidence here. The noodles are high quality, as is the cheese. And the flavor balance is on point.

If I want “white cheddar” mac & cheese, I’ll order the superb Hoosier Hill Farm white cheddar powder. But if I can’t have that, this is a solid second option.

The Bottom Line:

A quality product that doesn’t seem to fully savvy what the hell white cheddar actually is.

THE TOP SHELF

6) KRAFT — Macaroni & Cheese

Price: .99¢

Tasting Notes:

As the person who has probably eaten the most boxes of Kraft macaroni & cheese (“Kraft Dinner” in Canada) currently alive, I can say with authority that you’d have to be a little bit insane to make this to the specifications on the box. Four tablespoons is just way too much butter for the amount of noodles and a whole cup of milk turns it into soup. I would go with about two tablespoons of butter and no milk or just a capful — that gives you the cheesiness that hits you in the back of your taste buds. If you’re going to use the specified level of butter, find a non-salted butter because again this becomes too much salt.

What works here is the cheesiness. It’s sharp and distinct and its own flavor. Whereas the powder from many brands in the field tastes dusty or grainy, this cheese clumps a little, which is actually good. It’s sort of like how we don’t notice pepper in our food but if we forgot to wash our spinach right, we’d notice the grain of the residual dirt no matter how many other ingredients were added (obviously this has happened to me). The fineness of the grain matters. Not sure if that all makes sense but the way this powder can clump if not mixed is really tasty to me.

As for the noodles, they are fine but warning — they go from al dente to soggy fast. I boil these for about five minutes. Eight, which the box recommends, sounds literally terrifying but I am aware that this is a food mostly consumed by kids.

The Bottom Line:

Incredible cheesiness and the recipe that defined the genre, but to experience it at its best you should modify it from the instructions on the box.

5) ANNIE’S — Mac & [EXTREME] Cheese

Price: $2.49

Tasting Notes:

Kraft was stupid to ditch its extra cheese plan from the “Kraft CHEESE and macaroni”-era. Cheese tastes good and more cheese tastes better. Considering that most of these cheese products are made out of whey protein and dried milk solid, it’s not exactly like they increase the calories a ton. The noodles are al dente and there’s a taste of sharp cheddar and the sort of overload of cheese that you want from a totally indulgent boxed product meant to hit some comfort notes.

The Bottom Line:

These are great. Macaroni instead of shells would have been even better.

4) BACK TO NATURE — Organic Crazy Bugs Macaroni & Cheese Dinner

Price: Currently Sold Out

Tasting Notes:

This brand seems to have some serious distribution problems. That’s a shame because it’s incredibly tasty. The website boasts a mac version of this product but I’ve never seen it and even this one I had to get online. Maybe the brand is defunct? Or were they part of some mysterious class-action lawsuit that also killed the very similar tasting Kraft Organic? (The now defunct Kraft Organic — like Back to Nature — paired organic noodles with non-organic cheese, which seems to present a tricky marketing conundrum.)

Anyyyyway, this is really good. Those shapes hold cheese beautifully and stay al dente nicely. They even have some true Italian spring to them. And the cheese is excellent product that isn’t powdery and has some bite.

The Bottom Line:

Really good… if you can find it!

3) KRAFT — Spirals

Price: .99¢

Tasting Notes:

I had a real Kraft Spirals phase when I was about ten. Whereas I think shells are the wrong form for powdered cheese, spirals work great. The noodles are better at staying al dente and the cheese is classic Kraft — it’s comfort food for kids who grew up in the ’80s.

From my tasting notes after 20-some boxes: “I have a feeling this is going to be ranked pretty high — it’s not as good as that mythical Kraft Organic that disappeared from stores, but it’s pretty close.”

The Bottom Line:

This beats the OG Kraft simply because there’s more margin for error when cooking the noodles.

2) ANNIE’S — Macaroni & Classic Cheddar

Price: $3.29

Tasting Notes:

As we’ve seen, Annie’s has way too many flavors. That said, the OGs are fantastic. I sort of hate to say that something is “better than the Kraft” — I have a lot of loyalty there! — but… this is better. The macaroni stays al dente longer and the flavor is not quite as salty. It actually has more calories but less sodium than Kraft, which is more or less in line with what I expected from the taste.

As hinted at above, there was a time when Kraft had an organic noodle paired with non-organic cheese but they didn’t clarify that on the box and the product probably got them in some trouble before disappearing altogether. For years, I could get it from Canada on Amazon and then for a while on eBay. Now it’s gone — everywhere. Anyway, that was the best mac & cheese I’d tasted for decades. It would’ve done really well in this ranking.

This is reasonable facsimile of that. It’s like Kraft but slightly less artificial in ways that won’t bother someone who is fine with artificial stuff but will please someone looking for something more natural.

The Bottom Line:

Silky and cheesy and al dente and a little bit sharp — this is a sterling product and I’d happily give it #1, if I hadn’t found…

THE CROWN JEWEL

1) GOODLES — Cheddy Mac

Price: $13.57 (Four-Pack)

Tasting Notes:

Our winner shocked me for a whole bunch of reasons. Not the least of which is that they apparently use the same iridescent food packet supplier as the guy I get my psilocybin gummies from. More to the point, every other mac on this list that has tried to “sneak” healthiness into the dish has failed miserably. Those are some of the lowest-ranked boxes, and then here we are with a “healthy mac” at number one. What a world!

To be clear, the reason I usually hate foods that sneak vitamins in is not that I don’t like vitamins. In fact, sneaking vitamins into beloved foods is one of my own favorite cooking tricks. The problem is that with CPG foods, it’s done so clumsily that you taste the healthy stuff and the food almost separately, as if someone crumbled a multivitamin over French fries or ground up a fiber caplet on top of a nacho. But somehow it works here! The noodles taste ever so slightly of chlorophyll — because they have broccoli and kale snuck into them (way smarter than putting it in the powder) — but it’s not overly noticeable. It’s more like if someone boiled some spinach and kale in the same water they used to boil the noodles. I could care less about how healthy they are (I can’t imagine they’re all that good for you) but that added flavor layer actually works.

Like mac & cheese with a “smack of kale.”

The cheese powder is incredibly cheesy. Like Kraft cheesy. Hit’s you hard on the sides of your tongue and not overly powdery. The noodles stay al dente. I could go on but I don’t have to, beyond saying this with complete certainty…

The Bottom Line:

This is the best boxed macaroni and cheese on the market right now. Period. End of discussion. Trust me.

When Megan Thee Stallion first previewed the scathing “Plan B” at Coachella, fans were excited about the new, brazen sound that Megan appeared to be experimenting. The Houston-native rapper is hard at work on the follow-up to her 2020 album, Good News, and in an interview with Rolling Stone, she revealed that she would be taking a more personal approach with her craft.

“I want to take you through so many different emotions,” she said of the upcoming album. “At first you was twerking, now you might be crying.”

Megan previewed several new songs to the magazine, including one called “Gift And Curse,” produced by Murda Beatz. On the song’s chorus, she raps, “A b*tch like me, yeah, I know my worth / F*cking with me is a gift and a curse.” When speaking of the song’s creation, Megan said, “I can take care of myself. I’m so emotionally strong. I’m so independent. You know how easy it is for me to dismiss you, because I don’t need you.”

In addition to “Gift And Curse,” Megan also previewed a more upbeat song called “Pressurelicious.” “Pressurelicious” features Future, who Megan says is “unapologetically himself.”

“I appreciate that about anybody who gets up and has to do anything in the public eye,” she said of Future. “Anybody who has to read about their life online every day and deal with so many energies and can put it out into their music and do it gracefully, I feel like you deserve your flowers.”

At the time of the interview, Megan had “25 to 30” songs she was narrowing down for the album’s final tracklist. She hopes to have the album out before the end of the summer.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There are lots of great drive-thrus and fast-casual restaurants where you can grab a tasty burger. Simply type “best burger near me” into Yelp or Google maps and you’re sure to find a joint that will satisfy your cravings. But “satisfy” isn’t good enough — we need our mind’s blown. We only want to eat burgers that ignite the tastebuds, activate the salivary glands, and inspire audible mmms and oooohhhhs.

Anything less just isn’t good eating.

With that mandate in mind, we’re running through the single best burger (spoiler: they all have cheese) at every single big chains across the fast food universe. Anything goes in this compendium of great burgers — we’ve included menu items, off-menu “secret” options, and even some tried and tested hacks. If you follow this guide you’ll have the keys to the best burger you can possibly eat at chains nationwide. You’re not going to be disappointed on our watch!

Let’s get to burger-ing!

A&W — Papa Burger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Unfortunately, this big burger list isn’t exactly starting our list off with a bang. In truth, A&W is only here for the sake of being complete — not because we actually think you should buy a burger from this chain. But if you do happen to find yourself wandering into an A&W with no other options in sight, you can’t go wrong with the Papa Burger.

Well, scratch that, you can go very wrong with the Papa Burger, sometimes the lettuce is so wilted it’s translucent, the cheese rarely melts, and the meat is always dry, but… it could be worse! You could be eating a Papa Burger with bacon, which A&W somehow messed up colossally — the bacon is chewy, oily, and never crispy enough.

Maybe just order a root beer float and call it a day?

The Bottom Line:

The Papa Burger stands as A&Ws best burger, which isn’t saying a whole lot.

Find your nearest A&W here.

Burger King — Rodeo Burger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

For being a place called “Burger King” BK has some pretty consistently awful burgers. It’s ironic, considering the chain’s flagship burger is the “Whopper” — commonly defined something that is extremely or unusually large, or a gross or blatant lie. To me, the Whopper tastes like the latter definition. It’s dry, bland, and one of fast food’s worst burgers.

So is all hope lost? No. Grab the Rodeo Burger instead. The Rodeo Burger remedies some of BK’s Whopper issues. By slathering the burger in BBQ sauce, the often-dry beef takes on a sweet quality with a smokiness that plays in harmony with the charred flavor of BK’s grills.

We’re big fans of Burger King’s Onion Rings in general, but in this burger, they add a sweet and spicy bite that lingers on the backend. We add cheese, but on this rare occasion, you don’t absolutely need it. BK’s cheese doesn’t melt anyway.

The Bottom Line:

The best burger at a restaurant named for burgers that isn’t particularly adept at making burgers.

Find your nearest Burger King here.

Burgerville — Walla Walla Sweet Onion Cheeseburger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Other fast food joints must sorta hate Burgerville. They do so much right — menu items feel bespoke, the IRL food looks like a reasonable facsimile of the items shown in their ads, and they make use of local and seasonal ingredients. For those of us in Oregon and Washington, it’s more like a local burger spot that just so happens to have 47 locations.

Take the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Cheeseburger. It’s made with Walla Walla, Washington’s famous “sweet onions” — the highly seasonal produce that Seinfeld’s famed Mackinaw Peaches were based on — along with Tillamook white cheddar cheese, garlic aoili, and a sourdough bun. That’s inspired! If McDonald’s used one of those upmarket items people would lose their minds. At Burgerville, they all fit in the same menu offering!

This burger is like an In-N-Out Double-Double made by a seasonality-obsessed (but talented!) hipster chef. The onions are grilled with savory herbs, the burger patty is just big enough to keep this a one-hander, and the cheese is nice and melty (and real!). Sadly, seasonality does have its drawbacks — this is really only available in July and a few weeks of August. The upside? Those dates overlap with Burgerville’s similarly hyped Blackberry Shake Season!

The Bottom Line:

This burger with Walla Walla onion rings and a Blackberry Milkshake is one of the best, most deeply satisfying, unctuous meals in fast food.

— Steve Bramucci

Find your nearest Burgerville here.

