Recently I’ve been thinking about R.E.M. much more than I’m accustomed to. At home I’m in the midst of a vinyl renaissance, and the copy of the much-heralded debut Murmur (1983) that a spring-cleaning neighbor unloaded on me last year has been getting some heavy rotation. On election night, in the hours before the delighted masses spilled into the streets, I participated in a local tribute to 1988’s Green, released on a similarly fateful election night 20 years ago. I had never given it an honest listen before I began preparing for the show, and was pretty smitten with the tender beauty of “Hairshirt” and the untitled 11th track, two structureless songs with ramshackle arrangements that nevertheless I could sit and listen to forever. I was also exposed this year to “Wolves, Lower” from the early EP Chronic Town and boggled at guitarist Peter Buck’s lightning-quick arpeggios (check out the band’s recent Fresh Air interview for Buck’s explanation of how he learned to play such weird stuff so fast). They’re growing on me, big time.
But no 25-year career, no matter how stellar, is without its hilarious and/or cringe-worthy missteps. My recent R.E.M. kick also shook up the memory of two videos from their first decade that, after all this time, still stand as compelling arguments that music television was just a horrible, horrible idea. My favorite part of these is how visibly annoyed Buck is to be party to the Macarena-like silliness that surrounds him; his expression at 1:20 of “Shiny Happy People” is priceless. In this, the age of YouTube, the embarrassments of your past are never really gone.
“Stand” (Green, 1988)
“Shiny Happy People” (Out of Time, 1991)
