I didn’t get R.E.M. in the
Eighties. Their music was something you heard on college radio, and I never
listened to college radio. College radio program directors and I didn’t
remotely have the same musical tastes. I was into classic rock, hard rock, heavy
metal, and I began a love affair with the blues. I liked The Police,
Pretenders, U2, and Peter Gabriel. I liked the Clash, and I liked English pop
[there were quite a few one-hit wonders therein]. R.E.M. was one of those bands
that was “political” with a small “p.” They weren’t partisan per se, but
whatever political cause there was [environmentalism, what is now called
“social justice,” gun control, abortion rights, Tibet, etc], you could count on
R.E.M. [and singer Michael Stipe specifically] to lend their voices to the
chorus. I wasn’t interested. I wanted to kill Communists. R.E.M. were critical
darlings. Rolling Stone loved them. That fact alone made them suspect in my
eyes. But the passage of forty years has a way of changing things. R.E.M. is
but a memory, Rolling Stone discredited themselves with false rape story, and
the Evil Empire is long gone. The issues R.E.M. were concerned with are still
around, but they aren’t around to rub your face in them. Their music, which I
avoided then, sounds a lot better today. Their music has endured, which is as
it should be. I like it now.
Here it is thirteen years since
the band called it a day, and only now can I appreciate the music. When Carol
was in her final illness I became [and still am] ever more nostalgic for that
time when we were the happiest – the 1980s. Given the sorry state of music
these days, R.E.M.’s music sounds pretty damn good. What was the music’s charm?
Spin Magazine described them as a cross between the Velvet Underground and the
Byrds. Guitarist Peter Buck was a guitar anti-hero who eschewed guitar solos.
His jangly Rickenbacker sound was the hook. Bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill
Berry were a rock-solid rhythm section. Singer Michael Stipe was the wildcard.
One never knew quite what he was singing about. Perhaps he didn’t either. Maybe
the hardcore faithful knew, but I grew up on I Am the Walrus and other
John Lennon songs about nothing. What do I know? Stipe’s lyrics were oftentimes
more than a bit obtuse. To compound that problem, he couldn’t enunciate to save
his life. But somehow it worked. They had three distinctive phases – the
college rock radio days when they were on an indie label [I.R.S. 1983-87],
alt-rock superstardom after they moved to Warner Brothers [1988-96], and their
final “three-legged dog” phase [Michael Stipe’s description] after Bill Berry
retired from music [1997-2011].
Their fifteen studio albums can
be neatly broken into each of the band’s phases [five each]. I know they didn’t
plan it that way, that’s just how things worked out. Although the band were
ubiquitous during their alt-rock superstardom [thank you, MTV], I find that my
favorite R.E.M. came from their college radio days. It’s a cliché to like a
band’s music before they move to a major label and hit the big time, but in
this case it happens to ring true. I can skip their first two albums – Murmur
[1983] and Reckoning [1984]. The songs were ok – the production was a
bit thin. They hit musical paydirt with their next three albums – Fables of
the Reconstruction [1985], Lifes Rich Pageant [1986], and Document
[1987]. Fables sounds a bit hazy [as if that was a bad thing – it’s not],
but Lifes Rich Pageant and Document are clear and punchy. One
glance at my playlist below and you’ll know these are my favorite R.E.M.
albums.
After Document, they
signed with Warner Brothers. Green [1988] didn’t do anything for me – it
still doesn’t. It hasn’t aged well. But the two albums that came next have aged
very well. While U2, a band to whom R.E.M. was often compared, decided to become
loud, detached rock stars with Achtung Baby, R.E.M. went the other way. After
being on the road to support Green, they unplugged and made two rustic, mostly
acoustic albums [Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People
(1992)]. Where there were once loud guitars and drums, there were acoustic
guitars, mandolins, pianos, and bouzoukis. They didn’t tour to support them. They
didn’t need to. MTV was in full flight, still showing music videos, of which
R.E.M.’s were in heavy rotation. These albums sold by the boatload. After five
years of being off the road, the band decided to plug in again. This band was a
different animal than the one that last toured five years previously. The
Rickenbackers were out, to be replaced with Gibsons and Fenders, all solid-body
guitars. There were some good songs [which I like very much] from Monster
[1994] and New Adventures in Hi-Fi [1996], but their jangly calling card
was missing. It was as if they were trying too hard to justify the megabucks
they were making at Warner Brothers. Or maybe they were trying something
different for the sake of being different, and maybe that was the point. I
guess if you want to grow artistically you have to try different things.
