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R.E.M. didn't reinvent the wheel or demolish any
stylistic barriers when the quartet popped its curly little
head up from the collegiate fields of Athens, Georgia, at
the beginning of the 1980s; the power pop underground
already had other Byrdsian bands with jangly guitars and
mumbly singers. Of course, no other band had a mumbly
singer with the potent artistic vision or charisma of
Michael Stipe, or the unique brains/brawn
extrovert/introvert art/rock chemistry of R.E.M. — two
of the reasons why the group rose steadily through an
uneven series of '80s albums to stand as one of the world's
biggest and best-loved rock'n'roll combos. Unlike Nirvana,
whose success defined an era, the equally inscrutable
R.E.M. (and their trans-Atlantic cousins, U2) worked their
way into household namedom without setting off any
revolutionary times-they-are-a-changin' alarms. True,
plenty of imitators followed, and the group's breakthrough
proved highly beneficial for others whose humble/indie
beginnings would no longer be looked on with commercial
skepticism. R.E.M. also helped prove that rock didn't have
to be callow, cynical and calculated to resonate with large
population segments, but the world after Document
sold a million copies wasn't significantly different than
it had been.

R.E.M.'s rough-hewn guitar pop was introduced in 1981 by
a stunning independent single ("Radio Free Europe"), an
avatar of homegrown, populist rootsiness. Blending Pete
Buck's Byrdsian guitar playing with Stipe's hazy, sometimes
melancholic (but never miserable) vocals and
impressionistic lyrics, plus a strong, supple rhythm
section (drummer Bill Berry and bassist Mike Mills), R.E.M.
started out playing memorable songs with unprepossessing
simplicity and emotional depth. As hip acceptance gave way
to full-fledged stardom, R.E.M. found its creative path
harder to navigate, but the group has remained intelligent,
independent minded and committed to artistic expression
(not only theirs).

The five-song Chronic Town EP, co-produced by
Mitch Easter, continues the sound (if not all the rushed
excitement) of the single, and boasts the
remarkable "1,000,000" and the equally memorable "Carnival
of Sorts (Box Cars)."

Murmur is a masterpiece, containing all the
essential components of truly great serious pop music.
On "Catapult," "Pilgrimage" and a reprise of "Radio Free
Europe," Stipe inscrutably but evocatively mumbles his
vocals with unmistakable passion, while the band spins
haunting webs of guitar rock that are heavy with
atmosphere. A completely satisfying collection,
Murmur served as a guidepost for many of the bands
who chose to follow R.E.M. back to the New South for
inspiration in the early '80s.

Doomed to disappoint by comparison to the debut,
Reckoning is not quite as consistent, although it
contains enough equally great music to maintain R.E.M.'s
reputation for excellence. "Harborcoat," "So. Central Rain
(I'm Sorry)," "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" and "Pretty
Persuasion" are all wonderful, and display not only clearer
production (Easter and Don Dixon) but a less hurried pace
and more articulate Stipe singing.

Fables of the Reconstruction (aka
Reconstruction of the Fables), produced in London by
Joe Boyd, finds R.E.M. largely neglecting catchy melodicism
and driving rhythms for reflective, languidly meandering
numbers that lack focal points and seem to start and finish
with the structured inexorability of a light switch. A
number of the songs are flat-out boring, and the album is
generally vague and colorless, although not entirely bland.
Still, "Can't Get There from Here," "Driver 8" and the
raucous "Auctioneer (Another Engine)" do have familiar
R.E.M. qualities.

A shortage of rewarding musical ideas and an air of
flagging enthusiasm on the politically minded and far too
restrained Lifes Rich Pageant make it a remote and
generally ignorable chapter in R.E.M.'s inexorable march
towards the big time. Excepting a totally ace cover of the
Clique's psychedelic obscurity "Superman," sung in a
delicious near-whine by Mike Mills, the rushed "Hyena" and
the languid "Fall on Me," the record is instrumentally dull
and almost entirely uninvolving.