Carl’s Jr. — Primal Angus Thickburger with Fried Zucchini

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

I’m a little frustrated with Carl’s Jr because my local Carl’s keeps telling me that they “can’t” substitute Fried Zucchini into my Primal Angus Thickburger, which consists of a thick charbroiled Black Angus beef patty, layers of tender prime rib, sweet bbq sauce, smoked cheddar, and fried onion rings, even though they have a burger on the menu that already features the fried zucchini. They’ve straight up told me that it’s “not possible.”

So like a loser, I’ve been ordering the Primal Angus Thickburger with a side order of Fried Zucchini and assembling it myself because I swear to you, it’s the greatest Carl’s Jr. burger hack ever and I won’t stop eating it until Carl’s Jr’s Jurassic World promotion ends and they take this off the menu.

The only good thing the Jurassic World franchise has given us is this burger which is sweet, smokey, wonderfully savory, and refreshingly vegetal in every bite.

The Bottom Line:

Carl’s Jr’s Primal Angus Thickburger is only available for a limited time, so move fast if you want to hack together Carl’s best burger.

Find your nearest Carl’s Jr. here.

Culver’s — ButterBurger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

The ButterBurger is a must for any cheeseburger list. I’m a big Culver’s stan, sure. But the ButterBurger actually delivers amazingly well for a fast-food chain. The burger is a smash burger — they call it “pressing” — that’s made from fresh meat to order for every single burger made. That alone is worth the price of entry. That burger is then sandwiched on a fancy roll that’s seared off on the flattop with butter. Think of it this way, once you have a ButterBurger, you’ll see where Shake Shack got their inspiration from.

The best part is that these are 100 percent customizable. You can get a standard Culver’s Deluxe, which is red onion, pickle, lettuce, and tomato with Wisconsin cheddar, mayo, yellow mustard, and ketchup. It’s like an old-school diner “deluxe” burger from back in the day. What I like to do is get a double with cheese with pickle and onion and the roasted garlic aioli from the Wisconsin Big Cheese Pub Burger. It adds a nice extra zip of tang to the burger overall. Plus, the minimal toppings let the smash burger and buttery bun really shine through.

The Bottom Line:

This is just a good burger all around. It’s fresh, made-to-order, and actually filling for a good price (a double ButterBurger is $4.29). Just don’t sleep on one of those creamy milkshakes or Culver’s own root beer off the fountain.

—Zach Johnston

Find your nearest Culver’s here.

Dairy Queen — FlameThrower 1/3 lb Signature Stackburger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

I’ve said it in multiple food rankings but I guess I have to say it again: go to Dairy Queen for soft-serve ice cream and Blizzards, not for burgers. I don’t know why Dairy Queen has food outside of ice cream, but they do, and as part of my job — and let me reiterate, only as part of my job — I’ve become pretty intimate with DQ’s food.

It’s all… sigh… fine.

It’s not horrible, but it doesn’t need to exist. So for our pick on the best burger on the menu we’re going with the FlameThrower, which features a layer of spicy bacon over two beef patties topped with Pepper Jack cheese, tomato, some of the saddest lettuce you’ll ever see, on top of FlameThrower sauced buns. The FlameThrower sauce is more sweet than spicy, but it has a cayenne pepper kick to it that pairs well with the pepper jack and bacon.

The Bottom Line:

Following up bites of this spicy burger with a few spoonfuls of your Blizzard creates an interesting spicy-sweet combo, which is at the very least novel and an experience unique to Dairy Queen.

Find your nearest Dairy Queen here.

Del Taco — Double Bacon Del Cheeseburger w Fries and Guacamole

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

If you’ve never been to Del Taco or have only had the Mexican-inspired food on menu, you might not be aware that Del Taco makes a damn good cheeseburger. The beef here tastes great — it’s both beefy and juicy — and the burger is well assembled. But the whole thing tastes much better when you swap the burger sauce for guacamole, which adds a freshness to the burger while still managing to come across as decadent and hearty.

You can’t beat the flavor combination of smokey bacon and avocado.

I’m not entirely sure why Del Taco doesn’t already have a guacamole burger on the menu — at the very least can we get a burger topped with some fresh sliced avocado? — still, this is a pretty easy hack for the kitchen staff to execute.

The Bottom Line:

Del Taco’s best burger isn’t officially on the menu, but hopefully, the chain wises up and adds something similar to the lineup soon.

Find your nearest Del Taco here.

Dog Haus — Holy Aioli

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

For me at least, Dog Haus is a fairly new chain so I won’t pretend to be an expert on this menu just yet. But from what I’ve had of the burgers, Dog Haus’ Holy Aioli is a standout for me. The burger combines a crispy Maillard-kissed burger patty topped with gooey melted American cheese, layers of smokey bacon, sweet caramelized onions, and a robust garlic aioli holding it all together.

Each bite is pleasantly sweet and smokey, and the King’s Hawaiian bread bun adds an additional layer of sweetness to each bite that makes this burger taste remarkably decadent.

The Bottom Line:

It might not always scratch your itch for a classic cheeseburger, but if you’re looking for something a bit elevated in flavor, this smokey sweet, and garlicky burger is your best bet.

Find your nearest Dog Haus here.

Fatburger — XXL Double King Burger (The Works!)

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Fatburger gives you a lot of options to soup up your burger, from adding chili, to a fried egg, onion rings, or bacon, but I feel like the best iteration of the burger is the simple Double King Burger. When you order this burger with “The Works,” you get two juicy beef patties topped with melted American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, mustard, pickles, and relish atop a sponge-dough bun. You can order any combination of toppings, we won’t push you on The Works, because the real star here is the beef patties.

The beef at Fatburger tastes remarkably fresh, like the sort of burger you’d eat at a backyard bbq hosted by someone who grinds their own chuck and sirloin. It’s not the most exciting choice, but sometimes nothing hits the spot like a classic, beefy cheeseburger. If you’re looking for something at least a little exciting, add the onion rings, they’re also some of fast food’s best.

The Bottom Line:

When you want a classic cheeseburger that delivers the flavors you’ve come to expect but still tastes like something special and worth the money, it’s hard to beat a classic Double King Burger.

Find your nearest Fatburger here.

Five Guys — Bacon Cheeseburger With Grilled Onions + Grilled Jalapeños

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Ridiculously inflated prices aside, Five Guys is one of the best chains to pick up a burger at. I ride hard for the brand and the ability to customize your burger any way you want is a big part of that. I’ve thought a lot about the perfect burger build at Five Guys and although my opinion is always changing, one that always stays in the rotation is this simple build: a bacon cheeseburger (which comes with two patties) with American cheese, grilled onions, grilled jalapenos, and A1 Steak Sauce.

You can choose mayo over the A1 (but it’ll be way less savory) or add grilled mushrooms for an umami kick, but the most important ingredient here is the grilled onions and jalapeño. The grilled onions come out a bit oily, but that oil immediately infuses with the grilled jalapeño’s spice — adding a savory and spicy character to the whole burger that will legitimately make your brow sweat.

Because Five Guys jalapeños aren’t pickled, they actually provide a fresh pronounced bite of spice with peppery vegetal notes that cut through all the unctuous flavors and take away the need for lettuce, which would only water down the predominant flavors here.

The Bottom Line:

Not just the best way to order your burger at Five Guys, but one of the best burgers across the entire fast food universe. Easily.

Find your nearest Five Guys here.

The Habit Burger Grill — Santa Barbara Char

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Despite the words “burger grill” being in the Habit’s full name, I honestly believe everything else this chain has to offer — from the chicken sandwiches to the salads — are superior to the cheeseburgers. For some reason there is a lot of character missing from The Habit’s burgers. They don’t taste bad, but it often feels like you’re paying a premium for nothing special.

At the very least, when coming to The Habit grab something unique to the chain, like the Santa Barbara Char — a patty melt with caramelized onions, big juicy tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mayo, and fresh avocado. I almost always order this burger sans mayo, the avocado provides enough of a creamy mouthfeel to the burger, and the spongey grilled sourdough is oily enough as it is, so this burger tastes juicy without the need for sauce.

Each bite of this burger comes across as remarkably buttery and savory while maintaining a fresh vibe.

The Bottom Line:

Delicious, buttery, and hearty. One of the best avocado burgers in the fast food universe.

Find your nearest The Habit here.

In-N-Out — Double Double Animal Style w Chopped Chillies

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

In-N-Out is pretty open about its Secret Menu, it even has a whole portion of its website dedicated to it, which would be great if In-N-Out wasn’t also for some reason keeping their best burger a secret. A quick way to improve In-N-Out’s already delicious Double Double is to order it “Animal Style” which includes mustard fried patties, grilled onions, and a double dose of In-N-Out’s spread that adds a tangy and savory sweetness to the burger.

Then you kick it up a whole other level by asking for your Animal Style Double Double with chopped chilies.

Adding In-N-Out’s chopped chilis to your burger adds some sharpness to each bite, with a sweet and subtle heat that dances on the tongue and pairs excellently with the caramelized onions. It makes the burger taste special and unique in a way that even the biggest In-N-Out doubters can appreciate.

The Bottom Line:

On a menu full of hacks, this is In-N-Out’s greatest secret.

Find your nearest In-N-Out here.

Jack in the Box — Sourdough Jack (with Curly Fries Inside)

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

When Jack in the Box first launched the Sourdough Jack in 1997 it was unique to the fast food space as one of the few drive-thru patty melts. In 2022, the idea of ordering a patty melt from a fast food burger place isn’t quite as novel, which means Jack in the Box’s Sourdough Jack doesn’t have that same uniqueness factor to it. But considering this is kind of a mediocre patty melt (the sourdough bread is never crispy enough, it’s too soft and loaded with preservatives in order to increase shelf life) it needs some hacking to make it adequately palatable.

Luckily hacking this cheeseburger is as easy as loading it up with some of Jack in the Box’s Curly Fries. Once you add the fries, it adds some garlic and onion notes plus some nice texture to this otherwise sweet and buttery burger.

The Bottom Line:

Jack in the Box’s Sourdough Jack isn’t quite as novel as it once was, so load it up with Curly Fries and take it to the next level.

Find your nearest Jack in the Box here.

McDonald’s — Quarter Pounder With Cheese

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

McDonald’s tried a whole menu of hacks as a recent promotion and aside from having to assemble them yourself, most of them were major misses. When it comes to McDonald’s, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel — a simple Quarter Pounder with a side order of fries is still one of McDonald’s best orders, even with all the BTS and Travis Scott meals remixing the menu.

This burger just delivers that weird tangy and spicy combination of onions, pickles, ketchup, and mustard that tastes distinctively like McDonald’s and only like McDonald’s.

The Bottom Line:

If you want to get wild, feel free to throw some of your fries into this burger. But as it stands, the Quarter Pounder is easily McDonald’s best burger, no matter how much people swear by an order of two Double Cheeseburgers.

Find your nearest McDonald’s here.

Rally’s — Smokey BBQ Bacon Buford

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

For Rally’s/Checker’s it was a toss-up between the Smokey BBQ Bacon Buford and the Classic Big Buford. We’re going with the BBQ because of its more decadent offerings. Two slices of crispy smoked bacon sit atop two thick Swiss cheese-topped beef patties slathered in BBQ sauce and topped with red onions, and pickles, sandwiched between two smokey mayo buns.

The smoked mayo adds some extra smokiness to the sandwich, while the BBQ sauce keeps things sweet and tangy.

The Bottom Line:

If you like BBQ sauce, the Smokey BBQ Bacon Buford will not disappoint. If you don’t like BBQ on your burgers, grab the classic Big Buford instead.

