Episode 4
Introducing the Band
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD), with guest Matt Welch, former Editor-in-Chief and current Editor-at-Large of Reason and co-host of The Fifth Column podcast. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattWelch and read his work here.
Matt’s musical pick: R.E.M.
How did Matt get into them? Matt tells his story of being a kid in 1983 and having a friend hand a copy of Murmur to him. He explains how he learned to play guitar by spinning early R.E.M. records, and how their music followed him all through his life, from an auto-body shop in North Long Beach all the way to eastern Europe during the post-Communist ’90s. Jeff marvels at how R.E.M. was the one American indie band from the ’80s scene to gain escape velocity and make it big.
The Early Years
The gang discusses R.E.M.’s early mysterious LPs, the foundation of their legend. Is Murmur the greatest debut album of all time? Jeff certainly thinks so; whereas Scot doesn’t even think it’s the best of their first two records. preferring the more energetic Reckoning. Matt nominates “We Walk” for his upcoming compilation disc entitled Songs That Singlehandedly Ruin Otherwise Perfect Albums. Attention is given to the fully-formed nature of the band’s sound–it didn’t come about by chance, as it turns out–and the hints of impending gloom found on songs like “Camera.”
KEY SONGS: “We Walk” (Murmur, 1983); “Wolves, Lower” (Chronic Town EP, 1982); “Gardening At Night (different vocal mix)” (Eponymous, 1988); “Laughing” (Murmur, 1983); “Perfect Circle” (Murmur, 1983); “Sitting Still” (Murmur, 1983); “Talk About The Passion” (Murmur, 1983); “Harborcoat” (Reckoning, 1984); “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” (Reckoning, 1984); “Pretty Persuasion” (Reckoning, 1984); “Camera” (Reckoning, 1984)
R.E.M. in Transition: Fables Of The Reconstruction and Lifes Rich Pageant
The gang celebrates Fables Of The Reconstruction as the height of R.E.M.’s ‘southern gothic’ approach, as Matt explains how its rolling textures and chords actually sound like the landscape they seek to evoke. Jeff, meanwhile, explains that he doesn’t entirely trust people who dislike the song “Driver 8.”
Scot focuses on the underrated greatness of the record’s 1986 followup Lifes Rich Pageant, and everyone heartily agrees that it is mysteriously neglected. Jeff explains why it was a record that should have failed: heavily reliance on old/recycled material, a curiously odd instrumental, a cover track — and yet none of that matters. Matt singles out the effectiveness of the album’s environmental and political themes: pow
Published on 8 years, 3 months ago
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