With Stipe opting for a brave new world of enunciation
on Document, Scott Litt's dynamic co-production
pushes the songs back into the world of the living, with a
bright, loud sound and an infusion of much-needed rock
energy. Without sacrificing sensitivity, Buck plays up a
storm, pushed into high gear by Berry's walloping big beat.
The entire first side is brilliant, from the maniacally
intense "Finest Worksong" to the stomping horn-flecked
nostalgia of "Exhuming McCarthy," a goofball cover of
Wire's "Strange" and the prolix name-dropping nonsense
of "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel
Fine)." The back of the LP is half as good, which is to say
the sound is swell but the songs aren't. Nonetheless,
millions misunderstood the stinging irony of "The One I
Love" and made it a huge hit single.

Dead Letter Office, a curious and amusing
B-sides/rarities collection, reveals R.E.M.'s proclivity
for
recording covers (it contains material by Pylon, Roger
Miller, the Velvet Underground and Aerosmith) and a goofy
sense of humor not often heard on their albums. Buck's
liner notes explain the origins of all 15 outtakes,
pisstakes and oddities, including "Walter's Theme," written
to be a restaurant commercial. The CD adds the contents of
Chronic Town.

Raising their commercial sights in a way the faithful
never imagined possible, R.E.M. left IRS for the greener
pastures of Warner Bros., prompting the release of a
greatest hits package. Eponymous (now there's a band
that knows its rock criticism clichés) is a nearly
straightforward compilation, except that it omits some
crucial songs and has the original independent 45 version
of "Radio Free Europe," an unused vocal take on "Gardening
at Night" (from Chronic Town), an alternate mix
of "Finest Worksong" and "Romance," a soundtrack
contribution not previously on an R.E.M. record. It took
the English office a couple of years to get around to it,
but the import-only The Best of R.E.M. expands on
Eponymous with added (and subtracted) tracks.

Quelling fears of sell-out lameness or overfed
incapacity, Green—the quartet's bow into the
global pop race—is a great, artistically mature record
with more strong songs than on any prior R.E.M. album.
Dropping the familiar jangle and crisp rhythms, the band
strides boldly into the modern rock arena, finding a
characteristic compromise (although several numbers are
entirely acoustic) that grants the lyrics and melodies
precedence over immediately recognizable presentation. The
band tests out novel rhythms (the dancey "Pop Song 89," a
witty reflection on stardom's social complications whose
old-style chorus contrasts strikingly with the new-fangled
verses; the tense, piledriving "Get Up") and uncommon
atmospheres (the sweaty palms and U2-ish carpet-bombing
of "Orange Crush," the rough drone of "Turn You Inside
Out"). Jane Scarpantoni's cello adds baroque woodiness to
the solemn "World Leader Pretend" ("This is my mistake /
Let me make it good"), while Stipe's voice is the only
familiar feature on the catchy "Stand," an unabashed chart
pop bid that worked. Buck's diverse playing has never
sounded better, and piano provides him with an effective
complement. An articulate yet enigmatic reinvention that
delivers the band to a new artistic plane loaded with
possibilities, Green propelled R.E.M. into the
future without renouncing its past.

Adding keyboards, strings and horns to adjust the style
settings even further, R.E.M. (also employing touring
member Peter Holsapple, post-dB's/pre-Continental Drifters,
on guitar and bass) challenged audience expectations and
themselves further with the ambitious, overproduced (again
by Litt and the band) and inconsistent Out of Time.
The numbers that work—"Radio Song" (with guest rap by
KRS-One), the folk-rocking "Losing My Religion," the
uplifting "Shiny Happy People" (with Kate Pierson of the
B-52's chiming in), the acoustic "Half a World Away," "Me
in
Honey"—effectively progress from (or at least uphold)
Green's forthright example and are almost enough to
carry the weight. The other half of the album, however,
drags with material that is either too weak to withstand
gummy layers of gratuitous instrumentation or falls prey to
gimmicky concept experiments. "Low," "Endgame" and "Country
Feedback" are blandly negligible; the happyface pop
of "Near Wild Heaven" and the sung/recited "Belong" are
ineffectual in their willful incongruity. Out of
Time has too many important songs to ignore, but it's a
dismal reminder of what happens when too many people tell
creative musicians how great they are.

