Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Album by Album # 3 - R.E.M.

Always the band I keep going back to. Because they felt like they were mine. Just their albums as a four-piece. Like a lot of early fans I think they all but ended when Bill Berry left. Combined DNA is everything.

1. Chronic Town - An EP. They weren't fully formed but they were already pretty damned exciting.

 
Highlights - the first four songs (Wolves Lower, Gardening at Night, Carnival of Sorts and 1,000,000)
Lowpoint - The fifth though I still like it well enough. Stumble however, is clearly the weakest song.
 
2. Murmur - Will always be, with Marquee Moon the record for me.
 
 
Highlight - I'd say Radio Free Europe, Pilgrimage, Talk About The Passion, Perfect Circle, Sitting Still, Shaking Through and West of The Fields. But I pretty much love every single track on here.
Lowpoints. None really. Every song adds something
 
3. Reckoning - slight dip in consistency from Murmur for me. Nevertheless, sometimes shades it in my affections just because of its full on renegade spirit.
 
 
Highlights - First four songs (Harborcoat, 7 Chinese Brothers So. Central Rain and Pretty Persuasion), Camera and (Don't Go Back To) Rockville.
Lowpoints - I'm probably with Stephen Malkmus in that 'Time After Time' is my least favourite song. It's still pretty great though.
 
4. Fables of The Reconstruction - A beautiful record ever so slightly let down by muddy production. Their most sheerly melodic record and an album that is difficult to compare with any
other record released by anyone because its vision is so specific.
 
 
Highpoints - First four songs, (Feeling Gravity's Pull, Maps and Legends, Driver 8 and Life and How To Live It) and Can't Get There From Here. But it's a very consistent record.
Lowpoints - Kahotec and Auctioneer drop the level slightly. Partly because I don't think they're mixed clearly enough.
 
5. Lifes Rich Pageant
 
 
Highpoints - First four songs, (Begin the Begin, These Days, Fall on Me and Cuyahoga) plus the first two on the second side ( Flowers of Guatemala and I Believe)
Low Points - Hyena, What If We Give It Away and Just a Touch sound like cast offs. In fact they are songs written earlier and they let down an otherwise strong and dynamic record.
 
6. Document
 
 
Highpoints - Finest Worksong, Exhuming McCarthy, Disturbance at the Heron House, Welcome to the Occupation, King of Birds. Hadn't listened to it for a while but did so recently and it really stands up. A little more rough-edged and raw than their previous records.
Lowpoints - The One I Love, strangely as their breakout song sounds slightly formulaic to me. Fireplace attempts jazz and sounds better to my ears than it did in 1987 when I had little knowledge of jazz. Lightnin' Hopkins is not their strongest.
 
5. Green
 
 
Highlights - Get Up , Orange Crush, You Are The Everything, I Remember California
Lowpoints - I never liked Turn You Inside Out or World Leader Pretend as I felt it was all going slightly to Stipe's head. Stand doesn't really stand up. They were looking at ways to be a very big band but still stay good. I think when they went for dumb pop they sometimes dumbed down too much.
 
6. Out Of Time - the one that broke them huge. Largely because of Losing My Religion and the rather less noble Shiny Happy People. Strangely I still find it pretty incoherent as an album.
 
 
Highlights - Losing My Religion, Country Feedback, Low, Me In Honey
Lowpoints - SHP. Radio Song
 
7. Automatic For The People. Yes, it's a classic and probably their best album. A multitude of quite superb songs. Many of them about mortality.
 
 
Highlights - (here goes), Drive, Try Not To Breathe, Sidewinder, Sweetness Follows, Monty Got a Raw Deal, Man in the Moon, Nightswimming and possibly my absolute favourite Find a River. There's  moment in that where Stipe opens his throat and belts out 'I Have Got To find the River' where for me the band virtually takes off and ascends to heaven.
Lowpoints - Ignoreland always sounds slightly odd but the record probably needs one upbeat political song.
 
8. Monster - The one that still doesn't work for me. The band seem to be pretending to be something they're not. They're not The New York Dolls nor are they Sonic Youth. Stipe was a charismatic but never a particularly sexual frontman though he probably wouldn't be pleased to hear this
 
 
Highlights - What's The Frequency Kenneth, Crushed By Eyeliners(I'd need to listen again to pick out more)
Lowpoints - Some pretty samey, unmelodic songs. Melody was always the band's greatest strength.
 
9. New Adventures In Hi Fi
 
 
Highlights - Electrolite, New Test Leper, Departure
Lowpoints - I'm sorry, I can't remember a lot of these songs. I was falling out of love though I didn't know it. I think it was probably just too long an album but will have to give it another listen.
 
So this one goes out to the band I love! I'll always be grateful to them! Tomorrow I'll be listening to Automatic at The Record Player event at Tyneside Cinema and I know I'll absolutely adore it. 
 


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