R.E.M.
You know, in a way I'd love to be more current. It seems I'm always a few steps behind the times even when I'm trying. For example, I latched onto R.E.M. in the dying strains of their popularity. I bought OUT OF TIME right after it became passé to own it. I fell in love with MONSTER just when everybody was throwing it into the used bins.
There are several stages to pop-music fame. There's the rush, the peak, the backlash, the valley, and the (critical if not commercial) reevaluation and resurgence. Right now R.E.M. is familiarizing themselves with what it's like to be a cult band, a status which most great performers have had a brush with at some point. Look at the bands linked here on my music page so far. I name the greatest points of the Kinks' and the Beach Boys' careers as their "cult period," and the Velvets, Big Star, Television, and Yo La Tengo have never really escaped the label. So maybe it's fitting that I discovered R.E.M. at the point when I could understand them best.
With the exception of the Beatles and Beach Boys, however, I loved them before I loved any of those bands. In a very real sense, R.E.M. taught me how to listen to music and are second only to the Byrds in informing my taste since I discovered them. I remember clearly the feeling of hearing OUT OF TIME for the first time and being underwhelmed by the stuff I didn't already know. Slowly it crept around me and before I knew it I was humming "Half a World Away" in my sleep. With each disc I acquired, the phenomenon repeated itself. It didn't take long for me to get obsessed, just because I felt like I had a personal relationship with the music. I didn't collect singles at all -- except my old Beatles 45's -- and yet I had the "E-Bow the Letter" maxi the week it came out to get the b-sides.
This isn't why I love R.E.M., though. Let's say I'd somehow or another found the Velvet Underground first and they had led me to investigate music that went beyond the walls of Counting Crows and Ben Folds Five (not to mention the Beatles and Beach Boys and the oldies station in general, which of course we all know I went crawling back to ten years later). I'd still have run across R.E.M. and they still would have stunned me. Their skill is something very special and the sort of thing we really haven't seen a lot of since the '60s outside a few mavericks like Talking Heads and David Bowie: they built an audience, made music that was commercially appealing, and simultaneously stretched pop music form to fit themselves.
I like to think that, despite the lack of fanfare, I witnessed one of those moments when a firestorm of real rock & roll fusion made impact. The inventive, stirring "E-Bow the Letter" came out and sounded like an alien spacecraft. My parents hated it. I was mystified by it the first time and soon was seduced. It was my "Strawberry Fields." It takes a very special sort of band to unleash something so beautifully angular on the radio; of course it's not entirely due to their prowess that they were in a position to do it, and popularity is a strange beast, but still, how can you not love them?
Since then R.E.M. has fallen out of favor with even a lot of the critics that promoted them in the years when nobody knew who they were yet (Robert Christgau pointed out even in 1983 that a lot of said critics had shallow, trendy reasons for doing it) and Athens, Georgia was best known as birthplace of the B-52's and Pylon. This won't last forever because the music that R.E.M. has made since 1996 -- NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI, a masterpiece, and two wonderful followups, UP and REVEAL -- is too good to stay hidden forever. Of course I love the old R.E.M., but what I love even more is the fact that they still knock me out. I think it's silly to act betrayed by a performer's direction, but even if I was that type, I can't resist this band's music. It is too adventurous, too delicately beautiful, and too masterfully intricate to dismiss, and if it takes a while for the world to catch up, that's its problem.
ANNOTATED DISCOGRAPHY
ALBUMS REVIEWED:
Murmur (1983) [A+]
Reckoning (1984) [A] (more reviews to come)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985) [A]
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986) [A+]
Document (1987) [B+]
Green (1988) [A-]
Out of Time (1991) [A+]
Automatic for the People (1992) [A+]
Monster (1994) [A-]
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) [A+]
Up (1998) [A]
Reveal (2001) [A-]
Around the Sun (2004) [B+]
COMPILATIONS
Eponymous (1988) [B+]
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 (2003) [B+]
And I Feel Fine: The IRS Years (2006) [A-]
RARITIES COLLECTIONS
Dead Letter Office (1987) [A-]
R.E.M. in the Attic (1997) [B-]
In Time: The Best of R.E.M. - Limited Edition (2003) [C+]
And I Feel Fine: Bonus Disc (2006) [B]
BOXED SETS
The Automatic Box (1993) [B+]
EP'S
Chronic Town (1982) [A+]
NON-LP SINGLES & misc. tracks (to come)
OTHER WRITING
Pop Screen DVD review
This Film Is On DVD review
Perfect Square DVD review
When the Light Is Mine: Videos 1982-1988 DVD review
R.E.M. concert review
ESSAYS:
R.E.M.: the eleventh untitled song
WEBBLOG ARCHIVE:
Old 97's: Hit by a Train
The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet
anybody want a mix
top ten of weel
1000th post
top ten of week
most wanted DVDs / best writing of year
annual clip show / best CDs of year
posting of reviews
rare tracks DL'd
top ten of week
top ten of week
Yo La Tengo review
rock bottom of the week
posting of Reckoning review
can't get there from here
just a touch
top ten of week x 2
REM being kids
initial reaction to IRS compilation
new releases
Wuzzon #7
Around the Sun mention
Marcus Gray
Wuzzon #6
Peter Gabriel videos review
current music
another look at Beatles & Beach Boys
Wuzzon #4
Radiohead review
R.E.M. in year in music
She Just Wants to Be
mention in Pixar rambling
R.E.M.'s first TV appearance!
current music
current music
more on Around the Sun
current music
song 11 again
Leonard Cohen
mention in Grizzly Man preview
(continued)
Around the Sun initial reaction
Blender's 50 worst songs
site opening
Tourfilm
Talking Heads box review
open letter to music industry
horribly dumb rant
criticism of R.E.M.
Yo La Tengo concert
music emotions survey
200 bands assessed I
forthcoming REM show
best-of announcement
Nirvana rant