Automatic for the People refocuses all the random
initiative of the group's great leap forward into a
singular vision, with a cohesive collection of brilliant
songs and a profoundly moving mood of somber dignity.
Whatever R.E.M. once was no longer counts in the new math
being reckoned in this eloquent chamber. On the most
restrained and moody of R.E.M.'s records, haunting,
beautiful elegies like "Everybody
Hurts," "Nightswimming," "Star Me Kitten" and the David
Essex-quoting "Drive" (some of which make exquisite use of
a small orchestra) suck the air away and leave the
lingering sadness of a long-ago funeral. Without breaking
the mostly acoustic spell, the stronger-shouldered
(Who-like, in fact) "Ignoreland" turns up the energy level,
giving fuller play to Buck's distorted ardor, which lurks
subliminally in compressed feedback accents elsewhere. In
addition to his stupendous, hypersensitive singing, Stipe's
lyrical obsessions are both more obvious and sublime than
ever; his homages to Montgomery Clift ("Monty Got a Raw
Deal") and Andy Kaufman ("Man on the Moon") are quizzical,
indirect and loaded with other concerns. The Litt/R.E.M.
production, complex and detailed as it is, invariably
benefits the songs, culminating in the tightrope balance
of "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" and "Try Not to Breathe,"
which reconcile everything the band has learned with ideas
it had never before explored. That's creative progress, and
Automatic for the People is a masterpiece.

In keeping with the band's inconsistent but generally
true one up, one down pattern, Monster was doomed,
and R.E.M. didn't let down those expecting to be let down.
Opening with loud, snarly guitar chords that stay
unnaturally high in the mix even after Stipe begins
singing "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" (title courtesy of
Dan Rather's unexplained street attack), Monster is
the quartet's raunchy Big Rock effort. Evidently unaware
that turning up doesn't equal turning on, and seemingly
incapable of performing hard-edged electric music with
credible conviction, R.E.M. appears to have designed this
stolid misfire to give Pete Buck a showcase and a chance to
check out the tremolo switch on his amplifier. It sure
isn't based on top-notch songs or any need for this
warmed-over heat treatment. "Strange Currencies," a sweet
ballad
that could be an Automatic leftover, and "What's the
Frequency, Kenneth" are all right, but that's about it.
Despite the lyrics' surprising sexual directness, "Crush
With Eyeliner" and "Star 69" are clumsy nothings; others
here don't even reach their modest plateaus. Stipe's vocal
caricatures never get in synch with the raucous songs (in
the case of the toned-down soul of "Tongue," he trots out a
pitiful falsetto); he's left sounding lost in the studio.
Mills and Berry trundle along at such carefully measured
paces that they draw off the potential excitement in Buck's
distortion slashes—busting out isn't usually done with
such precise restraint. Anomalies are to be expected in the
road of a band unwilling to settle for the easy solution,
but this one so obviously doesn't work that it strikes an
especially sour chord. Of course, it does clear the decks
for another potential winner...Or, unfortunately, New
Adventures in Hi-Fi.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi shoulders the same role
in R.E.M.'s Warner Bros. catalog as Fables of the
Reconstruction did in their IRS period—the weird,
off-putting experimental record that no one can quite cozy
up to. Track for track, it's decent and sometimes even
great, but the overarching feeling is one of fatigue and
exhaustion. While it may be both forgivable and
understandable, given that was recorded on the heels of the
Monster tour, during which Berry nearly died onstage
in Switzerland from a brain aneurysm and sundry lesser
disasters befell the band, it still doesn't make for an
enjoyable listening experience. It's one of those albums
about which all but the staunchest fan will look at the
track list and wonder why the hell they can't remember what
any of those songs sound like. All the same, a few stand
out: "E-bow the Letter" features Stipe's Ian Hunter-style
sing-speak vocal over a pleasantly droning backing track
with prominent Patti Smith backing vocals,
while "Leave"—a most atypical song for
REM—repeats a squealing, siren-like feedback loop
through its seven minutes.

