R.E.M. - An appreciation...

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]