Find your nearest Rally’s here.

Shake Shack — Double Shack Burger with Crispy Shallots

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Shake Shack’s meat patties are fast food’s finest, we know, we’ve tasted hamburger patties plain and this one came out on top, no contest. The beef is just too good here — it’s juicy with a strong beefy flavor encased in the perfect Maillard crust. Little needs to be done to elevate this already elevated cheeseburger, simply add an order of crispy shallots to the whole thing.

The shallots add sweet and delicate, almost floral notes to each bite that makes this burger taste much more expensive than it actually is.

The Bottom Line:

Simply the finest burger you’re going to find in all of fast food. No contest.

Find your nearest Shake Shack here.

Smash Burger — Smoked Bacon Brisket Burger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

I love a decadent meat bomb of a burger, and it doesn’t get more decadent than Smash Burger’s Double Smoked Bacon Brisket Burger. Brisket burgers have been fast food’s favorite recent innovation, it feels like everyone is taking a stab at the style, from Carl’s Jr. to Arby’s, to Wendy’s, but nobody is doing it like Smash Burger.

This burger is super smokey, with a sweet and lusciously savory beef flavor, with a bacon-backed crunch and the right amount of tang to keep it from coming across as too sweet. Aside from the layers of beef and brisket, you get thick-cut pickles, crispy applewood smoked bacon, and layers of sharp cheddar, all between a soft toasted brioche bun.

The Bottom Line:

If you’re looking for the most savory, biggest, meatiest burger in fast food, Smash Burger’s Double Smoked Bacon Brisket will more than exceed your expectations.

Find your nearest Smash Burger here.

Sonic —SuperSONIC Bacon Double Cheeseburger

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Sure, Sonic has burgers, lots of them, but similar to Dairy Queen and A&W, the real draw of this establishment is the sides. Order a hot dog, an order of mozzarella sticks, or jalapeño poppers, but don’t order a cheeseburger. They come across as being too bland for their own good.

On this Double Cheeseburger, you get all the classics: ketchup, mayo, and mustard on the top bun with pickle chips, lettuce, and onion before that cheese, meat, cheese, meat combination, plus two slices of crispy bacon. The beef is a bit mealy and very dry, so why get a double over a single? Because the meat-to-cheese-to-bread ratio is better this way. Trust.

The Bottom Line:

We’d generally advise against getting a burger from Sonic in the first place, but if you must, the Bacon Double is the play.

Find your nearest Sonic here.

Wendy’s — Baconator

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

Wendy’s has a lot of great burgers on their menu but we’re giving this coveted spot on our roundup to the best bacon burger in all of fast food — the Baconator. A 1/2 pound double cheeseburger with two layers of American cheese, and two layers of bacon sandwiched between a mayo and ketchup slathered bun, the Baconator wisely ditches lettuce in its build, resulting in a smokey and savory meat bomb that delivers addicting bite after addicting bite.

This burger is incredibly salty, so be warned, it’s the type of burger that is guaranteed to put you in a mini food coma. You can remedy this by getting the Son Of Baconator, which is the exact same burger in a smaller footprint. But we suggest you always go all out on the main thing.

The Bottom Line:

One of the best bacon double cheeseburgers you’ll ever get from a drive-thru. The beef is fresh, the bacon is crispy and smokey, and the salty flavor is incredibly addicting.

Find your nearest Wendy’s here.

Whataburger — Whataburger Patty Melt

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

The Patty Melt at Whataburger is the only way to go, especially if you’re not getting a fried chicken biscuit. The build of this hamburger sandwich is pretty big. It starts with two thick pieces of Texas toast with two five-inch beef patties each with a slice of Monterey Jack cheese. Grilled onions with a nice sweetness are piled on top of those cheesy patties. And then on that top piece of Texas toast, there’s a good dollop of Whataburger’s “Creamy Pepper” sauce. It’s sort of like a burger sauce with extra black pepper and chili peppers in there. It’s fantastic, creamy, and just the right hint of spice for this burger.

Pro-tip — order “extra” sauce when you get a Patty Melt. Moreover, when ordering any burger at Whataburger, make sure to get it with Creamy Pepper instead of mayo, ketchup, etc. It makes everything better.

The Bottom Line:

This is a big and bodacious burger on some serious toast. It’s amazing if you’re a little stoned or tipsy but works wonders any time of the ol’ day.

—Zach Johnston

Find your nearest Whataburger here.

White Castle —The 1921 Slider

Why It’s The Best Burger On The Menu:

White Castle’s sliders are more novel and nostalgic than they are delicious, but anytime I hit White Castle (which isn’t often, the closest one to me is four hours away in Las Vegas) I grab the 1921 Slider. What sets this apart from White Castle’s other sliders is that this is a fully-dressed burger.

The seared burger is topped with grilled onions, cheddar cheese, a slice of tomato, lettuce, and pickles. It’s everything you want out of a decent cheeseburger, in a bite-size form.

The Bottom Line:

It’s not life-changing, but if you want the best burger experience White Castle has to offer, grab the 1921 Slider.

Find your nearest White Castle here.

Tuesday marked Donald Trump’s 76th birthday and some shared their well-wishes for the former president through messages and posts to him. Kodak Black was one of those people, but the rapper found a very Kodak Black-way to celebrate the president’s new year of life. In a post to his Instagram Story, Kodak wrote, “Happy Z Day #DT I Love You N**** @realdonaldtrump @donaldtrumpjr,” over an image of his chains, one of them being a $10,000 pendant of Donald Trump smoking a blunt. The pendant even features the former president in a MAGA hat.

It turns out that the team behind the pendant is Trax NYC jewelers who recently shared a video of Kodak and the pendant on their Instagram page. Maksud “Trax” Agadjani shared that the piece of jewelry, which was given to the rapper a few weeks ago, was actually made as a gift to Kodak.

Surprisingly enough (or maybe not), this is not the only piece of jewelry related to Trump that Kodak has in his collection. Shortly after the former president pardoned him, Kodak showed off a ring that had “Trump Ties” written on the side.

You can view Kodak Black’s happy birthday message to Donald Trump in the post above.

Kodak Black is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The popular perception of ramen in America has undergone a radical transformation in recent years, from a discount product fit for frugal eating and dorm living to a trendy restaurant concept worthy of valuable real estate and date night splurges. These days it manages to live in both places at once, the subject both of restaurant pop-ups and instant brand contendors, trying to steal market share from Nissin and Maruchan (the Coke and Pepsi of Instant Ramen) and promoting their efforts on TikTok and Instagram.

The common thread of course, is comfort food. A perfect bowl of savory broth and slurpable noodles can satisfy at any price point. Growing up in Southern California, I remember running through the aisles of 99 Ranch with my mother, gleefully throwing bottles of bubbly Japanese Ramune soda, boxes of chocolate-filled pandas, and of course, shiny packs of instant ramen into our quickly-filling shopping cart. These days, I’m a culinary and travel journalist with a self-described “high-low” palate, who loves a classic Cup Noodle as much as a steaming bowl of restaurant tonkatsu. It’s not about price point—it’s about real-deal flavor and texture.

To me, the main pillars of excellent ramen include:

• Firm noodles that don’t get soggy as they sit in the broth and have a good chew and bite.
• Broth that at least somewhat accurately reflects the flavors listed on the packaging while managing a complexity or depth of flavor that makes you want to finish the whole bowl.
• Finally, the ramen should stand well on its own, meaning it tastes great with absolutely no additional ingredients.

But you don’t have to take my word for it, I also reached out to a true pro.

“The best instant ramen has richness to it—a very rich broth with a lot of flavor, and I like my noodles more firm,” says Chef Tomo Kubo of popular New York City ramen shop, TabeTomo. “When I get home from a long night at the restaurant and I’m super tired, I’ll make myself a quick bowl of instant ramen — the quality of what is available in stores has also been going up day by day.”

All of the ramens listed below are widely available at Asian grocery stores, Whole Foods, mainstream grocers, or online. When possible, I grabbed a chicken or pork flavor, and never added any ingredients that weren’t included in the preparation instructions. Tasting each ramen, I used the criteria listed above (supplemented by Chef Kubo), and also judged for umami (savoriness), mouthfeel, and whether or not the ramen was a total sodium bomb.

Grab a big bowl and some chopsticks, and let’s get into it!

20. Right Foods Vegan Ramen Chicken Flavor

PRICE: $3.15

Tasting Notes:

I was excited to try this one, in part because of the “organic” noodles, and the packaging made me feel like it would provide a taste reminiscent of the comfort of chicken noodle soup. Unfortunately, this vegan ramen did not deliver. Though the broth is technically “chicken flavor,” it tastes more like the vegetable flavors of chicken noodle soup—namely celery. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s pretty thin in flavor and consistency, and not wholly satisfying.

The noodles took an extraordinary amount of time to soften for instant ramen in a cup. Even after softening, I still found them tough.

The bottom line:

Though this cup variety has the two necessary components of instant ramen — broth and noodles — it doesn’t feel like a true ramen to me. It’s just not satisfying enough at all… though it does get some points for being vegan and organic.

19. Sapporo Ichiban Tonkotsu Ramen with White Chicken Broth

PRICE: $4.83

Tasting Notes:

Near the bottom of the list, we have this take on creamy tonkatsu, but this time with white chicken broth. My problem right off the bat was actually the color, which was much muddier and greyer than any other tonkatsu ramen on this list and very unappetizing. The aroma was fairly enticing, but once I dug in I was met with a one-note, very salty flavor.

The broth is very creamy, to be sure, but tasted overly saline and synthetic. The noodles are also on the thinner side and quite soft.

The bottom line:

If you’re looking for creamy and salty tonkatsu with soft, breakable noodles, go for it. But there are much better options on the market.

18. Kang Shi Fu Soup Noodle Artificial Chicken Flavor with Mushroom

PRICE: $2.39

Tasting Notes:

The only ramen on this list to incorporate both the flavors of chicken and mushroom, I thought it sounded promising. Upon tasting, the broth was actually quite nice. It first hits you in the face with an intense mushroom flavor but soon I noticed that the broth was fairly multidimensional with a light and oily consistency.

The noodles, on the other hand, were probably my least favorite of the bunch—with a spongy texture reminiscent of packing peanuts.

The bottom line:

For instant ramen in a cup, I was generally impressed by the mushroom-y broth. But those noodles left much to be desired.

17. MAMA Oriental Style Instant Noodles – Artificial Pork Flavor

PRICE: $1.48

Tasting Notes:

This Thai brand of instant noodles is a favorite of Chrissy Teigen’s mother, Pepper, so of course, I had to give them a try. The broth was quite delicious and fairly light, with a nice little hit of spice. Figurative points were lost because I couldn’t really taste a “pork” quality to the broth. It was good but just tasted quite general.

Though not packaged in a cup, this ramen is prepared similarly, by pouring hot water over and waiting, rather than simmering it in a pot.

The bottom line:

This ramen is definitely not unpleasant and could satisfy in a pinch, but I wouldn’t be reaching for it in terms of flavor or quality. Perhaps it could taste better stir-fried, as per Teigen’s recipe.

16. Paldo Kokomen Instant Noodles with Chicken

PRICE: $2.49

Tasting Notes:

The broth of this instant ramen has a really tasty, slightly spicy flavor, and golden color with a light consistency. It doesn’t have a very chicken-like taste, per se, but great umami. The noodles are soft and spongy—there’s not much remarkable about them, but I like that they aren’t too thin or get soggy as they sit in the broth.

Overall, it’s good ramen, just nothing to write home about.

