Until their surprise breakup in 2011, they were back to making some good music again after a few lean years in the middle. I'm still kind of bummed that they broke up, even if they just aren't the same band now as they were back in the late 80's and early 90's. But here's hoping that they'll reconvene with each other for a big ACL headlining slot this fall! Here we go, in my order of preference.
Automatic for the People. 1992. Hard to believe this one came out the next year after Out of Time. Hell of a good run for any band. While I still have a soft spot for Green because it was my first favorite, this one has to be up there in the top ten to twenty albums of all time for me. Four time platinum, lost out to the dumb Bodyguard soundtrack for the Album of the year Grammy in 1994, and lost to U2's Zooropa for Alternative Album of the Year. Reminds me so much of high school and the pain and pleasure of trying to figure out who you are and what you want to be and what is love. Great production, and seriously, not a bad song in the bunch. Maybe "Ignoreland" is the weak link with its yelped lyrics about God-knows-what.
"Everybody Hurts" or "Man on the Moon" are the two big hits, and they're worth every bit of accolade they get - "Everybody Hurts" is just about as perfect of a pop hug for the world as I can think of. Especially when it kicks in at the end and you actually feel lifted up, like it really is going to be OK, and you really can hold on, and it really is going to be better. Phenomenal song. "Drive" is the ominous opener that sets the tone for the rest of the album - except maybe for the odd "Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" - this one has darker sounds than most other REM albums. Same with "Sweetness Follows" - the deep, sawing strings and spare strumming with a little organ leave plenty of room for a sad tune about trying to buck up when the little things want to pull you under.
I think my favorite tune on the album is "Nightswimming," which just evokes so many memories for me and takes me back to that uncomfortable world of high school. Earnest piano, strings, some oboe fired up in there, and with lyrics perfectly capturing the discomfort and fear of stepping out into that water and putting yourself out there. "Not sure all these people understand, not like years ago, fear of getting caught..."
Green. 1988. This was the first CD I ever bought, at the old Sound Warehouse on Burnet, just north of 45th street. It was still early in the time of that technology, so I didn't actually have a player of my own, but my mom had one in her sewing room so that she could listen to the three or four classical CDs she owned. I commandeered the player and would do my homework in her sewing room with this CD taking me from introspective burners to exuberant dance, all within the same framework of tuneful pop rock. I don't know how many times I listened to the album, but I sang "World Leader Pretend" like it was my anthem, learned the super lame "Stand" dance, and actually read encyclopedia entries to better understand "Orange Crush."
This was also one of my first concerts ever, at the Frank Erwin Center, in probably 1989 or 1990. Holy crap. The internet is insane. Here is the setlist for that show, apparently on March 21, 1989. Unbelievable. I recall it being a great show, and there being this insane video playing behind them during "Its the End of the World as We Know It" that was like a roller coaster at warp speed.
Out of Time. 1991. This one was an instant classic. From including a rap in their opening track (Radio Song), which was relatively groundbreaking for this type of band at the time, to the world dominating popularity of the heart-on-the-sleeve "Losing My Religion," to the silly fun of "Shiny Happy People," this one was all over the map stylistically, but it still came together. For reasons that only the teenager me would recall, I spent like $100 on this CD so that I could get a special "limited edition" version (btw, so stupid) that included a longer cardboard case you had to tie shut with strings, 10 artwork postcards by God knows who, and a disc that looked like woodgrain. A fool and his money are soon parted - and it was super annoying to try to get that case onto my CD rack in my bedroom, it was always falling out and being generally annoying.
I think every single song on this is great. The moody simplicity of "Low" is one of my favorites, but I think the joy and release of "Near Wild Heaven," which still demands that I move when I hear it. I've put that tune on many a mixtape back in the day. I also feel like I am really good at singing the "Ooooooooohhhhhh" portions of "Belong." True story.
Life's Rich Pageant. 1986. My sweet grandmother, having no idea what a CD was, actually bought me my first CD player - a Sony Discman that is about an inch and a half thick and square as a giant's coaster. Along with that purchase, I was able to pick two CDs and I chose this and Murmur. I've never stopped listening to it since. "Fall on Me" was the big hit, "Superman" was the non-sensical favorite, but I would again submit that there is not a dud on the whole thing. The rocking borders on punk, between "Begin the Begin" and "These Days," but then "Fall on Me" and "Cuyahoga" dip back into the cooler, more relaxed band that became huge in the early 90's. "I Believe" is a perfect example of the carefree, fun rock and roll that these guys made on this album:
Document. 1987. Such a top to bottom classic album. Hard to believe it ends up fifth on this list. "Finest Worksong," "End of the World as We Know It," and "The One I Love" are indelible slices of the lasting rock library and still get play on the radio today. Seriously, "One I Love" is such a great great tune. Especially when you are like 12 and love is the most important thing ever and you can yell "Fiiiyaaaaaaaaahh!" in the middle of a song about the one you love. Then you get funky jams like "Exhuming McCarthy," introspective rock tenderness like "Disturbance at the Heron House," or weird stuff like "Oddfellows Local 151." This is what rock and roll sounded like to me for a long time.
