MOG

Recently, there’s been a seemingly random micro-surge of blog postings about R.E.M.’s 1996 album New Adventures In Hi-Fi. (Sadly, the links to those postings currently elude me.) Hi-Fi is easily one of my favorite albums of all time, so this naturally piqued my interest. Of course, the common argument against R.E.M. is that they, at some point during the 1990s, stopped producing good music. And, as the title of this post probably suggests, I disagree.

In 1998, R.E.M. released Up, their first album sans drummer Bill Berry. Everyone hated it. It was fairly electronic, it didn’t sound like R.E.M., it wasn’t accessible, it made the Pope fidgety, etc., etc., and so on. To this day, it dwells within R.E.M.’s trilogy of largely-disliked albums, 2001’s Reveal (probably the critical favorite of the three) and 2004’s Around The Sun. But does Up deserve so much hate? I mean, let’s look at another veteran band’s red-headed stepchild: U2’s Zooropa. While not the band’s best work by any stretch of the imagination, it’s hugely underrated and underrespected. And Up? Almost exactly the same, and the similarities don’t end there, either.

Both albums were extreme, stripped-down departures for each band, and not stripped in the acoustic sense. While a lot of the bands’ traditional sounds were cast aside, they both took on a decidedly more electronic feel. The soundscapes ended up becoming much more desolate and empty than what had come before. As soon as you pop in Up, you’re immediately confronted with that potentially unfortunate reality, thanks to the sparse, barely existant “Airportman.” It’s not a great song, and it isn’t the best defense for my argument.

Once “Airportman” ends, however, we get into somewhat more traditional R.E.M. territory with the second single, the downright gospel, energetic “Lotus.” The album’s first single, “Daysleeper,” is also extremely traditional. However, these songs commit a great musical sin, in my opinion: they are singles that sound almost nothing like the remainder of the album. I can’t count the number of times that I, in my younger days, heard one or two really good songs by any number of bands and, after buying their album, I was broadsided by the reality that they were the only good songs on the album. I’m going to go ahead and guess that there was a fair number of R.E.M. fans in similar predicaments, back in ‘98. But what about in good ol’ 20/20 hindsight?

This is a hard album to pin down. I can’t really tell what was going through Michael Stipe’s head, at the time. I mean, obviously, it must’ve been a little bone-rattling to have Berry leave them so suddenly. Would the album have been better with him? The drum machines were decided upon before Berry’s departure, so the electronic influences are likely the result of a simple desire to experiment, not shell shock. Does that make for a bad album? Or, maybe more to the point, does it make for a bad R.E.M. album? Even Hi-Fi had sounded distinctly like R.E.M. In fact, New Adventures simply sounds, to my ears, like an R.E.M. adapted for more modern times. I mean, they can’t keep making “It’s The End Of The World” and “Stand” forever. Right?

I guess that it ultimately boils down to how you respond to an old, trusted zebra trying to change its stripes ever so slightly, not to mention your tolerance for dreamy, sparse music. There aren’t any bells and whistles on Up, except for maybe “Lotus.” I think this is an album that depends on a lot of factors that are personal to the listener and, because of that, it’s a risky album. In fact, I’m not even going to argue that it’s a great album. It’s not. But it’s a dark, cold sideroad on R.E.M.’s musical path. It’s a relatively crisp, clear album, and not always in a good sense. It feels more like literally walking down a cold, wintery path at night, the bitter wind causing barren trees to creak and lurch down torward you, as you shove your hands as deep into your pockets as they can go. It has its rewards, and it almost feels kinda good, but it’s not necessarily a comfortable journey.

Meh, I like it. Again, it’s not something I’m always in the mood for, but I feel the album gets treated unfairly. It’s sandwiched in between two better records and it’s thought to’ve ushered in a sub-par era for the band. Still, give it a shot. I think the rewards are more than worth it, but then I’m always for introspective, spacious music. It’s certainly an intimate album, probably best listened to alone.

I’ll probably say something about their other oft-maligned albums, soon. I have no idea what prompted this R.E.M. revival in blogland, but I’m certainly in the mood for it.