The start of another tour, last night's concert webcast, and the forthcoming R.E.M. greatest hits (from the Warner Brothers years only - '88-03) remind me that the band has never made music I want to hear more than their very first full-length album, Murmur
Murmur is still the group's defining moment. The album emerges from an unexpected hole in the musical fabric awash in guitars, mind-clinging melodies and mysterioso lyrics about two-headed cows and moral kiosks.
The subtle but astonishing production by Don Dixon and Mitch Easter moves Michael Stipe's phlegmatic vocals in and out of the forefront of the mix ("Radio Free Europe," "Pilgrimage"), using echo and muffling effects to generate emotional movement independent of the intelligibility of the lyrics.
The production encompasses murk and a contradictory brightness that intertwine with yin/yang totality. The more explicit the band has become in sound and theme, the less it has interested me.
A great album creates its own world, a world you don't want to leave. R.E.M made such a world twenty years ago and has only been able to muster satellites and moons ever since.
Article comments
1 - BJ
Eric, did you catch the webcast? Anyone know if it was archived?
As for Murmur, you may be right, but I suspect that my feelings about records like this have as much to do with what I was doing at the time as with the merits of the record itself. If I didn't grow up with these records, would I still think Murmur is better than, say, Automatic for the People or even Life's Rich Pageant?
Did the Replacements really peak with Let It Be and Tim? Or was that just me?
2 - ParticleMan
Great review. Murmur happens to be one of the few REM albums I don't have yet, so I don't know if can agree with your comments about how it was the best. Though I can say for sure that my favorite REM albums are those of the 80's. Document and Reconstruction still see regular play on my car stereo.
Also, don't know what your location is, but REM will be playing an outdoor festival in Austin on the 21st. You can bet I'll keep a running tab of the setlist and write a review of the show.
http://www.aclfestival.com/home.html
3 - Eric Olsen
BJ and PM, Thanks!
Unfortunately I did not hear the webcast, by then watching Harry Potter 2 with the kiddies.
This is definitely the one to own - it isn't as "obvious" as say Out of Time or Automatic, the big hit WB albums, but it transcends them. I like a lot of R.E.M. songs since then, but no album holds together as well as this.
I look forward to a review of the show!