The bottom line:

These noodles in a cup by Paldo contain a decent amount of flavor, and I like that the spice level is low enough that it doesn’t burn your mouth as you make your way through it.

15. Menraku Japanese Ramen “Tonkotsu” Taste

PRICE: $3.95

Tasting Notes:

One of the seemingly trickiest aspects of a “tonkatsu” instant ramen to perfect is mimicking the taste of pork, which this ramen did not. With that said, the broth is an appealing creamy golden-white color, with tiny pockets of oil dotting the top, and has a tasty flavor that is rich and light at the same time. The noodles have a spongy texture and curly look, with a fairly strong flavor.

From my tasting notes: “The quality of the noodles does not match the tasty broth.”

The bottom line:

I appreciated this ramen for its roast-y smell and creamy broth but was not as enthused about the noodle texture.

14. Ottogi Korean Style Snack Ramen

PRICE: $2.29

Tasting Notes:

I liked the idea of a “snack” ramen—a smaller cup that serves as an afternoon pick-me-up, rather than a full meal. This one by Ottogi is fairly tasty. Its broth has a very oily mouthfeel, a golden brown color, and a comforting taste. The noodles are fairly thin and so-so, but I was pleased that they didn’t feel soggy.

The bottom line:

This ramen is neither amazing nor terrible. I could see myself reaching for it for a midday snack on a cold day.

13. Cup Noodle Original Ramen Noodle Soup

PRICE: $1.99

Tasting Notes:

It will probably come as no surprise that the broth of Cup Noodle is very artificial-tasting, but has a certain comfort and nostalgia to it thanks to its OG status. This particular one, found at a Japanese market versus an American one, had a slightly different flavor than stateside Cup Noodle eaters might be used to—with an undertone of shrimpiness.

Also unlike Cup Noodles I’ve found at American grocery stores, this one had tiny pieces of shrimp and sausage in it, which served as little flavor bombs. The noodles are super thin, but not spongy or soggy at all. They maintain their texture even as they sit in the broth.

The bottom line:

I really enjoyed this culinary walk down memory lane, and appreciated the umami flavor of this OG Cup Noodle, despite a label stating that the ramen contains “bioengineered food ingredients.” Hmmm.

12. IMMI Ramen

PRICE: $5.99

Tasting Notes:

This ramen, from a company founded by two men both named Kevin, is designed to be a healthy alternative to the sodium bombs you usually find at your local grocery store. The first thing I will say is that it does, in fact, taste healthy. The broth is high quality, with a slight creaminess from coconut milk and tiny oil bubbles that coat the lips as you eat it. It has a very subtle chicken flavor, but its chicken-y-ness is actually very real tasting.

The noodles are thick and by no means glutinous, with more of a “healthy” taste, and take longer to cook than your normal ramen, at 7 minutes for a nice chewy texture and up to 9 if you want them softer.

The bottom line:

It doesn’t taste like normal ramen but is a good alternative if you’re craving a bowl and trying to cut down on your salt intake. Extra points for the very real chicken taste and 22 grams of protein.

11. Nissin Raoh Umami Tonkotsu Flavor

PRICE: $1.98

Tasting Notes:

The broth of this “tonkatsu” instant ramen has a very strong toasted sesame flavor, almost like black sesame, and is super creamy and rich. The sesame flavor is so strong that I can’t really taste the “tonkatsu” aspects as well, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Its noodles are straight, flattened, and slippery with a little bit of chew, and a light color. They’re good but not remarkable by any means.

The bottom line:

The main drawback to this ramen, despite its deliciousness, is how dense the flavor really is. It would be much better fancied up with some fresh elements like mushrooms or corn, and some meat.

10. Lotus Foods Millet & Brown Rice Red Miso Ramen

PRICE: $5.99

Tasting Notes:

The taste of this ramen reminds me more of a miso soup (even compared to other miso-flavored ramens), with the large pieces of floating seaweed as you would typically find in restaurant miso soup. The broth is a rich dark brown, and flavorful, but not particularly creamy, and the taste definitely doesn’t punch you in the mouth.

It’s a well-rounded savory taste with just a hint of spice on the back of the throat. Its short, rounded noodles are not thick but have a great texture and slight bite that feels very satisfying in the mouth. The shape makes these easy to slurp.

The bottom line:

This ramen is unique thanks to noodles made from millet and brown rice, rather than the standard wheat, supposedly making it healthier and easier to digest. I could see this ramen making a great healthy-ish meal with the addition of vegetables to compliment the red miso flavor of the broth.

9. Paldo Fun & Yum Gomtang Ramen

PRICE: $7.95

Tasting Notes:

Despite the light color of this ramen’s broth, I was surprised by its richness of flavor. It makes sense considering that it’s supposed to be the instant version of Korean bone broth, which gives it a slightly creamy and smooth texture and wholly comforting flavor. The noodles have a nice amount of chew that holds up as it sits in the broth.

The only downside to this one is its heavy amount of sodium, the highest on the list at a whopping 100% of your daily value.

The bottom line:

This ramen is all around yummy and comforting, with a great flavor that made me want to keep eating until the last drop. It’s quite salty, though, so keep a large glass of water nearby.

8. Mike’s Mighty Good Fried Garlic Chicken Ramen Soup

PRICE: $2.79

Tasting Notes:

The fried garlic flavor of this ramen’s broth really comes through in a nice, unctuous way, and there are even flecks of dried garlic swirling around. The chicken notes round the flavor out for a creamy mouthfeel and mild, comforting taste. Upon opening the packet, though, I was surprised to find the smallest amount of noodles I’ve seen so far—a tightly wound ball of them that you are instructed to drop into only 1.5 cups of water.

It ended up yielding a surprisingly filling amount, though (perhaps because I’m on pace to eat five packaged ramens today). The noodles are good, but lack a nice bite or chew.

The bottom line:

This is definitely a more Westernized and contemporary craft ramen, made with a smaller amount of organic noodles, but I thought the end result was pretty delicious and satisfying.

7. NongShim Shin Gourmet Spicy Ramyun

PRICE: $1.49

Tasting Notes:

This ramen has somewhat of a cult following for its supremely spicy flavor. It’s common for those who need to tone the spice level down a bit to add cheese to the broth, which also gives it a creamier flavor. Just as with all the other ramens, though, I tried this with no additives.

The broth is extremely flavorful, and not one of those products that are spicy just for the sake of being so. It has a good depth of flavor and a bright red color that’s extremely enticing (if a bit intimidating), and the noodles have a nice chewy texture, getting fairly soft as they sit in the spicy red broth.

The bottom line:

There’s a reason why this ramyun, a Korean ramen type, is a perpetual crowd favorite. For those who enjoy a healthy dose of spice, you’d be hard-pressed to find better.

6. Momofuku Soy & Scallion Noodles

PRICE: $11.99

Tasting Notes:

Famed restaurateur David Chang and his team at Momofuku worked with A-Sha to come out with a line of make-at-home noodles. Though meant primarily to be consumed dry, I used the barebones version of Momofuku’s online instructions to turn them into a ramen soup—only using the ingredients provided in the packet and one tablespoon of Momofuku Spicy Seasoning Salt to act as a seasoning packet. Right out the gate, I was impressed by the noodles, which are flat and wide, with a great texture and fresh flavor. The broth was tasty, too, and could probably benefit from more Spicy Seasoning Salt and some gourmet add-ons.

The bottom line:

I’m impressed by the quality of noodles, but not surprised given the reputation of Momofuku. In terms of the broth, get ready to put in a little bit more work, time, and money, to turn it into delicious ramen.

5. Nona Lim Traditional Ramen and Miso Ramen Broth

PRICE: $6.99

Tasting Notes:

These noodles from Nona Lim are about as gourmet as it gets for instant ramen. They’re so fresh, in fact, I have to keep them in my fridge. The broth, which is vegan, is sold separately. The noodles cook in only two minutes and then get strained and dumped into the warmed-up ramen broth—meaning no flavor sachets or seasoning packs. Thus, it’s a different ramen experience, with a super mild miso flavor that cries out for spice (or at least maybe some soy sauce), and chewy noodles that taste better than those at some of the ramen shops I’ve been to.

The bottom line:

The word impressed doesn’t even cut it when it comes to the taste and texture of these noodles. But if you’re looking for a flavor bomb then this definitely isn’t it.

4. Itsuki Kyushu “Tonkotsu” Ramen

PRICE: $5.95

Tasting Notes:

The best tonkatsu style ramen on this list, Itsuki Kyushu’s broth is creamy and taupe in color. Very comforting, and though the flavor is milder than others on the list, it tastes very authentic and high-quality. Cooked al dente, the noodles are incredible with an appealing texture. I also like that this ramen came with two bundles of straight noodles and two flavor packets so that you can use them for smaller individual meals or one enormous bowl.

The bottom line:

Most tonkatsu ramens I’ve encountered have the “creamy” note down pat but don’t deliver on noodle quality and depth of flavor like this one does.

3. Sapporo Ichiban Tokyo Chicken Momosan Ramen

PRICE: $15.99

Tasting Notes:

The broth of this ramen by former Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto is super flavorful and oily, with a deep brown color and a fairly real chicken flavor, albeit fairly salty tasting. It has nice, thick noodles, which the packaging distinguishes as being “non-fried.” The result is noodles that are super chewy with a similar texture to restaurant ramen.

The bottom line:

Sometimes chicken ramen can lack in flavor, but this one is super flavorful with great noodles to boot. Even though I had many other ramens to make and taste the day I tried this, I couldn’t help but finish the whole bowl.

2. Ottogi Jin Ramen Mild

PRICE: $1.49

Tasting Notes:

The broth of this Korean ramen, despite a flavor label of “mild” has a fantastic spice to it that isn’t overwhelming, and a rich beefy flavor that compliments the chewy noodles. Speaking of noodles, you get an enormous amount of them in this packet, which are curly with an appealing golden color and a great consistency.

The preparation of this ramen is also somewhat unique, as it comes with a packet of dried vegetables and small beef pieces that are added to the water as it heats up, then the noodles and seasoning packet are added together and boiled for 4 minutes. The result is well-rounded ramen that left me feeling extremely impressed.

The bottom line:

If you’re on the hunt for budget ramen that packs an absolute punch, you should have this one on speed dial.

1. Sun Noodle 1955 Ramen Miso

PRICE: $5.99

Tasting Notes:

Topping off the list is this spectacular miso ramen by Sun Noodle. They don’t add any artificial flavor or color to their ramen kits, but the color of the broth is still a very enticing and rich brown, with a slightly creamy texture and umami-filled miso flavor. The slightly curly noodles have excellent chew and a fresh flavor (because they are pretty fresh), and are of medium thickness. This one requires a slightly more involved cooking process, which involves straining the noodles and adding fresh hot water and a mega-sized liquid seasoning packet to your serving bowl, but it’s 100% worth the minimal effort for what is essentially restaurant-quality ramen in under 10 minutes start to finish.

The bottom line:

When it comes to all-around flavor, texture, and value, this one is just generally superior. With the addition of some chopped scallions and a couple of pieces of chashu pork, you could fool your friends that this is homemade or comes from a restaurant.

This week marks the 35th anniversary of the fifth full-length album by The Replacements, Pleased To Meet Me. As a Midwestern male of the Gen X persuasion, this qualifies as a holiday. And, as is customary for all religious occasions, homage must be paid.

Some background: The Replacements were a four-piece band that formed in Minneapolis in 1979. They released seven studio albums, all of which are very good to great, before they broke up in 1991. The band’s original guitarist, a figure equally tragic and exhilarating named Bob Stinson, passed away four years later. Eighteen years after that, they reunited. And then they broke up again. Over time, they established a reputation for playing heart-on-your-sleeve, punk-inspired rock songs that influenced the sound of indie and alternative bands who went on to become much more successful than The Replacements ever were, in the ’90s and beyond.

