REM, Green

The zenith of REM's discography is this scattershot, eclectic collection of vignettes and jangle where the cover doesn't even match the title. The best part is that they learned from their mistakes on Document: the politics persist, but more subtly, Scott Litt's production is richer and higher quality, and a solid balance of radio-friendly ("Pop Song '89," "Stand" and "Orange Crush") and cerebral ("World Leader Pretend," "Hairshirt" and particularly the heart-rending "The Wrong Child") songs make the album eminently listenable in pieces or end-to-end. 1988-me played the cassette single of "Stand" non-stop, and when I finally bought the full tape it turned me into an REM fan for life. Their later work is where they started to believe their hype, and their worthy earlier works were too often too insular, but this one was their Goldilocks — and that title might even match. The 25th anniversary disc adds another one of those live CDs which is a full example of their then-current setlist but mostly makes you want to buy the originals. (Content: no concerns.)

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REM, Document

The end of the I.R.S. era for R.E.M., Document is as transitional as its position in their discography would indicate, and even the professional shedding of their college rock roots doesn't quite even its irregularities. There are genius tracks like the (deservedly) heavily rotated "It's The End of the World As I Know It (And I Feel Fine)," and the old jangle pop still yields refreshment in tracks like "The One I Love" and to a lesser extent the harder-charging "Fireplace," but Michael Stipe's more prominent vocals amidst the more competent production only serve to throw this outing's relatively underdeveloped concepts into sharper relief (the bizarre "Lightnin' Hopkins" comes to mind but "Exhuming McCarthy" in particular, a limp criticism of the Reagan era that's more repetitious than auspicious). "Finest Worksong" is a great example: the production is excellent, the mix is high quality, but the feel — starting from the very title, even — always evoked images of Soviet realism in my mind and its commentary on the American work ethic correspondingly comes off as hamfisted and obvious. A taste of yet to come bubbles up from the richly textured "King of Birds" where a double-tracked Stipe sings to and over himself, but the grim and grungy closer "Oddfellows Local 151," like a Reconstruction cast-off, ends up more retrograde than innovative. Green's release the following year was a clear departure from their earlier style; perhaps this album is evidence it had run its course even if it rewards on balance more than it perplexes. The reissue adds a B-side, several tiresome live tracks and two alternate mixes of "Finest Worksong" which aren't any better. (Content: no concerns.)

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REM, Lifes Rich Pageant

Upon purchasing this CD in high school I noticed that the jewel case spines were upside down and carefully detached them and taped them right side up back into position. It did not dawn on me that this might have been a deliberate artistic quirk on the bands part, like the general eschewing of apostrophes, the completely disordered track listing and the number R which comes after 3 and before 5; to this day the jewel case in my office is still like that. This is only one of the many artistic novelties of the album but the biggest was to discard generally the moody air of the troubled Fables of the Reconstruction for a lighter, more eighties-rock flair while keeping their political sensibilities intact. Indeed, lead track "Begin the Begin" reminds the listener the goal is still revolution(ary): their ecological message, soon to be developed further on Green, shines through in "Cuyahoga" replete with burning river references, the dangerous death squads of central America become the poisonous Amanita among the blooms of the populace in the Murmur-esque "The Flowers of Guatemala," and "Hyena" mixes the riff from "These Days" with a fable on the posturing of warlords and the album's most quotable lyric ("the only thing to fear is fearlessness"). Michael Stipe can still get himself tied up in his own intertexual references (witness "Just a Touch" and "Swan Swan H"), but even these are worthy listens, and the exuberant "What If We Give It Away?" and especially "I Believe" (with charismatic rattlesnake church reference) are a welcome return to classic form. The album highlight, though, is the second of two secret tracks (theres another artistic quirk), the band's cover of The Clique's "Superman," whose driving beat, surf rock harmonies and relentlessly bravado lyrics made it and keep it one of the high points in 1980's college pop. One of the last of their IRS releases, the band was poised for a new feel and a wider audience moving to Warner Brothers, but this album fortunately avoids the stylistic instability other lesser bands have suffered during those transitions and greatly to its credit. Later IRS reissues add several of the horrid crappy covers and B-sides from Dead Letter Office (q.v.), and the 25th anniversary version adds the so-called Athens Demos, early versions of Lifes tracks no one was asking for (plus a couple different crappy tracks). But then I suppose you don't have to buy Dead Letter Office to find out how bad they are, so they might be doing us a favour. (Content: no concerns.)