Reckoning. 1984. This album is beautiful. Takes the simple rock of Murmur and increases the harmonies and tightness to make some truly great songs. "Harborcoat," "So. Central Rain," and "Rockville" are all classics. Some alt-country-ness pokes out on here, as does more punk sound than I recalled as a kid, but overall these songs are tight pop rock that hold up ridiculously well for an album that is over thirty years old. Mumford & Sons or the Decemberists could cover this whole disc and a pile of younger folks would love it without knowing it was written three decades ago by some weirdos from Georgia. Seriously, "Rockville" is directly in the wheelhouse of the Decemberists.
Murmur. 1983. After my grandmother bought me this disc, I recall taking it to my great-grandmother's house in the tiny town of Eldorado, where there wasn't just a ton to do, for a week in the summer. Each day, we would drop by the post office to get mail, maybe go by the little grocery to talk and buy a few things, maybe drop by the bank so I could get a piece of candy (er, maybe she was depositing things too), and then by the tiny little library so I could exchange books. Seriously, this library probably had a thousand books, and was set in the bottom corner of the courthouse in the center of town. Then I'd go set up shop in a back bedroom with my discman, some crappy little tinny speakers, this CD, and a weathered Hardy Boys or some similar book to read for the afternoon as the sun streamed through the windows and splayed shadows across the ancient bedspreads. Great memory of that.
Anyway, this album is beautiful as well. "Radio Free Europe" or "Talk About the Passion" were the hits from the disc, but they are all pretty dang good. "Perfect Circle" has always been one of my favorites - longing piano ballad with odd, cryptic lyrics. The album as a whole is quieter than what comes later for the band, but I can only imagine how great it was to discover this new band based on this album.
New Adventures in Hi-Fi. 1996. I always have liked this album. I think it has a cool, laid back sound that is unlike most of their other music. I don't recall any of these making it big on radio - maybe "E-Bow the Letter" or "Bittersweet Me" did, but I love the opener "How the West was Won and Where it Got Us."
Dead Letter Office. 1987. This was a B-Sides collection that includes a couple of great covers - Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic, Velvet Underground's Pale Blue Eyes, Femme Fatale, and There She Goes Again, Roger Miller's King of the Road - that I loved when I was a kid. I remember thinking that Velvet Underground must be amazing because of Pale Blue Eyes, and I've been unable to rectify that childhood belief despite loads of attempts to appreciate VU. Covers aside, it has a fine selection of songs that didn't make the album cut for Murmur, Fables, Reckoning, or Pageant. "Burning Down" or "Ages of You" are great classics. I also always dug "Voice of Harold" because, until Primus, no one used the name Harold (my grandfather, father, and brother's name) in song. Walter's Theme also rocks. Amazing this was just a b-sides collection...
Accelerate. 2008. Faster, harder, better than their other output in the 2000's. By far the best thing they did after Berry left the band. The opener "Living Well is the Best Revenge" is a punky rip, then the second tune "Man Sized Wreath" rocks while kind of sounding like an old-school Stipe rap. Most of the album is upbeat, driving, rock. "Supernatural Superserious" was the "hit" from this album, but it didn't even make a million spins on Spotify. But I think my favorite on here is the sad Katrina homage of "Houston," singing a song about the refuges from Katrina finding someplace to go after New Orleans got hammered. This album reminds me of Monster because it swerves back into more straightforward rock.
Monster. 1994. Here is where I think the band lost their way. They went from the powerful, understated, moody music of Automatic and Out of Time, and decided to just rock the hell out instead. I clearly remember coming home from college for something or other and playing this disc for my sister, who was like "This is R.E.M.? No its not, who is this?" "What's the Frequency, Kenneth," "Star 69," "Crush with Eyeliner," "Bang and Blame," these were all rock bordering on punk that was a long way off from their older music. This album went 4 times platinum, but I think it was solely based on everyone wanting to buy Automatic for the People II, and I bet you can find 3 million copies of this disc in used bins all over the world now. All of that being said, its not a bad album, I just think this is when the albums stop being great from start to finish and more up and down.