Oh, and they drank. They drank all the time. But we’ll get to that.

For most of my life, I have been preparing to go deep on this band. Now, I can’t hardly wait to get started. Meet me anyplace, or just left of the dial — here are my 50 favorite Replacements songs.

50. “Hootenanny” (1983)

It’s 2002. I’m 24 or 25 years old. I’m visiting my boyhood friend in his new home of San Francisco. We’re at a party filled with his girlfriend’s classmates from Stanford. It is not an exceptional party by any means — it’s people standing around in a kitchen and occasionally turning around to pour liquor and Diet Coke into a red Solo cup. And yet I remember this soiree 20 years later for three reasons.

1) It was the first time I realized that the way people drink in the Midwest is not how people drink in the rest of the country. Which is to say, I turned around to pour and mix way more times than the people around me. They nursed, I binged. I binged a lot. Only I didn’t realize, until that very moment, that I was binging. Where I come from, once you finish a drink you immediately get another. I was raised to dread the bottom of an empty cup like a mid-October snowstorm. Binging was normal to me. Only it wasn’t, you know, normal.

2) At some point I made a joke about being a big dumb hayseed who had never visited the Bay Area, and poked fun at my own lack of cosmopolitan know-how, to absolute crickets and blank stares. This is what is known in my part of the country as “preserving your humility,” a helpful personal reminder that you are not better than anyone else. In fact, you are probably worse. It’s a style of interpersonal communication that is bred into you by passive-aggressive Midwesterners from the time you start walking — I am not worth much, and I accept it. But that language didn’t translate here. This lesson took several more years to sink in but I now know it to be true: Self-deprecation is not charming, it turns people off. I mean, it is charming if you are so fabulously wealthy or obscenely good-looking that you must lower yourself a peg in order to not be completely insufferable. But if you’re just an average schlub, it’s alienating, because people can tell that you actually don’t accept that you’re not worth much. They know you instead feel preemptively overlooked and maligned, which will inevitably prompt unearned resentment and unnecessary defensiveness. When you “jokingly” call yourself a hayseed, it’s a sign that you need reassurance that, no, you’re not a big dumb hick who is being judged by people you think see themselves as inherently superior (the jerks!) and maybe really are inherently superior (I’m the jerk).

3) Taken together, these observations partly explain why The Replacements never became superstars.

They drank too much and they were preemptively defensive about being maligned as hicks. These were personal problems. But they are also regional problems. Though if you happen to share The Replacements’ problems … maybe these problems are why you love them?

Some people will hear a band open their third album with a lumbering, extemporaneous jam — in which the members are all playing the wrong instruments in extremely wrong fashion — because the lead singer happened to be annoyed with the recording engineer that day and he figured it would be funny for a so-called punk band to kick off with a song called “Hootenanny,” and they will think: What a bunch of idiots. Others will hear this and think: This was made for me. The former group of people might want to stop reading now.

49. “I Hate Music” (1982)

Normalized binge-drinking and ingrained Midwestern insecurity disguised as self-destructive rock ‘n’ roll bravado — these are essential elements in any conversation about the rise and fall of The Replacements. But I do want to push back against the popular mythos that this band should have become bigger than they were. Based on my reading of my friend Bob Mehr’s exhaustive (and exhausting) definitive 2016 biography Trouble Boys — possibly the best non-memoir rock book of the last 20 years — it’s a miracle that they got as far as they did.

Let’s do a roll call of The Replacements at the dawn of the 1980s, right as they got rolling:

• Chris Mars, committed visual artist and semi-committed drummer.
• Tommy Stinson, bassist and teenaged future high school dropout.
• Bob Stinson, survivor of various childhood traumas (including sexual abuse at the hands of his demonic stepfather) who learned guitar by studying Yes’ Steve Howe while rebelling against the therapists at his reform school.
• Paul Westerberg, budding songwriter and the most depressed 18-year-old janitor living in the Twin Cities.

They weren’t mere misfits or the “lovable losers” of lore. They were people predetermined to live unexceptional lives. Their barstools and gravestones were already booked decades in advance. Whatever the opposite of an industry plant is, they were it. Take the distance between Minneapolis and Los Angeles, multiply it by a factor of 8,000, and that’s about how far The Replacements were from any prospects. And they knew it, and they joked about it, most infamously in this song. Though deep down, Paul also felt that maybe he wasn’t actually worthless, which is why he snuck an insightful, heartrending lyric like “I hate my father / some day I won’t” into such an ostensibly stupid song.

48. “Fuck School” (1982)

Westerberg famously talked his away into the band, back when they were known as Dogbreath, after hearing the Stinsons and Mars jamming one day at Bob and Tommy’s South Minneapolis home as he walked home from his janitor gig. He had already been looking for a band he could shape into his own image as a lover of blues, folk, bubblegum pop, and knuckle-dragging classic rock. And these guys were at least loud and desperate enough to fit the bill.

It’s a shame that a later moniker, The Impediments, had to be jettisoned after they were blackballed in the Twin Cities for showing up drunk to a show at a halfway house for alcoholics. (Again – if you belong in the these guys are idiots category, you might want to bail.) Because “impediment” best describes their emotionally repressed, recalcitrant personalities. Even in the steadfastly recalcitrant hardcore scene in the early ’80s — in which The Replacements dabbled on their early EP Stink! — they felt uncomfortable and compelled to rebel. While “Fuck School” fits the sonic template of hardcore, The Mats eventually were moved to play super slow and mellow “pussy” sets loaded with weepy country songs to rankle the punks.

47. “If Only You Were Lonely” (1981)

Their contrarianism couldn’t quite get this early ballad on their debut album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash. Instead, one of Westerberg’s earliest hangover laments — the path to “Here Comes A Regular” more or less starts here — was relegated to a B-side. But I assume people like Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy heard this twangy gem early on as they explored the space between sullen punk and heartbroken country music. As Paul pukes his guts out while mooning over the girl he didn’t pick up the night before, he slurs his heart out like a sewer-rat George Jones: “I was tired as hell / Another day’s here and oh well / Somewhere there’s a smile with my name on it.”

46. “Black Diamond” (1984)

I don’t want to make the mistake over-mythologizing this band’s already highly romanticized minutia, as Replacements fans are prone to do. (Remember that there is a two-hour Replacements documentary in which neither the members nor their music appears — instead, it’s just fans talking about how much The Replacements mean to them. It’s pretty cringe-y, and I really wish I had been interviewed for it.) But I must point out that this cover of a 1974 Kiss song about a doomed sex worker from the most beloved Replacements’ album, Let It Be, influenced my personal aesthetic for what I love and value in rock music as much as any song on this list.

As a teenager, Westerberg was a student of rock criticism, and that background influenced the sort of band he daydreamed about one day forming. He knew what critics loved, and this helped him lead a band that critics ended up loving. But he was also, shrewdly, ahead of the curve in terms of waving the flag for illicit corners of the rock canon that had not yet been reclaimed by the intelligentsia. So, while you could hear traces of the Stones, the New York Dolls, and the Sex Pistols in what they did, there was also plenty of stuff in The Replacements’ sound that was associated with uncultured plebs, like this song.

But I’m making them sound too cerebral. I’ll put it this way: A punk band that rejected the humorless polemics of hardcore while also embracing stupidly enjoyable arena rock — which essentially meant front-loading your ugly Middle American hickishness in unapologetic fashion — seemed to me at an impressionable age to be the exact right way to live your best life.

45. “Beer For Breakfast” (1987)

I’ll be talking a lot about the genius of Paul Westerberg, master lyricist of fatalistic barroom wit. But let’s begin by marveling at the finest achievement of this stupid-smart Pleased To Meet Me outtake, in which Paul becomes the first (and maybe only?) writer ever to rhyme “breakfast” with “barbecue chips.”

44. “Waitress In The Sky” (1985)

Put a gun to my head, and I’ll declare that Tim narrowly beats out Let It Be and Pleased To Meet Me as my favorite Replacements album. It has the worst production out of those three, but it has the best songs, and the songs are so great that they overcome the tinny sound. (I even love the album’s deliberately moronic filler numbers, “Dose Of Thunder” and “Lay It Down Clown,” which I’ve grown to love as concessions to the soon-to-be-fired Bob Stinson and his Johnny Winter-loving sensibilities.) On Tim, Westerberg wrote some of his finest songs about his central theme — the omnipresence of fear and the struggle to overcome it. He wrote about fear in so many different contexts on this record: the fear of losing your life, the fear of feeling lonely in a crowd, the fear of loving your favorite bar a little too much, the fear of never telling your public transportation-related crush how much she means to you. Scared songs delivered with swagger — that’s The Replacements’ brand.

Even this song — an example of Westerberg reverting to heel mode, which he did more often on stage than on record — is about fear. In this case, it’s a kind of fear that dictated a lot of the band’s behavior, particularly toward the record industry: the fear of being looked-down upon. The guy in this song feels I am not worth much deep in his soul, so he’s launching an offensive to put the poor, allegedly-aloof flight attendant in her place. “Treat me like the way they treat ’em up in first class,” the guy snarls, though I suspect that even if she did, he wouldn’t believe he deserved it.

43. “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” (1984)

While Paul is our narrator, Tommy Stinson — the kid who became Paul’s muse and then his running mate — is the main character of many of these songs. The juvenile malcontents who run wild in early Replacements anthems seem mostly modeled after the juvenile malcontent in their own ranks. As producer Tony Berg, the future Phoebe Bridgers mentor who was tortured unceremoniously during the making of 1989’s ill-fated Don’t Tell A Soul, once put it, “The Replacements, Tommy especially, represent Paul’s adolescence to him.” Another Mats producer, the great helmer of Pleased To Meet Me Jim Dickinson, said it more directly: “Tommy’s this great existential hero, which is a rare breed nowadays. Every morning, or afternoon, Tommy wakes up and decides whether or not he wants to be Tommy.”

As good as Trouble Boys is, I hope that Tommy writes his own memoir someday. Can you imagine spending the entirety of your teen years in The Replacements? How glorious and gloriously awful that must have been? For starters, I’d love to know what it’s to have a song about being assaulted by an evil doctor in which you’re name-checked released just four days before your 18th birthday.

42. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ghost” (1989)

Tommy has described their penultimate record Don’t Tell A Soul as “our least honest record.” That doesn’t seem like an accurate description of the songs as much as the ‘roided-out mix done by Chris Lord-Alge, a mainstay of FM rock back when FM rock was a thing, who worked on everything from Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark” to Green Day’s American Idiot. Lord-Alge’s pumped-up sheen helped to deliver The Mats’ their only sort of hit, “I’ll Be You,” while sandbagging the rest of the record. (Which is why 2019’s Dead Man’s Pop is the most revelatory Replacements’ box set, in spite of focusing on their worst album, because it restores the album’s rougher, more primal original mixes.) But the bleak defeat of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ghost” — in which Westerberg croaks that “we don’t know until we’re gone / there’s no one here to raise a toast / I look into the mirror and I see / a rock ‘n’ roll ghost” — is the opposite of dishonest. It is almost too brutal in its truth-telling, pointing to the even more downcast All Shook Down.

