I've never really gotten into REM, and I've never heard their first album. Reading about a recent reissue of one of their later albums prompted me to seek it out.
So, as I often do when I'm about to listen to an older album, I did a bit of reading to get some context. Allmusic describes this album as bridging post-punk and the burgeoning notion of alternative, and that's actually a really helpful lens to look at this album through. With regards to post-punk, its true: the bass lines, detached delivery and chugging pace are all in line with those traditions, and takes them in new directions. Seen as alternative, its actually surprising this doesn't sound more dated (except insofar as it still sounds a lot like later REM albums), and there really are some influential moves here. The singing style, the approach to guitar work, the simple beats, are all things we would hear plenty of in the years after this album. But there's a lightness and innocence here that I don't associate with early alternative, and it manages to keep from getting too twee/emo/cloying. The jaunty pace and backing vocals of Laughing and Shaking Through are both especially appealing, and sound surprisingly fresh.
I'm not really an REM fan, never have been. Stipe's reedy voice doesn't move me, and his delivery whiny in a way I can't escape. Plus, they've always struck me as pretty overproduced. The real nail in the coffin, though, is that I didn't get into them when I was in high school, and without that foot in the door, its hard to get unjaded enough to let them in.
I'm going to give this one the benefit of the doubt. The vocals are a little more unhinged, the production a lot looser, which gives it the best chance of any REM album at winning me over. And I'm cheating a bit and giving this a second listen while I'm writing this, and already its growing on me. When I first listened to this it was in 3.5 territory, but I think the rule is where I land, cheating or not, when the writing process ends, and over the last howevermany minutes its crawled its way into the territory of 4/5
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It was such a breath of fresh air when it first broke. It's hard to experience it the same way now, even for me -- it's more mixed with nostalgia now. But I certainly remember hearing "Talk about the Passion" and "Radio Free Europe" for the first time on the radio and thinking it was the beginning of something important.
ReplyDeleteI can see that, actually. Its frustrating that you never can hear albums you missed in their true context, but in a strange way, comments like this, from people "who were there" do help build an impression of it.
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