Even at the time of its release, New Adventures in
Hi-Fi felt like the end of an era. And it was. Berry,
recovered from his illness, chose the life of a gentleman
farmer over the role of a touring rock musician. Reneging
(at Berry's insistence, it must be noted) on a vow to break
up if any member ever left the band, the other three
decided to carry on but not to replace Berry with a
permanent drummer. Working without producer Scott Litt for
the first time in a decade, Up is R.E.M.'s
confrontation with electronica, using keyboards to largely
replace their traditional guitars. Given the central role
in R.E.M.'s creation myth of a horrified reaction to
Stephen Hague's aborted production of Murmur, it's
kind of a kick to hear the band sounding like one-time
Hague clients OMD on the moody opener "Airportman." Even
with the change in instrumental emphasis, Up still
sounds like R.E.M. and is their strongest release since
Automatic for the People. "Hope," "Why Not Smile"
and especially "Daysleeper" rank among the finest songs of
the band's career. Although a relative commercial failure,
Up was an encouraging sign after two
disappointments.

Reveal is not bad—in fact, it's pretty good,
containing such strong tracks as the single "Imitation of
Life" and "Summer Turns to High"—but its release felt
like a non-event, just another album from a band that was
no longer a guiding force in music. U2, the only other
major band that could be considered their peers in having
carried the '80s college rock banner into the '90s
alternative era, found themselves in the same position
following Pop—elder statesmen, respected and
admired, but reluctantly conceded to be becoming
irrelevant—but through sheer force of will refused to
let themselves be written off and remained a vital force
still able to combine critical and commercial success.
Whether R.E.M. will be able to pull off that same trick
remains to be seen.

The two new tracks on the In Time best-of
collection do little to indicate what the future may hold
for R.E.M. It's a solid retrospective of their Warner Bros.
years. The special edition adds a bonus disc of live
tracks, compilation and soundtrack cuts and other
rarities.

Around the Sun poses a conundrum: is it R.E.M.'s
reputation that buys the album the repeated listens it
requires until individual songs finally begin to lift
themselves out of the tepid, boring mid-tempo flow of the
album? Or is it that very reputation that has raised
expectations to such a level that a perfectly pleasant
collection of well-written and performed tunes rates as a
disappointment? The answer is probably both. No one is
likely to get worked up over Around the Sun, not
even the band. They were obviously attempting to recapture
the autumnal stateliness of Automatic for the
People, but were not up to the challenge. Where
that '92 album touched on a whole range of emotions, from
despair to longing to hope, Around the Sun is merely
competent and professional. It's hard to escape the
conclusion that the trio is no longer anxious, or able, to
challenge itself or its audience. But this is still R.E.M.,
and attention must be paid, since they've certainly earned
it. Effort does pay off, as "Electron Blue," the
Q-Tip-enhanced "The Outsiders" and "I Wanted to Be Wrong"
prove
themselves among the loveliest items in the band's catalog.
But they suffer from their surroundings — Around
the Sun's strengths are overwhelmed by a lack of
variety; its strong songs succumb to the overall torpor.
Ultimately, like Reveal, Around the Sun is
simply a good album from a band that used to make great
ones.

R.E.M. released their first official live album in 2007,
documenting a 2005 Dublin gig on two CDs (the first is the
main set, the five-song second contains the encore) and a
DVD. A solid enough set from the Around the Sun tour
but not particularly revelatory, its exactly what one
would expect from a late-period R.E.M. live album, with no
surprises in performance or set list. It does provide the
reasonably valuable service of demonstrating that the best
songs from the bands later albums — tracks
like "Imitation of Life" and "Electron Blue" — deserve
a place in the canon of the bands best work. However, the
inclusion of what was considered a middling track on an
earlier disc, Lifes Rich Pageants "Cuyahoga," just
proves that even the deep cuts on earlier albums mopped the
floor with most of the marquee tracks on later ones, such
as the bland "Leaving New York." Unfortunately, those
underwhelming selections fill a disproportionate share of
Live. The one new track, "Im Gonna DJ," is annoying
and doesnt inspire much confidence in the bands future.
Overall, Live is a harmless placeholder to kill time
while R.E.M. struggles to find a way to reassert its
relevance. It does nothing to address concerns that the
band has lost the thread of its own career.

