Music: How Rock Band Ruined R.E.M.

When I was in high school, back in the Paleolithic era known as the 80s, there were finely hewn dividing lines between music tastes (even if these lines were privately breached all the time). I had transmogrified from a 60s championing throwback via The Velvet Underground into what was then called “modern rock.”

Even there though there existed a schism roughly divided between British bands and American bands. Being a patriot for the most part I stayed with the American bands – The Replacements, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Husker Du and R.E.M. who all seemed so much less…fey…then their British counterparts in New Order, The Smiths and Depeche Mode. On this too I would come around – partly through the intercession of The Jesus and Mary Chain.

R.E.M. were the great American art rock band, especially for guys like me who had been listening to the Byrds and The Beatles and Buffalo Springfield (The Replacements satisfied the Stones side of me). They put out a string of very good to great albums from 1983s Murmur through 1987s Document before signing to Warner Bros. like Husker Du before them. They were at the apogee of cool.

The first layers of discontent with the band emerged with their debut for Warners, Green, a rich glossily produced White Album –like agglomeration of everything in the band’s arsenal. For the first time the band sounded like they had money. The single “Stand” compounded this by being silly and twee just as the po-faced melancholia that would culminate in grunge was beginning to flood the alt-music scene.

After their big breakthrough record, Out Of Time, which was a commercial if not aesthetic success they cranked out another masterpiece with Automatic For The People, but already the cool was fading away.

After countless albums, some bad (Around the Sun) some underrated (Monster, Up) and some just meh (Reveal) the band is about as loved as, say, the Moody Blues. Not bad, but hardly first rank.

I was kind of psyched for the boys from Athens when I saw that they had a song on hit awesome video game Rock Band – the ultimate music marketing tool for the next generation of fans. Perhaps this would bring them back into the first tier. So what song do they choose? “Orange Crush”.

Now I like “Orange Crush” very much, the slicing guitar riff and the soaring vocals make it feel like perfect anthemic Rock Band material. The reality is it’s a pain in the ass to follow along to, especially to sing, and the annoyance and frustration at the weird double vocal between Stipe and Mills that’s so thrilling to passively hear turns to hatred of the song when trying to perform it.

If I wanted to restore the band’s luster via Rock Band I would choose something like “The One I Love”, simple, punchy, fun to sing and play, or “Begin The Begin.” If it simply must be from the Warners years “What’s The Frequency Kenneth” is one of their best songs and rocks with a nice wallop. Or “Turn You Inside Out.”

Thanks to a bad licensing decision, countless young music fans will hate R.E.M.

Music Review: R.E.M. Accelerates in The Right Direction but Lose Momentum

R.E.M. -- three guys x four eyes

Music Review by Noah Mallin

The party line on R.E.M.'s new album Accelerate is that it's a return to classic form, something like U2's last few records in recapturing the sound that made them stars. They've even used Jacknife Lee, the producer of U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

On first blush this trope holds up. Those stirring arrangements from the I.R.S. Records days featuring Mike Mills' plaintive vocals in the background counterpointing Stipe's singing, guitar-based songs, Mills' bass pushed up front again as a central component all say "Hey, remember?"

Then of course there is the loud short sharp shockiness of the songs, only 36 minutes worth of music with the amps at 11. It's both more and less self-consciously "rock" than their last "rock album" 1994s Monster which had some strange detours and much more delay and reverb.

Why they felt the need for a stripped-down back-to-basics affair is evident to fans and sales wonks alike. Their last album Around The Sun was an artistic and sales flop, a bloated overproduced affair. The album before that one, Reveal had glimmers of greatness particularly in the single "Imitation of Life", but too often felt mannered and lifeless. Up, the album that kicked off their current status as a trio with the loss of drummer Bill Berry, received wildly divergent responses. To my mind it's a fascinating album, and rewarding of multiple listens but not typical of what one would expect from the band.

The problem is that each of their albums, even the great ones that run in a gallop from 1983s debut Murmur through 1988s eclectic big label coming-out party Green found a way to tweak and transform their sound from album to album. Unlike U2, there really isn't a "classic" R.E.M. sound per se. To look at what most consider as their three artistic peaks is instructive -- Murmur is fuzzy experimental art rock with an insistent beat, Document is expansive punchy politicized protest rock, and Automatic For The People is a wounded but hopeful autumnal songcycle that uses shadings of folk-rock and even elements of light prog.

So Accelerate constructs a kind of artificial classic R.E.M. that, as many reviewers have noted, sounds closest to 1986s Life's Rich Pageant. Pageant has more shadings however, with barnburners like "Just a Touch" jostling with the achingly gorgeous "Fall On Me." Accelerate is so intent on "rocking" that it misses what could be some welcome coloration. There are a few changes of pace like the elegiac "Houston" and dour "Until The Day is Done" neither of which really go anywhere. Weirder "Sing For The Submarine" is more interesting and better for it, with an odd backwards-sounding chorus and curious lyrical namechecks of other R.E.M. songs.

There are some winners here, including the first three songs. "Living Well is The Best Revenge" romps around with Stipe's low growl (unlike the early albums he hasn't given up on enunciating), "Man-Sized Wreath" won't erase memories of "Exhuming McCarthy" but delivers pleasure just from hearing Mills and Stipe's voices together and "Supernatural Superserious" gets by on a nice lo-cal guitar riff. "Hollow Man" initially feels like an Automatic throwback before the monster chorus kicks in.

