Every R.E.M. album, ranked: 'Murmur'
In which I remember this is a newsletter, not a blog post, so I canāt just add to my last post but instead have to send another. So Iāll send out something new every time I add a review to the list.
Which brings us to āMurmur.ā
This is where it started for me, the first R.E.M. record I heard, the one with my favorite R.E.M. song (āSitting Stillā), the one of their albums that I almost certainly have listened to more than any other. I wasnāt cool enough to have heard āChronic Townā when it came out (and Iām not sure where I would have; James Madison University didnāt exactly have a thriving college-radio station, or scene). But as I mentioned in my previous post, I bought this and āAfootā by Letās Active the same day while on spring break, and listened to them at night, in my momās house with the windows open, rain falling outside.
It was magic.
Or magical? Nah, magic, which somehow sounds stronger, more definitive, the thing itself. It had me from the start. Certainly I hadnāt heard a song like āRadio Free Europeā before, and was of course immediately captivated. (I saw the tour years later when, before the show, they posted a display that said no, they would not be playing āRadio Free Europeā tonight.)
I kept listening, and man, it just got better and better. It reminds me of a really good ensemble film or TV show ā you know itās good if your favorite character changes as it evolves. In this case, I think every song on here was my favorite at one time or another. It just sounds so great, still. The production, by Mitch Easter ā yay ā and Don Dixon is brilliant. All the weird little sounds make sense. They donāt seem like affectations. The harmonies are fantastic. The strings in āTalk About the Passionā make it unexpectedly moving. (The slowed-down amplified billiard balls in āWe Walkā eventually got old, I must confess.)
The energy of the thing is amazing.
I always listen to the music first, so the difficulty in parsing out Michael Stipeās lyrics didnāt make a big impression on me, certainly not at first. I felt like most of the time I could understand what he was saying. I just didnāt understand what it meant. But it conveyed something, a feeling, I donāt know what. I think I just thought they were cooler than I was and they must know what the words meant. Maybe eventually I would, too. (Not for nothing, āI Am the Walrusā is my favorite Beatles song.
I donāt suppose I ever really did decipher what all he was saying; Iām not sure he even knew. All I know is that the lyrics and the music and the overall vibe blended perfectly. This is easily one of my top-five favorite albums by any band, ever. R.E.M. would go on, obviously, to make a lot more great records, and some not so great.
But I donāt know that they would ever made anything better than this.