Collapse Into Now. 2011. The swan song of the once great band. After this album, they announced their breakup. "Blue" sounds like one of the low burners from Automatic for the People time, until it kicks back in with the guitar riff from "Discoverer," the upbeat album opener. Not sure why they did that, but it sounds confusing, like you accidentally left the album on loop. The album also includes a track called "Mine Smell Like Honey," which can only mean that Stipe has the best smelling gas on the planet. I have no clue what this song is really about. The chorus repeats that his smell like honey, then sings to dig a hole deeper and climb a mountain steeper, then track a trail of honey through it all. Yep, no clue. But its a pretty groovy rocker with a silly line you can sing!
Around the Sun. 2004. Definitely better than Up or Reveal, but still far below their classics. That being said, other than the Q-Tip rap on "The Outsiders," this is pretty good, tuneful music. But nothing in here really lights up and sticks to your memory. The band apparently wasn't so into it - Wikipedia includes this fine recommendation from Peter Buck, saying this album "... just wasn't really listenable, because it sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it anymore." Ouch.
Fables of the Reconstruction. 1985. I'm almost sure that I ended up buying this CD during those wonderful halcyon days of the BMG Music Club, but I know for sure that I first got a copy of the album by checking out a vinyl copy from the Howson Branch Library and making a tape of it on my sweet Panasonic all-in-one:
Aw yeah! (not actually mine, but similar if not the same type) Before Napster, I just had the exceedingly slow ability to pirate by diligently sitting next to a stereo like that to make a scratchy version of a library's record album. Beauty. This album was never my favorite of theirs, it feels much darker, understated, less bright and adventurous. "Driver 8" is the hit from the album, and "Feeling Gravity's Pull" is another standout track.
Reveal. 2001. Better than Up, but not good enough to climb out of the cellar. I liked "All the Way to Reno," reminds me of Adventures in Hi-Fi, and "Imitation of Life" is good too, but those sound like what I expect to get out of R.E.M. Tunefulness, a good bass line, clever lyrics, and some feeling. A lot of this goes too far away from the reason you like R.E.M. and just becomes a Michael Stipe solo project. But at least this one is closer to their core sound than Up. This one just has a weird vibe, like its intended to be a concept album but there was no discernible concept.
Up. 1998. Like when U2 decided it needed to change its sound, except U2 pulled it off and made some awesome electronic-tinged albums, while these don't work at all. The opener ("Airportman") sounds like something from the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack, and most of these are just not memorable or are actively annoying ("Hope"). Not bad, but come on, when you are still riding high off of one of the most popular albums of the mid-90's, to have an album with multiple songs with less than 100k listens? No one cared about this disc. I bet if you could graph listens to songs, there would be a slow, downward slide from Out of Time and Automatic for the People on down over time to this and Around the Sun, before the slight renaissance of Accelerate and Collapse Into Now. All of that complaint being said, I think that the real reason that their sound changed and they got lame is that Bill Berry left the band. Berry was the drummer, the driving beat of the band, and they replaced him with a robot for this album, and it was an unfortunate thing. Anyway, on this album, I kind of like "Daysleeper" and "The Apologist." And I've obviously listened to this album quite a bit back in the day, because I still can sing along to songs despite not having played the album in probably 15 years. Weird.
Reveal. 2001. Better than Up, but not good enough to climb out of the cellar. I liked "All the Way to Reno," reminds me of Adventures in Hi-Fi, and "Imitation of Life" is good too, but those sound like what I expect to get out of R.E.M. Tunefulness, a good bass line, clever lyrics, and some feeling. A lot of this goes too far away from the reason you like R.E.M. and just becomes a Michael Stipe solo project. But at least this one is closer to their core sound than Up. This one just has a weird vibe, like its intended to be a concept album but there was no discernible concept.
Up. 1998. Like when U2 decided it needed to change its sound, except U2 pulled it off and made some awesome electronic-tinged albums, while these don't work at all. The opener ("Airportman") sounds like something from the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack, and most of these are just not memorable or are actively annoying ("Hope"). Not bad, but come on, when you are still riding high off of one of the most popular albums of the mid-90's, to have an album with multiple songs with less than 100k listens? No one cared about this disc. I bet if you could graph listens to songs, there would be a slow, downward slide from Out of Time and Automatic for the People on down over time to this and Around the Sun, before the slight renaissance of Accelerate and Collapse Into Now. All of that complaint being said, I think that the real reason that their sound changed and they got lame is that Bill Berry left the band. Berry was the drummer, the driving beat of the band, and they replaced him with a robot for this album, and it was an unfortunate thing. Anyway, on this album, I kind of like "Daysleeper" and "The Apologist." And I've obviously listened to this album quite a bit back in the day, because I still can sing along to songs despite not having played the album in probably 15 years. Weird.
1 comment:
Great reviews dude. "Nightswimming" is an all-time top-10 song for me. Few songs can evoke the feeling of being on the edge of adulthood and innocence as that one. Long live REM!
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