Eight tracks in we finally get to the one killer track, "Mr. Richards", a terrific spiralling hook of a song that chimes and rings in all the right places. It's a great melody delivered with just the right amount of guitar fuzz. "Horse To Water" gets a nice head of steam going and then the closer comes in, the lovably goofy "I'm Gonna DJ", a song that could have just as well opened the album.
If I seem underwhelmed it's because I am. This is a decent batch of songs but the biggest problem is producer Lee. The entire album is so compressed that there is little texture to any of the tracks. The chorus to Hollow Man ought to kick you in the gut -- instead it feels like someone turning on a faucet and then abruptly shutting it off. The weak songs suffer greatly from this and even some of the stronger ones sound samey. I guess this is in keeping with the kids listening to MP3's on crappy computer speakers but is that really R.E.M.'s audience? The overall feeling is stultifying and does the music no favors.

May I suggest that the next time the guys jump in a studio looking for a "raw" sound that they tap someone like Steve Albini (Pixies' Surfer Rosa, The Breeders' Pod, PJ Harvey's Rid of Me, Nirvana's In Utero)-- a choice that would have been oozing with cred and a guy who would have really stripped things down while letting them breathe. Hell, go with Scott Litt who blew Document up to glossy arena size while making sure it rocked hard and had lots of sonic details and texture.

That said this is still an improvement over Around The Sun and does mark a welcome return to fundamentals for what has been one of America's greatest bands. Hopefully this marks just the first step of a comeback trail. Trust me guys, call Albini.

Music: This Week's New Releases

Compiled by Noah Mallin

Here are some of the interesting new music choices this week. As always, if the vids show up as not available hit refresh in your browser.

R.E.M. mark the box labeled crunchy guitars on their new album Accelerate. Here's the video for "Supernatural Superserious" and no, that's not Moby:


The Annuals slide their Wet Zoo EP across the counter at ya. Here's Annuals doing an oldie --"Brother", way back in 2006 at The Bowery Ballroom:


Retro garage blues punks The Black Keys get pulled into the current century by producer Danger Mouse on Attack & Release. Here's the Black Keys doing "I Got Mine" off the new album live. What, no girl drummer?


Wacky tobacky enthusiast Willie Nelson gets the career retrospective treatment with the 4CD boxset One Hell of a Ride. Here's Willie looking like a scruff with Enrique's papa together in slim-o-vision:


Ministry cover ZZ Top, Bob Dylan, and Tom Waits on their really really last album (for now) Cover Up. Here's the sickest version of "Lay Lady Lay" ever:


The soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's concert film Shine a Light on the Rolling Stones -- shot in Wrinkle-Vision and featuring guests Jack White, Christina Aguilera and Buddy Guy. Here are the aged rockers doing the title track to Some Girls, somewhat sanitized lyrically:

Music Non News: Michael Stipe Queer -- and He's Gay Too

R.E.M.'s mumbly frontman Michael Stipe has been pretty much publicly gay since the mid-90s and yet People Magazine and others seem to think this is news. Whatever, is this any way to promote a new album? The enigmatic non-emoter is out in front of R.E.M.'s new one Accelerate which has been officially anointed as a return to the band's sound circa the sexually ambiguous days of the mid to late eighties. Whatever his orientation, a lot of what made him interesting as a personality was his mysteriousness. It's like when Bowie went straight. But not so much like Peter Buck.

Anyhow, People's lateness to this non-story is hardly a shock, they've been late on the scene scores of times. Just check out this picture that accompanied their 1976 profile on Paul Lynde -- altogether now -- AHEM!

Here's the cover :

Music: This Week's Chart Beat...Lookin' For a Chart beat

Carlos Santana: Running low on bland anglo singers...

The Billboard Top 200 Chart this week chalked up a pretty lousy sales tally, with returning Boss of the chart Bruce Springsteen racking up only 77,000 sales at number 1. Jimmy Eat World snacks on number 5 with Chase This Light, which equals their chart if not sales best. Santana's misnamed Ultimate Santana comes in at number 8 despite a Chad Kroeger duet that's the musical equivalent of a bone in a fish fillet. The re-activated Stax label gets some chart air at number 11 with Angie Stone's new one. Further down, R.E.M's first live album disappoints at number 72.

Music: This Week's New Releases

R.E.M.

This week's new music releases lead off with Athens Georgia's own R.E.M., a band who up until now had nary a live album in their catalog (though they have a couple of excellent live DVD's.) This album documents their recent mini-tour which also produced some new songs and is cleverly named Live.

Fellow Athen-ites Pylon see their album Gyrate re-issued with some bonus tracks.

The Reissue masters at Rhino give us a double-disc set of Aretha Franklin rarities with the lengthily monikered Rare And Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of Soul.

Jimmy Eat World try again to recapture the magic of 2001's breakthrough single "The Middle" with the Butch Vig produced set Chase the Light.

Finally, Kenna also tries to get back some of the buzz that surrounded him back in the early-aughties with Make Sure They See My Face.

Music News: R.E.M. Nearly Almost Done with New Album

Billboard, the bible of the music biz, reports today that R.E.M. will likely unleash their next album, produced by Jackknife Lee, in the spring of 2008 and that the band is being coy about the sound. See the full article here . I took Mike Mills' advice and did a search on YouTube for their live "rehearsal" shows in Dublin which unearthed the new track 'I'm Gonna DJ" for your listening and viewing pleasure:



Dare I posit a return to Life's Rich Pageant - era glory?