narrowcast: Deep Album Cuts Vol. 204: R.E.M.

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 204: R.E.M.

This year marked the 40th anniversary of R.E.M.'s first show, I've been meaning to do this playlist for a long time, so here goes.

R.E.M. deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Moral Kiosk

2. 7 Chinese Bros.

3. Pretty Persuasion

4. Feeling Gravitys Pull

5. I Believe

6. Disturbance At The Heron House

7. Welcome To The Occupation

8. You Are The Everything

9. Belong

10. Country Feedback

11. New Orleans Instrumental No. 1

12. Sweetness Follows

13. I Don't Sleep, I Dream

14. Leave

15. Low Desert

16. Hope

17. The Lifting

18. Around The Sun

19. Horse To Water

20. Walk It Back

Track 1 from Murmur (1983)

Tracks 2 and 3 from Reckoning (1984)

Track 4 from Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985)

Track 5 from Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)

Tracks 6 and 7 from Document (1987)

Track 8 from Green (1988)

Tracks 9 and 10 from Out Of Time (1991)

Tracks 11 and 12 from Automatic For The People (1992)

Track 13 from Monster (1994)

Tracks 14 and 15 from New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)

Track 16 from Up (1998)

Track 17 from Reveal (2001)

Track 18 from Around The Sun (2004)

Track 19 from Accelerate (2008)

Track 20 from Collapse Into Now (2011)

I came of age in the '90s when R.E.M. were at their commercial peak, and I just remember seeing the "Losing My Religion" video and not really thinking much of it, just thinking they seemed like this very staid serious older band, and being a little surprised that all these cool long-haired younger alternative bands I liked really respected them and considered them an influence. But then I was on board with Automatic For The People, one of the few albums that both I and my dad owned a copy of when I was a kid, and kinda grew up on R.E.M.

Even though I had all of R.E.M.'s '90s album on CD, I was kind of spotty on the '80s stuff for a long time, the only proper albums I bought were Document and Reckoning -- between my dad's copy of Eponymous, the weird rarities comp In The Attic - Alternative Recordings 1985-1989, a cassette of Dead Letter Office, and a mixtape of '80s R.E.M. that a friend made for me, I know most of the band's early songs pretty well, but now and again I'll realize there's some song every R.E.M. fan loves that I wouldn't be able to hum or quote any lyrics from. I kind of like that a lot Fables and Pageant are still fresh for me, that I might someday love them as much as I love Reckoning. "I Believe" and "Feeling Gravitys Pull" were always favorites from that mixtape, though, I love the weird stilted guitar sound of the latter. And "7 Chinese Bros." will always be a candidate for my favorite R.E.M. song, it always seemed so cryptic, and then in 2008 Michael Stipe explained that it was "about me breaking up a couple - and dating both of them, a man and a woman."

R.E.M.'s big multi-platinum albums from their first decade on Warner Bros. are an odd mixed bag, so many great songs in vastly different styles. I think Out Of Time has aged a little poorly (although weirdly I have no problem with "Radio Song" or "Shiny Happy People" like most people), in a way I like Green's "You Are The Everything" more than almost any of the '90s R.E.M. acoustic songs it was a precursor to. But I think Automatic's classic status and Monster's divisive used bin staple status are both pretty well earned. And I'm a member of the New Adventures In Hi-Fi cult, I adore that album, there are so many songs I wanted to include on the playlist but "Leave" was the 7-minute behemoth I needed to make room for. And I love when Mike Mills plays a little slap bass, especially on "Low Desert" (I was very amused to learn that they had an early version of "Radio Song" where the demo was titled "Larry Graham").

It would've been easier to simply end the playlist when Bill Berry left the band and have room for more of the '80s and '90s songs that people love. But I wanted to cover all their albums and try to pick standouts on the later records when R.E.M.'s reputation kind of took a nosedive. I always thought Up was a really interesting record with some great songs, I played it a lot when it came out -- the only time I saw the band live was at the '98 Tibetan Freedom Concert, when they played an odd but enjoyable set of New Adventures and Up stuff (including "Be Mine" and "E-Bow The Letter" with Thom Yorke) and a couple early '90s hits thrown in.

Reveal really disappointed me, though, I loved the opener "The Lifting" and then thought the rest of it sounded pretty bad. And this was back when following a band meant spending $12 on a CD every time they released something new, so I kind of tuned out, only buying one of their last 3 albums, the back-to-basics Accelerate. It was fun to revisit those albums and hear a couple for the first time, though, there's some pretty garish production choices that really demystify Michael Stipe's writing and vocal style, but there are some gems too. I've seen a lot of lamentations about how R.E.M.'s cultural stock has dropped in the last couple decades, but I think that was inevitable -- they were one of the coolest, most acclaimed bands in the world for almost 20 years, and their sales climbed for 8 or 9 albums in a row, you just can't keep up that kind of thing forever. If they ever reunited, it'd be gigantic (especially if Bill played drums and they focused on old stuff), but I don't know if that will ever happen, or if they'll ever get the kind of millennial/zoomer cachet that some other '80s alternative bands have in spades these days, and that's fine really, their legacy is secure.