41. “All Shook Down” (1990)

Nobody — least of all Paul Westerberg — considered their swan song, All Shook Down, to be a proper Replacements album. Mars hardly plays on it, and Stinson is more of a contributor than a full-on collaborator. But in terms of vibe and thematic symmetry, it’s the perfect ending, a denouement as exhausted and embittered as Sorry Ma is energetic and irrepressible. Westerberg’s overt tribute to Alex Chilton appeared two albums prior, but All Shook Down functions as a covert homage to Big Star’s dissolute Third, evoking that album’s sense of utter hopelessness in the wake of so much professional and spiritual failure, during a period when Westerberg was so alcohol poisoned that he couldn’t get through half a beer without becoming weak-kneed. Throughout the record, he sings in a grief-stricken rasp. On the title track, he bottoms out: “Praises they sing / A register rings / One of the time / That nobody brings / Praises they sing / Shake my hand as I drown / All shook down / All shook down.”

40. “When It Began” (1990)

One of the more fascinating subplots to The Replacements’ story is their Goofus-and-Gallant relationship with R.E.M., who started making waves around the same time in the early ’80s. More consistent and better managed, R.E.M. stayed on an incredible, upward trajectory for almost two decades, while The Replacements sputtered, stumbled, slipped, and sank throughout the ’80s before finally collapsing in the early ’90s. This naturally imbued the bands’ relationship with a frenemies vibe, though as a fan of both groups I think it’s fair to say that each unit conducted business precisely how they wished, for better or worse. Not that The Mats weren’t prone to grousing about their relatively obscure status. “I mean, I wonder why a million people like R.E.M., for instance, and only 200,000 like us,” Westerberg complained to Rolling Stone in 1989. “Are they better than us, or have the other 800,000 not had the chance to hear us?

It is incredible to hear this song from All Shook Down, an Abbey Road-like remembrance of times past on the verge of an implosion, and note that R.E.M. — already a platinum-selling band in 1990 — was about to ramp up for an era of even greater success. Meanwhile, Paul Westerberg sounds like an 80-year-old man on his deathbed.

39. “Someone Take The Wheel” (1990)

One of my favorite stories from Trouble Boys occurs after the band has broken up. Westerberg is in L.A. and happens to step into the same elevator as Kurt Cobain, a newly minted rock star whose album sales have already eclipsed Westerberg’s. The men don’t share a word. They step out on the same floor and walk to adjoining hotel rooms, all without making a peep. And that’s how the writer of Let It Be met the writer of Nevermind.

Later in the book, Westerberg complains to a therapist that everyone he hears on the radio sounds like him, which naturally makes the therapist question the patient’s sanity. This being the ’90s, however, Westerberg was absolutely correct, though ultimately I don’t hear much of a connection between Westerberg and Cobain. I liken Paul more to another upper Midwest troubadour, John Prine, who evinced a similar ability to wring equal doses of pathos and humor out of sly one-liners and spare but revealing storytelling, like the following line from this travelogue-from-hell: “I see we’re fighting again / In some fucking land / Throw in another tape man.”

38. “Talent Show” (1989)

The most notorious TV appearance by The Replacements was their first, on Saturday Night Live, in 1986. We’ll talk about that one later. First, let’s discuss their second TV appearance, on something called the International Rock Awards, in 1989. They played this song, though nobody at the International Rock Awards seemed to think they actually had talent. “We apologize … here they are … The Replacements,” the announcer says with mild disgust. Their reputation has once again preceded them. “What the hell are we doing here?” Westerberg drawls into the mike, laying on the familiar goober routine. I am not worth much, and I accept it.

And then they start playing and it’s clear that really don’t belong here, because this made-up awards show is stale and the band on stage is thrillingly alive. Censors mute the line about “feelin’ good from the pills we took,” and you can see Paul roll his eyes a bit. I am not worth much, and I accept it. The band rampages forward unabated, laughing at themselves and their ridiculous surroundings. At the breakdown, Paul has a surprise — he changes the line about how it’s too late to turn back to “it’s too late to take pills,” side-stepping the censors. In true band fashion, they have blown another opportunity, in order to win back some dignity. Victory belongs only to them, and to a cheering Matt Dillon. I am not worth much, but I am worth more than you.

37. “Bent Out Of Shape” (1990)

The Replacements’ final pre-comeback show on July 4, 1991 in Chicago is one of their most famous and easily accessible bootlegs, given that it was broadcast live on local radio. The band sounds surprisingly spirited given the circumstances, though there is a discernible cloud hanging over the proceedings that becomes more obvious as the bitter end draws nearer. The first half of the show, however, runs the introspective All Shook Down songs through a raucous and drunken live lens, including this song, which is preceded on the bootleg with a torrent of “fuck’s” dropped by Westerberg for the benefit of radio listeners at home.

36. “Johnny’s Gonna Die” (1981)

When I re-read Trouble Boys as preparation for this column, I got suddenly choked up during a scene early in the book when Peter Jesperson — co-founder of The Mats’ original label, Twin/Tone, and their Brian Epstein figure — phones Westerberg after finally playing the band’s demo. Originally, the intention of recording their songs was simply to get local gigs. But Jesperson is now interested in making a single or even an album with them.

“You mean, you think this shit is worth recording?” a flabbergasted Westerberg replies.

The genuine shock is what leveled me. Westerberg wasn’t being self-deprecating; he really couldn’t foresee a future that extended beyond playing The Longhorn or the 7th Street Entry. He had accepted his predetermined fate, to the point that a small acknowledgment from a local tastemaker felt like a revelation, a peek at a whole other world you couldn’t let yourself believe in because it was likely bound to vanish.

In retrospect, you can draw a line between an early song like “Johnny’s Gonna Die” — one of Westerberg’s first ballads, inspired by embattled New York Dolls Johnny Thunders, a personal hero — and All Shook Down. Even at his roughest-around-the-edges stage, he had his viewpoint down cold.

Everybody stares and everybody hoots
Johnny always needs more than he shoots
Standing by a beach and there ain’t no lake
He’s got friends without no guts, friends that never ache
In New York City, I guess it’s cool when it’s dark
There’s one sure way Johnny you can leave your mark

35. “‘Kick Your Door Down” (1981)

The point is that even as Westerberg matured — which in Replacements-speak translates to “wrote slower and mellower songs” — he didn’t necessarily move all that far beyond the songs he put on that demo tape. His past, present, and future can be heard in those songs. This track from Sorry Ma is another example of Westerberg writing an extremely Westerbergian song about kicking a door down, an extremely Westerbergian act of performative violence that will be revisited in slightly different forms throughout his career.

34. “Treatment Bound” (1983)

Hootenanny is the dark horse of The Replacements’ catalog — it’s not as elemental as the debut or Stink!, not as iconic as the three mid-’80s albums, and not as polarizing as the last two. It is, in some ways, an epic troll of their early punk audience, with its corny folk music cover and eclectic (if also nonsensical) collision of musical styles. It’s an album that you will appreciate more if you appreciate all of the other Replacements albums first, because it’s the record most interested in demolishing all preconceived notions about what The Replacements are. Then, at the end of the record, comes this song, which puts all of that self-mythology back together again. “We’re gettin’ nowhere quick as we know how / We whirl from town to town Duluth to Madison / Treatment bound.”

33. “I Don’t Know” (1987)

Speaking of self-mythology, “one foot in the door / the other one in the gutter” is almost too perfect as a summation of The Replacements’ worldview. It’s like Thom Yorke singing “we started with guitars / and then we went bleep-bloop” in a Radiohead song.

32. “Hold My Life” (1985)

If Tommy Stinson was both bass player and muse in The Replacements, Bob Stinson was also a kind of muse for Westerberg, the tragic bleakness counterbalancing his brother’s indefatigable nerve. A one-of-a-kind hard-rock guitar player whose wild solos simultaneously cut against and elevated Westerberg’s songs, Bob Stinson is also a singularly sad figure in American indie rock history, a man who was beaten up so much by life that his death in 1995 at the age of 35 — an otherwise horrifically young age — actually seems like a testament to his Herculean endurance. Most of us wouldn’t have made it out of Bob Stinson’s childhood.

I think of him whenever I hear this song, the lead-off track from Tim, probably because the title was repurposed as the headline of a harrowing 1993 Spin profile in which Bob muses, “You know, I’d really like to meet myself sometime. I’d probably beat the shit out of myself for letting opportunities go by.” As a quote, it could almost be a Replacements lyric.

31. “Valentine” (1987)

Pleased To Meet Me was the first Replacements album I ever heard, which is why I tend to recommend it as an entry point. I came to them in the early ’90s after they had already broken up — I don’t have precise memories of this, but I suspect I was prompted to investigate by Paul Westerberg’s prominence on the Singles soundtrack, or maybe the video for “World Class Fad,” directed by future comic-book movie auteur Zack Snyder. (Is there a Snyder Cut of the first video from the 14 Songs album cycle?) Given my grunge-attuned ears, Pleased To Meet Me was a fortuitous introduction, as it’s The Mats album with the heaviest guitar sound, along with the most aggressive and relentless snare tone. This song is basically all heavy guitars and aggressive snare tones — I’m not sure if it would register as an actual good song if it had the production value of Tim, but in this guise it just plain rocks.

30. “Kids Don’t Follow” (1981)

Along with the R.E.M. rivalry, The Replacements had a one-sided competition with U2, whose early breakout single “I Will Follow” was answered by The Mats’ first true, furious anthem. Though the star of the show is the very real Minneapolis police officer captured on tape busting up a house party with his heavy, proto-Fargo Midwestern accent. If you can get through that part of the song without instinctively yelling “fuck you!” at the speakers you are a better person than I.

29. “Nobody” (1990)

Another downer from All Shook Down and a good example of Westerberg shifting perspectives in the lyric, so it’s not clear if he’s observing the wedding day or participating in it. This songwriting trick was often utilized by Westerberg to distance himself from the material, though in the case of “Nobody” I’m not sure how effective it is, given the constant self-negation of the chorus. To quote an early ’70s spaghetti western, Paul’s name was Nobody at the time. Though even at this low ebb, his wordplay was on point: “Heartaches, on your wedding day / Double takes when they look my way / Knees quake, there ain’t a shotgun in the place / You like the frosting, you just bought the cake.”

28. “Sadly Beautiful” (1990)

Now here’s the ultimate All Shook Down downer. It also represents another Westerberg songwriting trick, which is switching the genders of his protagonists. In this song, one can easily envision “the face that turned away pale and worn” belonging to Marianne Faithfull, the singer for whom Westerberg initially earmarked the song. When I hear it, I imagine Anita Stinson addressing her son Bob, especially in this verse: “Well you got your father’s hair / And you got your father’s nose / But you got my soul / Sadly, beautiful.” But it also seems pretty clearly to be another song about Westerberg himself, or at least a version of Paul that he was in the process of no longer being.

27. “Shiftless When Idle” (1981)

Is the essential difference between the first Replacements record and the last Replacements (aside from the cranked-up guitars and accelerated rhythms) simply a matter of tone? What comes across as melancholy and depressed on All Shook Down is rousing and carefree on Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash. If you remove the alcohol, add some mournful John Cale cello, and remove Chris Mars’ drums, the following lyric from this song could’ve been on the last Mats record: “And I ain’t got no idols / I ain’t got much taste / I’m shiftless when I’m idle / I got time to waste.”

26. “Takin’ A Ride” (1981)

OK, so this one would have never fit on All Shook Down or any other Replacements album other than Sorry Ma. If Chuck Berry had attended Catholic school in Bloomington, Minn. and witnessed his rock ‘n’ roll future at a Faces concert at the St. Paul Civic Center, “Maybellene” would have come out sounding like “Takin’ A Ride.” Though I suspect that Westerberg also had Vanity Fare’s timeless 1969 bubblegum classic “Hitchin’ A Ride” — which The Replacements later covered — on the brain. In that song, the singer is trying to get home to his baby’s side; in The Mats’ version of the story, Paul wants his baby to ride with him until the car explodes. The fact that Paul — as well as the other Replacements — didn’t actually know how to drive doesn’t undermine the narrative. The car probably would actually explode if he was really behind the wheel.