By 2008, a decade of buzz-less existence inspired R.E.M.
to re-engage their audience, and they set about doing so
with all the subtlety of a spurned lover drunk-dialing an
ex. The first order of business was to disavow the hapless
Around the Sun. That albums only real offense was
its inoffensiveness, but the bands comments made it seem
like the poor thing had been out clubbing baby seals in its
spare time. The next domino to fall was producer Pat
McCarthy, on whose watch the moderately fascinating
transformation which began with Up drifted into
unadventurous Adult Contemporary pop. Given that his
replacement sported the action-packed moniker of Jackknife
Lee and that the album title was to be Accelerate,
the direction of R.E.M. redirection was pretty apparent. In
light of the bands decidedly spotty track record at
bringing the rock, this was not necessarily great news, but
generated R.E.M.s first blizzard of pre-release hype since
MTV still played music.

When it finally landed, Accelerate was
(fortunately) more of a piece with the decent Lifes Rich
Pageant than the dire Monster. The opening
Living Well Is the Best Revenge sports the kind of guitar
riff Buck had taken to playing on other bands records, not
his own. The album that follows flies by in a rush, clocking
in at a brisk 35 minutes and performed with relocated
conviction. The recent Hall of Fame inductees seem
determined to not let their career become a museum piece
without one last fight. Even Im Gonna DJ, which was
unimpressive on the live album, sounds great here in its
closing position, a blast of defiant attitude and oddball
sonics. Accelerate may have arrived bathed in
desperation thick enough for Glengarry Glen Ross, but
it does the job it was intended to do in short order and
serves notice that R.E.M. is not ready for musics nursing
home.

Having gone a quarter century before releasing an
official live album (not counting live video compilations),
R.E.M. released three more in the two years following
Live. The first, a 1983 Toronto gig added to the 25th
anniversary reissue of Murmur, is a concert disc fans
were more likely to be eager to hear than Live, as it
catches the young band tearing through their greatest hits
of the early years. Though R.E.M. at the time had a bit of
an erratic reputation as a live unit, its clearly a good
night. Several of the songs had not yet been recorded and
were works in progress: Just a Touch is much more jangly
than the version on Lifes Rich Pageant would be, and
Stipe wisely continued tinkering with the stretched-out
pronunciations he was inflicting on Harborcoat and got it
right by the time it showed up on Reckoning. The Live
in Toronto disc is decisive evidence that the original
quartet was quite capable of making a convincing racket live
and that the hired hands brought along on later tours added
noise more than nuance.

The 25th anniversary edition of Reckoning appends
a 1984 gig from Chicagos Aragon Ballroom. Its only a year
after the Toronto gig added to Murmur, but the band
is already beginning to choose power over precision onstage.
Stipe is still in his mumbling phase, but he mumbles much
more loudly. Buck is less finicky in the way he muscles
through the intricate guitar lines of R.E.M.s early
material. None of this is a particularly bad thing as far as
the recording goes — like the Toronto set, its an
exciting document of the bands most beloved era. It is,
however, a sign that R.E.M. were already beginning to look
past it.

Prior to the release of Accelerate, R.E.M.
previewed the album via a series of public rehearsals at
Dublins Olympia Theatre. The bands insistence that these
were rehearsals rather than shows meant to generate
desperately needed buzz is undercut by the inclusion of
material from the IRS years. Still, its not hard to grant
the band their conceits when perusing the track list of the
39-song Live at the Olympia. Besides previewing the
majority of Accelerate (and a couple of numbers that
didnt make the cut or were reworked), R.E.M. trot out a
passel of guaranteed crowd-pleasers and burn their way
through them. Delicacies like Gardening at Night and
Sitting Still are beefed up considerably to rock the
rafters. They still sound good, but the effect is rather
like using Faberge eggs as hand grenades.

