165. R.E.M., "Murmur"

 


Unquestionably one of the most important records on this list to me personally, this album changed my life, and I'm not just saying that for DRAMATIC EFFECT.  This record changed the way I thought about music and influenced almost everything I listened to after it.  And it's not just me; you could probably say this was the most important album in starting "alternative rock" in America.

R.E.M., who emerged from Athens, Georgia's fertile indie music scene, had already put out an EP, Chronic Town, and their single, "Radio Free Europe" even before that.  Their label, IRS Records, wanted them to record with producer Stephen Hague, but his perfectionist approach was not really a fit and so they ended up recording this album with Mitch Easter and Don Dixon in Charlotte, North Carolina.  (Easter is a godlike figure in alternative rock and had a hand in some of my favorite recordings of all time, but I digress.)  The album, which came out in 1983, went to number 36, which surprised me to find out.  I always thought of it as more underground than that.

"Radio Free Europe" is the first track and is just a perfect song to showcase what the band is about and also in general, I'm not even kidding.  There are Pete Buck's Rickenbacker arpeggios that were the band's early guitar sound trademark and Bill Barry's solid, unfussy drumming and Mike Mills' melodic bass and then Michael Stipe's voice, a voice I have always found one of the richest and most emotive in all of music.  There's a graininess and an edge that just comes naturally, and endows his vocals with a deeper layer than most vocalists can achieve.  I sound like an idiot trying to describe it, but it's borderline magical.

Stipe was famous for his impenetrable lyrics, and has freely admitted that sometimes he just strung random words together to fit the melody he wanted to sing.  Of course this was maddening to me as a kid who wanted to understand everything, every little nuance, of what I was hearing.  From "Laughing":

Laocoön and her two sons
Pressured storm, tried to move
No other more emotion bound
Martyred, misconstrued

Not gonna lie, I just found out yesterday that this song references (and misgenders) Laocoön, who was killed with his sons by Athena for warning the Trojans about the horse.  What it means in this song I have no idea, but I went insane trying to figure out what Stipe was saying as a kid.

Other songs were easier.  From "Talk About the Passion":

Empty prayer, empty mouths, combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths, talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world

I couldn't figure out "combien reaction," but the rest of the song I knew.  As a kid just on the other side of watching his parents' disastrous marriage end in an acrimonious divorce, I certainly understood that not everyone can carry the weight of the world.  

I could do this for every song.  Every song on here is indelibly etched into my being, a perfect time capsule for me in a very specific, difficult, troubled, agonizing, wonderful, intense, exciting period of my life.  Never again will I feel like I did when this album was basically glued to my turntable and later on cassette in my car (and my Walkman knockoff).  That kid is gone now, but I'm still dealing with the fallout.  Just thank God I had this magical album to help me through it.

I know I haven't talked enough about the actual music because I guess I don't have the perspective to do it.  I mean, just listen to the album.  If it's been a while, listen to it again this weekend.  It's amazing how great it still sounds, even though it's just a bunch of kids in a studio in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Who knows, you might relive something important.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Uh, yeah.  

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