INTERMISSION

Please enjoy this video of Paul Westerberg being interviewed in 2010 by a local Minneapolis TV reporter who has no idea who he is. At first, he’s clearly enjoying not being recognized. But by the end, you can tell that he kind of does want to be recognized. It encapsulates The Replacements’ career in two minutes.

25. “Little Mascara” (1985)

A story song about a woman who settles down with a bad boy and then regrets her decision, this ranks as Westerberg most literary song from the Tim era. It’s reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen’s “end of adolescence” songs from Darkness On The Edge Of Town; it could be about the girl with wrinkles around her eyes from “Racing In The Street,” though it’s unclear whether Westerberg liked that record. (He was apparently a Born To Run guy.) Eight years later, Westerberg would foreground this aspect of his writing by positioning his first solo record as a collection of short stories. But at this point, there’s still a youthful vibe to the music, particularly the coda, which is some of the most unabashedly pretty music in The Replacements canon.

24. “The Ledge” (1987)

Unlike Pearl Jam’s future “troubled kid” smash “Jeremy,” this song does not knock you over the head with an obvious, undeniable chorus that hits all of the teen-angst pleasure centers. Instead, it is a relatively low-key character study about a kid on a ledge, with an undertow of dread that’s as relentless as that droning guitar riff. It’s a great song, but it’s hardly an invitation to party with the era’s wildest rock band, which made it a strange choice as a single from Pleased To Meet Me. (The fact that the video captures the band loitering on a couch from 101 different angles certainly didn’t help.)

23. “I’ll Be You” (1989)

Their biggest chart hit, and arguably their best video. (“Bastards Of Young” is a great meta “fuck music videos” music video, but the “I’ll Be You” clip is actually more fun to watch.) Tom Petty famously borrowed the “rebel without a clue” line for “Into The Great Wide Open,” which perhaps should be considered payback for The Mats’ horribly unprofessional behavior as openers on Petty’s Full Moon Fever tour in 1989, when Paul Westerberg night after night openly mocked the headliner from the stage.

A half-baked theory: The “one foot in the door, the other foot the gutter” lyric from “I Don’t Know” was inspired by Petty’s “Rebels,” in which he sings, “Yeah, one foot in the grave / and another one on the pedal.” If true, The Replacements came out ahead of Petty in the theft department.

22. “Portland” (1997)

This apology song about a particularly cataclysmic gig on the particularly cataclysmic Pleased To Meet Me tour is their greatest outtake. (Things apparently got off on the wrong foot in Portland when the dressing-room sofa was tossed out of a window before showtime.) First released on the All For Nothing/Nothing For All compilation, it was recorded during the Don’t Tell A Soul sessions, at which time the chorus (“It’s too late to turn back, here we go”) was excavated for the coda of “Talent Show.”

I’m torn as to whether The Replacements were fools for not including it on the record, or if the ebullient “Portland” would have stuck out on that pumped-up, dispirited record. As it turned out, “Portland” made the most sense as a postscript to the band’s career released six years after their initial breakup. The familiar bravado is there in the chorus, but the humor is more relaxed than usual and is tempered by a grown-up sense of shame. “Predicting a delay on landing / Well I predict we’ll have a drink / Lost my money on the first hand / Got burned on a big fat king.”

21. “Hangin’ Downtown” (1981)

Do you remember what it was like to have absolutely nothing to do for hours on end? I don’t either. That’s why I love this song. It’s a brilliant narrative that evokes the very specific visceral boredom you could only experience between the ages of 14 and 21 in that period of time after the invention of automobiles and before smartphones and the internet. A time when your best options for entertainment were sitting at home and doing nothing or sitting in your friend’s car and doing nothing. “I know it’s better than the TV, and there’s a whole lot to see / When you’re hangin’ downtown.”

20. “Skyway” (1987)

In 2015, my family and I had the chance to move from Wisconsin — the state where I had lived my entire life up until that point — to any place else in the country. The world was our oyster! What did we do? We decided to move to Minneapolis, one of the only places in the world that is actually colder than where we were already living. I partly blame this song. It makes the elevated tunnels that connect the buildings in downtown Minneapolis sound so romantic. Even if, in reality, these tunnels only exist so that the locals don’t die of hypothermia when walking from the office to Quizno’s during the lunch hour. Nevertheless, after all this time, I still romanticize the skyways because of “Skyway,” though I now know that Paul wouldn’t have taken the subway instead, because Minneapolis has no subway.

19. “Nevermind” (1987)

“Alex Chilton” is the explicit Big Star tribute on Pleased To Meet Me, but this deep cut sounds the most like Big Star. It also includes one of the all-time best Westerbergisms — “All over but the shouting” — which was definitely a prescient take on their third to last album, and their final truly great one.

18. “Achin’ To Be” (1989)

While I don’t think The Replacements “should have been bigger,” as fans often claim, their notoriously poor timing really is extraordinary. In 1989, “Achin’ To Be” was the kind of song that many old-time Mats heads dismissed as a wimpy ploy for respectability, a mid-tempo singer-songwriter number more akin to Jackson Browne than the Stones, and a surefire sign they were out-of-step with an alternative landscape now dominated by bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, and Faith No More. But two or three years later, the lightly twangy “Achin’ To Be” would have fit perfectly with the burgeoning alt-country movement, which The Replacements influenced, at the very least, as a model for how to be a flannel-wearing rock band from the middle of the country. What’s funny about “Achin’ To Be” is that it seems to comment on this development ahead of the time — it’s a song about wanting to be great but not really pulling it off, at least not in the moment, because people don’t get what you’re doing right away. “She opens her mouth to speak and / What comes out’s a mystery / Thought about, not understood / She’s achin’ to be.”

17. “Color Me Impressed” (1983)

One of the great “anti-party” party songs. The lyric describes snorting cocaine at a party with Chris Mars while making fun of how everyone else at the party is dressed. Meanwhile, the music sounds like the musicians snorted said cocaine immediately before plugging in. Later on, the title phrase was incorporated into the teen lingo espoused in 1989’s Heathers, starring famous Mats fan Winona Ryder, ensuring that young misanthropes would continue putting down parties well into the ’90s.

16. “Within Your Reach” (1983)

Speaking of teen cinematic classics released in 1989, this song appears toward the end of Say Anything…, as Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) packs his bags to accompany Diane Court (Ione Skye) on her trip to England. Before he exits the apartment he shares with his sister and nephew, he turns up the volume as Westerberg sings, “Sun keeps risin’ in the west / I keep on wakin’ fully confused.” Cusack suggested the song — essentially a Westerberg solo experiment that stood out even on the wildly diverse Hootenanny — to director Cameron Crowe, perhaps because he saw a link between the idealistic Lloyd and the sensitive part of Westerberg, who (like Lloyd) was once an 18-year-old with no professional prospects who eventually pursued the musical equivalent of a kickboxing career.

15. “We’re Comin’ Out” (1984)

The remaining songs on this list are all taken from the mid-’80s trilogy of Let It Be, Tim, and Pleased To Meet Me, one of the best three-album runs in rock history, which were released at a time when The Mats were possibly the best band in America (and one of the best American rock bands ever). On this track from Let It Be, however, they’re simply a mess, reviving the punk fury of Stink! but with a more playful edge. It’s the musical equivalent of the album’s iconic cover, in which our heroes are perched on the Stinsons’ family roof in a conspiratorial huddle. I think the reason why this cover resonates is because anyone who loves this band sees a version of their own post-adolescent gang in that photo, the group of people you hung with like family after you left your real family and before you started a family of your own. Or maybe it’s the gang you wish you had.

14. “Favorite Thing” (1984)

When I finally saw The Replacements play live at Chicago’s Riot Fest in 2013, they didn’t play “We’re Comin’ Out,” probably because Bob Stinson was no longer around to play his insane guitar solo. But they did play this song, as you can see from the very shaky video clip above. By the time I saw them a second time in Milwaukee, during a more extensive reunion tour in 2015, things already appeared to be heading south. (They went back into hibernation later that year.) But that 2013 gig went about as well as anyone could have possibly hoped. I actually wrote two versions of my review — one professional and measured, the other raving and fanboyish. Re-reading it, I had forgotten how eager they were to please that night. They happily took requests and crafted a setlist that seemed designed to please fans of all their many phases. (Stink! was the only release not represented.) I concluded with this: “Look, I know it wasn’t really the Replacements. Bob is dead, and Chris is alive but inconveniently painting instead of drumming. But these songs deserved to be played live at least a few more times. Because it’s the songs that ultimately matter. This music is that friend from high school who you never lose your connection with.”

I want to go back to there.

13. “Sixteen Blue” (1984)

Of all Paul’s “fear” songs, this is one of the most insightful, exploring teenage sexual confusion with uncommon sensitivity for a supposedly loutish rock ‘n’ roll band. (This theme recurs on Let It Be.) “Brag about things you don’t understand / A girl and a woman, a boy and a man / Everything is sexually vague / Now you’re wondering to yourself / That you might be gay.” But what really hits me in the gut is Paul’s outro guitar solo, in which he invents the entire subsequent career of Drive-By Truckers in about 15 seconds.

12. “Here Comes A Regular” (1985)

Is this the greatest song ever written about alcoholism? It’s certainly the best song ever written about small-town Midwestern alcoholism, starting with the rationalization to drink in the first place: “Summer’s passed, it’s too late to cut the grass / There ain’t much to rake anyway in the fall.” Westerberg could be writing about his father, his future (or even present) self, or any of the walking corpses populating the band’s most famous haunt, The C.C. Club in Uptown Minneapolis.

What’s most disturbing about this song is that it doesn’t feel alive enough to even muster fear. Westerberg is describing purgatory. It’s too mundane for hell; it’s an existence in which life never varies from a fair-to-mediocre baseline, no matter the changing seasons outside the saloon doors. (“You’re like a picture on the fridge that’s never stocked with food” is maybe the best description of this blank mental and emotional state that I’ve ever heard.) This song is a tearjerker, but the tears come not from melodrama, but from personal recognition of this specific culture — in a friend, a family member, or even yourself.

11. “Can’t Hardly Wait” (1987)

To repeat something I’ve said a few times already: I think The Replacements were exactly as big as they needed to be. They were not a band built for superstardom. They are an eminently qualified cult band. But … how was this song not a hit? The most eminently qualified cult band, The Grateful Dead, had a Top 10 hit in 1987. But … this song was somehow beyond the pale? They let Bruce Willis have a hit that year but not The Replacements?? Utterly confounding!

10. “Left Of The Dial” (1985)

Here commences a mini-set of brilliant Replacements songs about outmoded technology. In this case, “Left Of The Dial” only works as a song set in a very 1985 world. Or else you’re forced to ponder a scrappy, hard-drinking Middle American rock band of today writing a tribute to underground music called “Ultimate Indie Playlist.”

9. “Answering Machine” (1984)

Self-described Luddite Paul Westerberg could not fathom saying “I miss you” to an answering machine, which makes me wonder: Does Paul text? I can’t imagine him texting but, paradoxically, his ability to distill complex thoughts and profound emotions into pithy one-liners that stick in your brain forever makes me think he’d be amazing at texting. For instance, if I were to text him about this very topic, I assume he would shoot back with something like, “Try and free a slave of ignorance.” And I would, in turn, immediately smash my phone out of deference.