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REM, Dead Letter Office/Chronic Town

This rare bifurcated rating is because this "album" is, bluntly, a scam. I have to hand it to IRS for the brilliance of taking a steaming turd compilation album of steaming turds and combining it with a decent, if short and relatively inexpert, EP to simultaneously simplify their catalogue and use castoff tracks to pad it to LP length and charge more for it. So let's do the good stuff first: Chronic Town is a nice little album, unpretentious but solid, the prototype of their mumbly pre-Green janglepop in five generally tight tracks. Being an EP there isn't much of it, of course, and that's not to say there isn't room for improvement; for example, I prefer the more soulful Hib-Tone version of "Gardening At Night" (as found on Eponymous, a far better collection than this one) and the overall pacing is a little uneven (pro tip: go "Wolves, Lower," "Gardening At Night," "Carnival of Sorts," "1,000,000" and "Stumble," and then thank me later), but this album has enough quality moments and enough historical interest to be worth owning even by only the casual REM interest. That brings us to the rotgut. It's not (just) that the remaining tracks are bad, it's that they're (also) horribly underdeveloped. Some of them might even be decent if polished. They didn't polish them. The loony Pylon cover they lead off with ("Crazy") sets the tone: it's listenable, even vaguely danceable if you're stoned, but it's like it gave them permission to proudly produce three more execrable defilements, two of Velvet Underground and even a (gurgle) Aerosmith track. Of the rest some are variations on each other ("Ages Of You," probably the only other decent track, versus "Burning Down"), some are trial balloons they apparently just gave up on ("Wind Out," which somehow lives down to its name, "Burning Hell" with the kind of slightly perturbed harmonics suggesting they tuned up on barbituates, and "Rotary Ten") and some are absolutely inexplicable ("Voice of Harold," which uses the already inscrutable "Seven Chinese Brothers" as a backing as Michael Stipe sings — I kid you not — the liner notes of a schlocky gospel album to the melody). The prize bomb is "Walters Theme/King of the Road," which combines an actual drunken recording session, a local barbeque ad and the completely innocent and undeserving Roger Miller standard into an unmitigated auditory war crime. How do we know all this? Because Peter Buck apologizes for it in the liner notes. Yes. The band knew it was that bad, IRS knew it was that bad, and I still bought the album anyway because I lost my old cassette tape and this is the only way you can get Chronic Town on CD. So bravo, IRS. It's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I hope you burn in hell. (Content: I think there's a couple muffled curses in there. Please don't make me listen to this again to find out.)

Chronic Town: 🌟🌟🌟
Dead Letter Office: 🌟

REM, Up

It may be too much to say that bands who lose drummers lose their souls, but they certainly lose something. The Who was never the same after Keith Moon died, even with the very able and terminally underappreciated Kenney Jones filling in for two albums (three if you count his collabouration on the 1975 Tommy movie soundtrack retrofit); how much worse, then, when REM filled in for Bill Berry with session mercenaries and drum machines? I have conflicting feelings about this album, and I know the band definitely did while they were making it. It has some of my favourite REM tracks, including the incomparably rich "At My Most Beautiful" and "Daysleeper," and the unexpected pleasures of "Why Not Smile" and "Parakeet." But these are the slow tracks, with no beat by definition; by contrast, the supersynthetic lead-off "Airportman" is one of their worst efforts, aimless and monotonous, setting up the album for failure. "Lotus" comes off like Lenny Kravitz on Thorazine. "Suspicion"'s rhythm section sounds like my old Casiotone, and not in a nostalgic way, and on, and on, and on. The musical direction Berry's departure forced them into was not a total loss because it did gradually evolve (Reveal in particular), but they proved replacement was impossible, only succession. (Content: mild innuendo.)

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REM, New Adventures in Hi-Fi

I consider this to be REM's "insta-album:" readymade, popped out fully-formed in soundchecks between tour dates, sort of the Marcel Duchamp of albums minus the urinals, moustachioed Mona Lisas and artistic pretense. This yields a curious dichotomy: the best tracks, the most inventive and interesting tracks, are the studio tracks, like "How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us" (which also is my personal nomination for Best Titular Swipe at White America), "New Test Leper" (gospel music that literally rejects the gospel, but agrees with some of what Jesus said), and the soulful "Be Mine." But the rocking tracks, the gritty grindouts, then stand in stark contrast with their flat and mushy production and their studiously recycled chords and beat. Heck, "Wake Up Bomb" and "Bittersweet Me" could practically be two parts of the same song. In the word of instant art, Marcel Duchamp's idea of spontaneity was being outrageous and offensive, but after years of original musical concepts REM's apparently is just being loud. Like every old hand band put up on a stage and told to play on the spot, they play what they know. And that's not really all that adventurous. (Content: some F-bombs.)

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