The writer of Twee, Marc Spitz, posits the theory that R.E.M. won the battle with the Smiths commercially and in terms of length of duty in the eighties and nineties but have ultimately lost the war critically and in terms of what they mean to people. That's clearly so but it doesn't lessen the mystery and poetry of those first few remarkable IRS records. Pilgrimage, the second track from their first album Murmur is a good choice to represent their early Twee majesty. The way the vocal melodies of Stipe, Mills and Berry weaved something fresh and wonderful from all those familiar sixties records and crafted them into something quite strange and new still holds the spell on me.
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