Happy Monday! I have today off, which is great because I
need a little decompression time after a busy weekend. I went to my twenty-fifth high school reunion
this weekend. Overall it was a pretty
positive experience, and nice to reconnect with some people I hadn’t seen in a long
while.
Perhaps it is fitting that my next
album was released when I was in high school, even if at the time I never gave
it the attention it deserved.
Disc 544 is…. Document
Artist: R.E.M.
Year of Release: 1987
What’s up with the Cover? It appears to be Michael Stipe’s assignment from some
first year photography course. A bunch
of pictures have been taken, apparently without advancing the film, one of
which is a self-portrait. Through the
power of photography we can reveal that Stipe once had hair, but the photo is
so busy we can’t learn much beyond that.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila was into R.E.M. when I met her, and she raved
about how great this album was. She was
right.
How It Stacks Up: We have six R.E.M. albums and although Sheila would
put this one second, I think I’m putting it first.
Rating: 4 stars
While hard core R.E.M. fans will often point to “Life’s
Rich Pageant” as the greatest R.E.M. album, it was “Document” that – for good
or ill – put the band into the mainstream consciousness. This is quite a feat for a band that went to
such painful lengths to stay independent and non-commercial (note to modern
indie bands, being popular doesn’t mean you make bad music, it just means that
you make more money making music, and that’s OK).
In high school if something was popular you could
pretty much count on me not liking it.
While this iconoclasm still rears its ugly head from time to time, fortunately
over the years I’ve realized that applying it to musical tastes just means you miss
out on a lot of great music. I am now making
up for lost time.
“Document” is a collection of great music, from an
era where the album was a set piece, and not just a collection of singles you
could download one at a time for your i-Thingy.
The songs have a thick, room-filling quality to them. It starts with singer Michael Stipe’s voice
and Peter Buck’s guitar, both of which have a vibrato to them that perfectly
complement each other. The whole band is
very tight and despite all the musical layers going on concurrently in these
songs, they never feel busy or over-stuffed.
As noted earlier, “Document” extended R.E.M.’s
career out of the university coffee houses and into the living rooms of
mainstream America. The two big songs on
it that accomplished this are very different from each other.
“It’s the End
of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is a frenetic, slam-dance
inducing track, loaded with enough pop culture references to challenge its
awful and unlistenable cousin, Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” “End of the World…” is better than that
crap, but it still feels a bit too overstuffed.
The music is fine, but lyrically it tries to cover too much ground, as
it attempts comment on a whole host of societal ills. At least it is partly redeemed by a very
catchy chorus.
By contrast, the other big hit, “The One I Love” is intimate and filled
with longing. It no doubt inspired many
a young love in 1987 (as noted above, first in university coffee-houses and
later everywhere else). Stipe is at his
best when he gets his hurt on. He
manages to pull of the pale and wan poet and never seem whiny. Instead this is a simple love song, from a
complicated man.
“The One I
Love” is a classic, but what makes “Document” such a strong record for me
are the many underappreciated deep cuts.
“Exhuming McCarthy” is a great
example, wrapping Orwellian, deeply political lyrics in a sugar-coated
triumphant melody. It is a fine bit of
subversive music making. 1992’s “Ignoreland” does the same thing, but
beats you over the head with the message.
“Exhuming McCarthy” is not
only a better overall song, it is a lot more subtle as it reminds listeners to
always be on the lookout for the next Joseph McCarthy who will have you:
“Sharpening stones
Walking on coals
To improve your business acumen.”
Bonus points for getting the expression “business acumen” in a song lyric without
it seeming forced.
My favourite song on the record is “King of Birds.” This is a song that
despite the very limited space on my MP3 player (2 GB) never gets removed. The haunting repetition of the line “standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves
me cold” always resonates deeply for me.
As with most of R.E.M.’s songs, you’re never entirely sure what it is
about, but for me it is a constant reminder to not be over-wise. There are a lot more things we don’t know
than things we do know. Just as
importantly, most things we do know are built on massive assumptions, our
foundations being inherited by other people that did the real work.
Years ago I read an article (the writer’s name
escapes me) describing what it was like to learn a martial art. Basically, everyone comes to martial arts
with the same lack of knowledge and has to slowly build from the ground
up. By the time someone is a black belt,
with the power in their hands to actually kill drilled into their very muscle
memory, they have had years of training to support the decisions they make for
those hands.
Out of necessity, most of our modern conveniences
are too complex for us to start at ground zero; we simply plug them in and take
how they operate on assumptions. This
can be as seemingly innocuous as this word processor I’m using right now up to a
$30 million jet aircraft capable of delivering a nuclear payload. The discipline and training to use either is
miniscule compared to the work that went into its design and construction, but
we rarely think about it that way. It’s all user-friendly interface, and narrow
focus. “King of Birds” is a reminder
that the vast majority of things we do in our daily lives have us standing on
the shoulders of giants, with very little understanding of how we got
there. If the experience doesn’t leave
you feeling a little cold, then it should.
But I digress…
The point is that “Document” is not only an
excellent rock album, it is an excellent rock album that makes you think. I’m not always sure what the hell Michael
Stipe is talking about. The man deserves
to be locked in a room with the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie and Radiohead’s Thom
Yorke so he can get a dose of his own medicine. What I do know is that he is thinking, and he’s
encouraging his listeners to do the same.
He doesn’t challenge your assumptions, so much as he asks you to do that
for yourself.
Best tracks: Finest Worksong, Exhuming McCarthy, Strange, The One
I Love, King of Birds, Oddfellows Local 151
No comments:
Post a Comment