To understand my love of the band R.E.M., you have to understand what it meant to grow up in the shadow of Stone Mountain, Georgia, equidistance from Atlanta and Athens, in the 1980s and 90s. Outside of Seattle, no city did more for American music in the 1990s than those twin cities. Had Atlanta and Athens not given us Elton John, OutKast, Widespread Panic, Indigo Girls, Matthew Sweet, the B-52s, Gladys Knight, TLC, John Mayer, Drive-By Truckers, Ludacris, The Black Crowes, Usher, and Sugarland, R.E.M. alone would have been enough.<\/p>\n
From their early Velvet Underground sound (1987\u2019s Dead Letter Office<\/em> boasts three covers alone) to their eventual synthesis of post-punk, folk, and garage rock, R.E.M.\u2014a band that picked its name out of a dictionary (the term stands for rapid eye movement, a state accompanying the dream stage of sleep)\u2014helped define the sound that America would come to call alternative<\/em>.<\/p>\n This was no small feat. Not only was R.E.M. fighting for attention in a crowded Southern music scene, they were fighting an industry and a listenership that, initially, didn\u2019t want what R.E.M. had to offer. Still, throughout the 80s, R.E.M.\u2019s jangly guitars and anti-pop ballads continued to sidestep the slick melodies of Madonna, Paula Abdul, and New Kids on the Block, a choice that culminated in Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s December 1987 issue crowning R.E.M. \u201cAmerica\u2019s Best Rock and Roll Band,\u201d despite lead singer and lyricist Michael Stipe\u2019s assertion, years later, that \u00a0\u201cWe always wanted to make a rock record. I\u2019m not sure we ever quite achieved that.\u201d<\/p>\n The sound R.E.M. achieved is more elusive and unquantifiable than rock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n No, the sound R.E.M. achieved is more elusive and unquantifiable than rock. Trying to define that sound, though, that\u2019s the hard part.<\/p>\n So, what does R.E.M. sound like? After listening, again, to all of their albums, my advice to the casual listener is to seek out the band\u2019s best stretch, those records that came along when R.E.M. toned down the feedback-heavy screech of their early albums and before they traded their unpredictable chord progressions for the electronic lull of a late-90s-infused Radiohead influence (Radiohead opened 24 of R.E.M.\u2019s 1995 Monster<\/em> tour shows, so maybe something rubbed off). I\u2019m speaking of that revered trinity: Out of Time<\/em> (1991), Automatic for the People<\/em> (1992), and Monster<\/em> (1994).<\/p>\n Out of Time<\/em> is an unaccountably weird album, its opening track, \u201cRadio Song,\u201d a fun, funky masterpiece. Stipe sings. Hip-hop artist KRS-One raps. For some reason, there is a string and horn section arranged by New Orleans musician and producer Mark Bingham. This is not music-by-committee or some overproduced, studio-squeezed sound. This is collaboration at its finest. Three songs on Out of Time<\/em> feature Kate Pierson of The B-52s. Peter Holsapple, of the band the dB\u2019s, appears on several tracks too, including \u201cLosing My Religion,\u201d the band\u2019s highest-charting single.<\/p>\n R.E.M.\u2019s next offering, Automatic for the People<\/em>, is an album drenched in grief. These aren\u2019t the anger-infused tracks of 1987\u2019s Document<\/em> or 1988\u2019s Green<\/em>. Automatic for the People<\/em> is simply the stuff of raw, unrelenting mourning. There\u2019s \u201cEverybody Hurts,\u201d a paean to sorrow; \u201cMan on the Moon,\u201d a haunting tribute to the late Andy Kaufman; and \u201cNightswimming,\u201d R.E.M.\u2019s best song (yeah, I said it), a melancholy lament translating the risky, youthful exuberance of skinny-dipping into a meditative, quasi-religious act.<\/p>\n As Stipe sings: \u201cNightswimming deserves a quiet night \/ I’m not sure all these people understand \/ It’s not like years ago \/ The fear of getting caught \/ Of recklessness and water \/ They cannot see me naked \/ These things, they go away \/ Replaced by everyday.\u201d Sung, that final lyric suggests both the adjective \u201ceveryday,\u201d signaling the mundane, and \u201cevery day,\u201d signifying the banality of the daily trudge, each its own brand of bleak. Even at the age of 13, both interpretations broke my heart.<\/p>\n A good song lets you live a life you\u2019ve yet to live.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Listening to \u201cNightswimming\u201d in 1992 left me nostalgic for a feeling I\u2019d never had, before I knew what nostalgia was, about an act I had yet to commit, and that<\/em> is what good music does. A good song lets you live a life you\u2019ve yet to live.<\/p>\n 1994\u2019s Monster<\/em> was not destined to be another album obsessed with death, though the band dedicated the disc to the late River Phoenix (his sister, Rain Phoenix, sings on track eight, \u201cBang and Blame\u201d). But both \u201cBang and Blame\u201d and \u201cLet Me In,\u201d written for the late Kurt Cobain were relegated to B-side status at a time when B-sides existed and very much impacted which songs listeners listened to.<\/p>\n No, on Monster<\/em>, the mourning is over, the anger is back, and the acoustic sound is out the window. Everything\u2019s electric, grunge meets glam rock meets punk.<\/p>\n Monster<\/em>\u2019s opening track \u201cWhat\u2019s the Frequency, Kenneth?\u201d takes its title from the taunts shouted at Dan Rather during a real-life 1986 beating. The guitar-heavy track kicks your teeth in, and from there, the record is Stipe, in character, embodying a new persona for every song. These are songs of monstrous, sex- and fame-obsessed men, something akin to David Foster Wallace\u2019s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n