8. “Alex Chilton” (1987)

Here we have a perfect rock song, and it’s only at No. 8? I must cop to a weakness for Replacements ballads, which populate some of the highest reaches of this list. But, honestly, this is the point where all of the songs are tied for No. 1.

What’s most moving about “Alex Chilton” is its generosity. Alex Chilton and Big Star weren’t yet the revered institutions they are today; this song (which is as catchy and powerful as any by Chilton) had a lot to do with getting them to that place. Now, if only a contemporary band would put out a classic song called “Paul Westerberg.”

7. “Unsatisfied” (1984)

Actually, the Goo Goo Dolls should have done that in the ’90s. There isn’t a more obvious example of a band biting The Replacements’ style, and then becoming way more successful, than that band. All of the Goos’ big power ballads from the Clinton era are in some way modeled after this song. The difference is that “Unsatisfied” fell together quickly, with Paul singing half-written and half-mumbled lyrics as Bob Stinson suddenly materialized on the second and final studio take to play the loveliest and most restrained guitar of his life. The Goos took that vibe, polished it, and ended up with smashes like “Name” and “Iris.”

Paul, at least, claimed to be fine with this. “If we can split the pie down the middle and say, ‘Johnny, you take the money and the fame,’ what does that leave me?” he said in 1999. “The credibility.”

6. “I.O.U.” (1987)

The first song on the first Replacements album I ever heard, Pleased To Meet Me, so I admit to some sentimental bias here. But that aside, this really is one of their best rockers, which the band themselves appeared to acknowledge in the mid-2010s by frequently slotting it as the final encore during their reunion tour. While Bob Stinson’s unpredictable musicality was missed after he was fired in 1986, The Mats really did work well as a power trio on Pleased, and you can hear why on this song. The secret sauce is the prominence of Tommy’s grinding bass, which also functions as a de-facto rhythm guitar blasting away underneath Paul’s lead. Coupled with Jim Dickinson big-sounding, naturalistic production, “I.O.U.” captures the power of The Replacements’ live show as well as any studio track.

5. “Kiss Me On The Bus” (1985)

My single favorite Westerberg lyric of all time is in this song: “OK, don’t say ‘hi’ then.” In just five words, he perfectly captured the nature of Midwestern passive-aggressiveness. “OK, don’t say ‘hi’ then” is I am not worth much, and I accept it … but not really personified.

4. “Swingin Party” (1985)

If you Google the title of this song, the first version that comes up isn’t the gloomy ballad with a slapback beat from Tim, but rather the even gloomier cover from the mid-2010s by Lorde, which turned Westerberg’s most overt song about fear into the snail-paced, goth-kid lament it was always destined to be. Dig deeper and you’ll find Reddit discussions among Lorde fans parsing the meaning of bringing your own lampshade to a party, as donning a lampshade no longer signifies being a party animal like it did in the ’80s. There is other opaque imagery in this song – the lines about pounding the prairie pavement and never going fishing, or the part about how there’s plenty of room in jail for all the lampshade wearers. But really it all comes down to the money line: “If being afraid is a crime we hang side by side.” That’s a lyric that alienated young people can grasp in 1985 and 2015 and 2085.

3. “Bastards Of Young” (1985)

Let’s finally talk about the most infamous musical performance in SNL history, and why said infamy seems harder to fathom as time goes on. Granted, they look disheveled and they are playing way, way too loud. Yes, they are most definitely intoxicated. And, sure, it appears that Westerberg calls his prog-suited guitarist Bob Stinson a “fucker” before Bob tears into his screaming guitar solo. But the idea that this is a disaster so unprecedented that it kept The Replacements off of television for the next three years seems impossible to understand now. It’s one of the greatest musical performances on TV ever, and an essential visual document of The Mats in their original form not long before it came apart. I honestly don’t know how you can watch it and not be thoroughly charmed. It is, dare I say it, a definitional rock ‘n’ roll performance. Then again, like I said earlier, I also love the first track from Hootenanny, and we’ve already explored the geographical and psychological reasons behind that one.

2. “Androgynous” (1984)

Westerberg’s greatest vocal, especially on the bridge and at the end when Dick and Jane revert to gender normative clothes, a rebellion against their original rebellion, a born contrarian’s ultimate subversion. The point is that, no matter what, they love each other so, which for a band filled with broken men who sought unconditional love in all the wrong places seems like an uncharacteristically hopeful moment of grace. The opposite of fear is acceptance, and that’s what this song offers.

1. “I Will Dare” (1984)

Shortly after writing it, Paul Westerberg declared this song the best he had ever written. He was underrating himself. It’s one of the best songs anyone has ever written. It rivals “Thunder Road” as a “take my hand and let’s find a better world” rock anthem, and ranks with the most purely exciting album openers in any genre. It’s the kind of tune that makes you want to sprint through your front door — I mean literally through the door — and into the street, so that you may hurtle toward an unknown but indefinably better destination.

The thrill comes from hearing this band of dead-enders get over their fear and accept the possibility of transcendence in real time. The self-deprecation comes early:

What happened to Ann Coulter? By that we mean, when did she start being the (very occasional) voice of reason in the GOP? In the aughts, she was the Republican Party’s most incendiary commentator. Jump a decade and a half, and she’s an anti-Trumpist, as well as one of the few people, in either party, who thinks Joe Biden handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan well. Now she’s coming for an old flame.

On Wednesday, Coulter wrote a piece called “Dinesh’s Stupid Movie,” referring to 2,000 Mules, the latest film from far right pundit Dinesh D’Souza. This one adds to pile of incoherent voter fraud nonsense by misrepresenting geotracking data, supposedly identifying the routes of liberal activists delivering multiple ballots to drop boxes in 2020, and arriving at unsupported, batty conclusions. It’s been so roundly debunked that not even Fox News is buying it. Bill Barr even used it as a punchline in his Jan. 6 committee testimony, enraging Steve Bannon.

Well, Coulter wasn’t having it either, even though she once dated the director. “The movie tells Trump diehards (a dwindling crowd) that their man probably DID win the 2020 election!” she writes. She then further debunks his sloppy reasoning, pointing out that cellphone tracking “isn’t precise enough to distinguish between liberal activists stuffing drop boxes, and store owners, police officers, delivery men and others who have perfectly legitimate reasons to be within a few yards of the same drop box every day.”

Coulter also argues that Trump lost the election himself, partly because he “blew off the signature promise of his campaign: the wall.” (She seemed to find this genuinely disappointing, in case you were worried you were agreeing too much with Ann Coulter.)

She concludes, “Instead of a 49-state landslide and two decades of peace and prosperity, we’d have gotten a D’Souza conspiracy movie about how the Democrats cheated.”

Coulter didn’t spend the entire column dragging D’Souza. She devoted the opening stretch to reports that Trump fleeced his supporters with a nonexistent fund to overturn the election, spending the cash on other things, including himself. And he wasn’t the only MAGA grifter in her eyes:

And let’s not forget Steve Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” swindle; Trump sending out a fundraising appeal to raise funds for his new private plane; and a Trump-affiliated organization paying Kimberly Guilfoyle $60,000 to give a two-minute speech on Jan. 6 (introducing her fiance, Don Jr.). Every time you think you have your arms fully around Trump’s con, you realize it’s unfathomably more cynical and far-reaching than you could have imagined.

Is there anyone in Trump World who isn’t trying fleece the Deplorables? Haven’t they suffered enough?

Anyway, looks like D’Souza’s lost both Fox News and Ann Coulter, which is perhaps the only impressive thing about his new movie.

(Via Mediaite)

June contains two occasions that are moments of celebration in Black culture. The first is Juneteenth, which occurs on June 19th, as it was declared a federal holiday last year on June 17, 2021. The second is Black Music Month which has been celebrated every June since President Jimmy Carter initiated it back in 1979. With both of those events in mind, Meta has decided to launch an all-in-one virtual reality concert series featuring some of today’s most talented R&B acts: Lucky Daye, Umi, and Serpentwithfeet. The series, dubbed the Soul Sessions, was announced as an exclusive through Meta’s all-in-one virtual reality headset, Quest 2.

The series kicks off on Thursday, June 16 at 10am PST and the concerts, which were recorded live, will be split into three episodes for each artist. The performances will be available to check until Sunday, June 26 at 11:59pm PST. According to a press release, each episode, which was exclusively made for the Quest 2 headset on Oculus TV and Venues in Horizon Worlds, will feature an interview with the artist where they will explain “how they continue to push culture forward through their music.”

Lucky Daye, Umi, and Serpentwithfeet have all been active over the last six months. Lucky Daye is just months removed from the release of his sophomore album, Candydrip, which was included on Uproxx’s Best Albums Of 2022 So Far list. Umi released her official debut, Forest In The City, last month and Serpentwithfeet used the final months of 2021 to release his Deacon’s Grove EP.

You can check out the trailer for the Soul Sessions above.

Corky and Violet are hooking up again. After dropping multiple references to the neo-noir classic and Wachowski debut Bound in the first season of Chucky, creator Don Mancini is bringing its cast together to join the haunted doll. Gina Gershon and Joe Pantoliano are joining the cast alongside Jennifer Tilly, who plays a fictionalized version of herself as well as Tiffany Valentine on the SyFy horror show. In Bound, Tilly played the mol to mafia man Caesar (Pantoliano) before falling in lust with a handywoman in the apartment next door played by Gershon. Things get hot, they decide to rip off the mob, and some bloodshed and bondage ensues.

There will probably be a little more bloodshed when they get together for Chucky, although the tone is more tongue-in-cheek than the hardboiled crime caper. If that weren’t enough, Meg Tilly is coming out of a mini-retirement to join the cast, marking the first time that the Tilly sisters have worked together. They’ve had notably different careers, but both have done incredible work in the world of gore, with Meg dipping her toe in it and Jennifer diving headfirst.

Tony Nappo (Saw 2) and Sutton Stracke (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) are also joining the cast. Now the only thing left to see is how meta the jokes get when Gershon and Tilly are in the same scenes.

(via SyFy on Twitter)

With the NBA Draft now eight days away, teams are starting to narrow their focus on how they’ll use the draft to hopefully improve their team. For some, that means targeting prospects, but others that are looking to improve their standing as a championship contender are looking to flip picks for veterans — while others are looking to make room on their cap/tax sheet.

The first deal of the draft season saw JaMychal Green get sent to the Thunder in a relatively minor deal, but the second deal arrived on Wednesday night and saw a more substantial trade get done. Per Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Rockets are sending center Christian Wood to the Mavericks in exchange for the 26th overall pick and three players — Boban Marjanovic, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke, and Marquese Chriss.

The Mavs have been in need of more frontcourt help for some time and struggled with their center rotation in the playoffs, as Dwight Powell was rendered fairly ineffective and their best lineups were their small-ball groups. Wood is a capable scorer, averaging 17.9 points per game last year in Houston on 50.1/39.0/62.3 shooting splits, and should help Dallas some on the glass, but it isn’t a cure-all move for Dallas considering Wood isn’t particularly regarded for his defense.

It’s clear they are banking on Jason Kidd’s system continuing to provide enough of a base to keep them competitive on that end and that Wood’s offensive ability will be a major boost for a team that lacked much of a scoring presence in the frontcourt. They also maintain their core (and some flexibility to make other moves) by not having to part ways with any key contributors in the deal, although Boban Marjanovic was a beloved presence in the locker room, while also clearing some roster spots for other additions. This also would seem to take them out of the mix for other centers on the market, most notably Rudy Gobert but also others like Myles Turner.

Houston adds another first round pick for a player with just one year left on his deal who likely didn’t fit their future given the emergence of Alperen Sengun as they continue their rebuild, and one would expect at least a few of the players headed their way will be released or moved elsewhere.