Peter Buck used to tell
interviewers that his vision of the band ending was to play a show on New
Year’s Eve 1999, and when the clock struck midnight the band would break up. I
confess that sounds like a cool way to end a band. However, it didn’t turn out
that way. Bill Berry had a brain aneurysm on stage in Lausanne, Switzerland in
1995. He made a complete recovery, but it made him rethink his priorities. In
1997 he decided he didn’t want to be in the music business anymore. There were
other things in life he wanted to do. He showed up to the band’s very first
session for their next album [Up, 1998], gave them the bad news, and
left. The remaining three guys didn’t want to stop, but soon they realized the
extent of the hole created by Berry’s absence. He wasn’t just “the drummer.” He
was a songwriter, and his lack of songwriting going forward upset the balance.
It showed in the music. Exit Bill Berry, enter the drum machines, tape loops
and synthesizers. These elements might work for some, but not for R.E.M. Electronic
music was not their thing. Up showed they could do it, but it doesn’t
work for an entire album. Three good songs an album doesn’t make. Reveal
[2001] upped the electronic quotient with uninspiring results. There were no
catchy hooks and most of the songs sounded the same. It was pretty dull. There
are maybe four good songs, but that’s it. Even worse was Around the Sun [2004].
There’s one good song – Final Straw. Why? It’s an acoustic song with the
electronics kept to a minimum.
I found a very good article
about the last third of R.E.M.’s career by freelance author Brady Gerber. Here
he writes:
“R.E.M.’s final chapter is
the story of how a family publicly tried to carry on after losing one of its
own. In that sense, these last albums loosely and unintentionally play out as
different stages of real-life grief. The coldness of Up is the sound of
shock and denial, with drum machines replacing the human Berry. Reveal,
touted as the “happy” record upon its release, is full of aimless and muted
anger, but in that Brian Wilson way of feeling helpless and bitter on a
beautiful day. Around the Sun, having nothing to say, awkwardly tries to
bargain with new ideas…”
Damn, I wish I could write that
well. Despite the doom of the first three albums post-Berry, the R.E.M. story
has a happy ending. The fourth album of the period, Accelerate [2008] is
a damn good album. It’s the album that Monster and New Adventures in
Hi-Fi should have been. The synths were gone, the guitars were back, and
they were loud. Michael Stipe enunciated! There’s an energy that was
missing from Up, Reveal, and Around the Sun. This quality
carried over to Collapse Into Now [2011]. The band found their mojo
again, and having done so, they thought it was a good time to put R.E.M. to bed.
One has to admire a band for working through a rough patch, rediscovering why
they became beloved by many, and having the sense to quit while they were
ahead. Not only did retire somewhat gracefully, they’re still friends today.
Tony’s R.E.M. playlist
Fall On Me [Lifes
Rich Pageant, 1986]
The One I Love [Document,
1987]
Cuyahoga [Lifes
Rich Pageant, 1986]
Swan Swan H [Lifes
Rich Pageant, 1986]
Driver 8 [Fables
of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Feeling Gravitys Pull
[Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Maps and Legends [Fables
of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Old Man Kensey [Fables
of the Reconstruction, 1985]
Begin the Begin [Lifes
Rich Pageant, 1986]
King of Birds [Document,
1987]
Oddfellows Local 151
[Document, 1987]
The Flowers of Guatemala
[Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986]
Welcome to the Occupation
[Document, 1987]
Disturbance At the Heron
House [Document, 1987]
Fireplace [Document,
1987]
Bad Day [Document,
1987]
Man on the Moon [Automatic
for the People, 1992]
The Great Beyond [Man
on the Moon (Music from the Motion Picture), 1999]
Losing My Religion
[Out of Time, 1991]
Drive [Automatic
for the People, 1992]
Low [Out of
Time, 1991]
Try Not to Breathe
[Automatic for the People, 1992]
Half a World Away
[Out of Time, 1991]
Monty Got a Raw Deal
[Automatic for the People, 1992]
Fretless [Out
of Time, 1991]
Crush With Eyeliner
[Monster, 1994]
Bang and Blame [Monster,
1994]
I Don’t Sleep, I Dream
[Monster, 1994]
You [Monster,
1994]
New Test Leper [New
Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996]
Undertow [New
Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996]
Bittersweet Me [New
Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996]
Suspicion [Up,
1998]
Diminished / I'm Not Over
You [Up, 1998]
The Lifting [Reveal,
2001]
Imitation Of Life
[Reveal, 2001]
Final Straw [Around
the Sun, 2004]
Houston [Accelerate,
2008]
Until the Day Is Done
[Accelerate, 2008]
Living Well Is the Best
Revenge [Accelerate, 2008]
Supernatural Superserious
[Accelerate, 2008]
Horse to Water [Accelerate,
2008]
Discoverer [Collapse
Into Now, 2011]
Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon
Brando and I [Collapse Into Now, 2011]
All the Best [Collapse
Into Now, 2011]