The reissue of Fables of the Reconstruction adds a
disc of demos rather than an era-appropriate live set. If
this was some sort of revisionist attempt to palm off the
general lack of love for Fables on Joe Boyds
production (See, the songs are fine, it was the production
that killed it), it didnt work. The songs that everyone
always liked (Driver 8, Life and How to Live It, Maps
and Legends) sound predictably good in demo form, while the
tracks that didnt turn anyone on in their final form
inspire the same reaction in demo form. The mysterious When
I Was Young, which was listed on the albums sleeve but
omitted from its grooves, turns up in the demos as Throw
Those Trolls Away and was wisely retooled into Lifes
Rich Pageants I Believe.

Having forced their way back into the conversation with
Accelerate, R.E.M. sought to consolidate their
reacquired but tenuous toehold on relevance with Collapse
Into Now. Their stated game plan was to stock the album
with the best songs they had available at the moment. The
fact that this approach seemed to elicit cries of Eureka!
from the band rather than Duh! probably goes a long way
towards explaining their decade of wandering in the
wilderness of Has-Been-istan, but no matter —
Collapse Into Now gave R.E.M. their first
back-to-back very good albums of the new millennium.

Where Accelerate was a shout of Were still here!
Pay attention! that was long on energy but short on nuance,
Collapse Into Now returns R.E.M. to the wide-ranging
variety of Green and New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
There are loud rockers: All the Best, Alligator Aviator
Autopilot Antimatter, enlivened by a Lenny Kaye guitar solo
and guest vocals from Peaches, and That Someone Is You, a
callback to some of the bands great early dumb songs like
Windout. There are jangly numbers that recall the days of
college rock: Discoverer, Uberlin and Mine Smell Like
Honey, which would be aces if not for the puerile title.
And folksy acoustic tracks: Oh My Heart, Walk It Back
and It Happened Today, with barely audible vocals from
Eddie Vedder (who, in a historical footnote, was in the
audience at the Aragon Ballroom gig added to the
Reckoning reissue.) The closing Blue recalls E-bow
the Letter with a spoken Stipe vocal and a Patti Smith
guest appearance. Collapse Into Now is far from
perfect — Every Day is Yours to Win is a self-help
seminar so drippy it makes Everybody Hurts seem ballsy,
and Stipe is now so immersed in being Michael Stipe®
that its doubtful hell ever be able to engage emotionally
with his audience again in any meaningful way — but for
a band entering its fourth decade its not bad at all. For
the first time since Berrys departure, Buck, Mills and
Stipe seem to feel comfortable being R.E.M. By deciding for
once to not make a rock or acoustic or experimental
album, they actually made a good one.

Detailing the extracurricular activities of Mills,
Berry, Stipe and especially Buck would fill a book (in
fact, Tony Fletcher's Remarks — The Story of
R.E.M. lists more than three dozen outside records on
which they have appeared), but two albums do stand out for
the primary involvement of all but Stipe. Hindu Love
Gods is the belated issue of a 1987 studio get-together
in which Buck, Mills and Berry back singer/guitarist Warren
Zevon on old blues standards and a Prince song. Minus their
marquee value, the threesome's playing is characterless
(and not especially adept) bar-band issue, and the album is
no biggie. The same is mostly true of the Troggs' Athens
Andover, for which the great British Invasion singer
Reg Presley and his current cohorts join forces with the
same threesome and Holsapple in the hopes of mounting a hip
comeback. It's the best appointed album of the Troggs'
illustrious career, but that train's long since left the
station, and songs like "Deja Vu," which resorts to the
unforgivable ploy of stringing together the titles of past
hits, don't make the wheels spin any faster. Even the few
good tunes are too simple to present any challenge or
stylistic opportunity for the players. Presley is a game
vocalist but, by this point, a formulaic songwriter (who
really should know better than to pen a song that has him
repeatedly singing the phrase "it worries me" with a
previously unnoticed Elmer Fudd accent). The Americans' two
contributions don't help much, either. It was generous of
R.E.M. to participate in an album by a musical hero, but
Athens Andover isn't anybody's home run.