Review: 'The Name of the Band Is R.E.M.'

Unlikely as it was, the mysterious and insular R.E.M. became the biggest college rock band of the eighties, and one of the nineties' biggest bands of any stripe, so they've naturally been the topic of their share of biographies. Yet there's is a tough story to tell with the usual rock and roll salaciousness that pins cynical eyes to pages. Their story is suspiciously lacking in drug-crazed binges, intraband hair-pulling bouts, humiliating flops, and groupie abuse. R.E.M. were basically four nice guys who liked each other. One shouting match during the making of Monster and cutting Peter Holsapple out of the lucrative co-writing credits for "Low" was probably the most Mick-and-Keith things they ever did. Sure, Peter Buck did have that one well-publicized fit of air rage, but mostly he settled for strolling around town in his PJs and robe while tugging on a tallboy to get his ya-yas out.

Review: 'B-Side'

For every hit that makes it onto the radio or Billboard's Hot 100, there's something more obscure happening on the other side. It might be a piece of tossed off trash, but it might also be of exceptional quality ("Rain"), a chance to throw a less prolific band member some royalty cash ("The Inner Light"), or an excuse to get inspiredly loony ("You Know My Name [Look Up the Number]"). Some B-sides are even better than their smash A-sides... at least that's my stance on all those Beatles flip sides I referenced in the previous sentence. 

Andy Cowan pays long overdue homage to flips in his new book B-Side. He runs through more than 500 of them, each chronicled with a brief paragraph on the particular song's history and appeal. Since he only discusses one B-side per artist, he casts a very wide net. I'm not sure if any music listener is eclectic/devoid-of-personal-taste enough to want a book that discusses The Who, Engelbert Humperdinck, Artie Shaw, Can, Frankie Avalon, The Sex Pistols, Shania Twain, N.W.A., Vangelis, The Pixies, Adele, Perry Como, PJ Harvey, Moby, Miles Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Human League, Megadeth, Vanilla Ice, and Echo and the Bunnymen, but if such a person exists, this is the book for them (kudos, though, for including Zacherley!). 

Since most readers probably won't qualify and will want to zip to their favorite eras or artists, Cowan's decision to organize his book alphabetically by song title might prove a bit frustrating. But the concept is still nifty, and he does discuss such Psychobabble approved gems as The Stones' "Child of the Moon", Prince's "Erotic City", The Who's "Heaven and Hell", R.E.M.'s "Ages of You", XTC's "Dear God", Hendrix's "51st Anniversary", Sly Stone's "Everybody Is a Star", Small Faces' "Just Passing", and The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby". I also like that he digs deep for some groovy oddities, such as The Syn's "14 Hour Technicolor Dream", The Creation's "Through My Eyes", and Tintern Abbey's "Vacuum CLeaner".

I did learn a few things, such as the apparent fact that the screaming at the beginning of "Child of the Moon" is that of producer Jimmy Miller and not Mick Jagger and that a certain naughty word I always assumed I was mishearing in Syd Barrett's "Candy and a Currant Bun" is, indeed, the naughty word in question. But without question this book's biggest revelation is the parade of A-Sides that started life as B-Sides, such as Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-a-Lula", Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", The Doobie Brothers' "Black Water", Bill Withers's "Ain't No Sunshine", Dionne Warwick's "Alfie", and Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry". Who knew? Sometimes, though, these matters are down to Cowan being English, and A's and B's sometimes flipped across the pond, so for him, The Kink's "Who'll Be the Next in Line" is a B-side.

And since I'm sure you're wondering, the Beatles B-side Cowan selected is "Revolution".

Review: 'Alternative Anthems' LP

The alternative scene feels like the great forgotten era in rock history. Although it was the most potent period in my own "coming of age"--the only rock movement I fully embraced as it was happening (although I lived through the new wave era, I didn't fully appreciate it until the eighties were a fart in the breeze), there are scant references to it today. There are no jukebox musicals that feature the songs of Pavement, no Belly biopic. They won't even put the goddamn Pixies into the idiotic Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, even though nineties rock would have been nowhere without their influence. 

Review: CD Issue of R.E.M.'s 'Chronic Town'

R.E.M. did a lot of things really well, but probably none of their releases captured what they did best better than their first EP. Following their first single by a year, and preceding their first album by nine months, Chronic Town introduced R.E.M. as masters of mega-exciting jangle-pop. Although there are none of the mysterious ballads like "Perfect Circle" or novelties like "We Walk" that would make Murmur a more eclectic platter, R.E.M.'s celebrated debut LP was not as consistently thrilling as Chronic Town. This is the sound of a young band with a serious fire in their collective belly, and tracks like "Wolves, Lower" and "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)" are as exciting as they'd ever get ("Gardening at Night" is pretty fierce too, though I do prefer the less mumbly alternative mix that would later appear on the Eponymous compilation). 

Review: 'Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture'

In the late seventies, The B-52’s magnetized the pop world’s attention to Athens, Georgia, where a new scene was starting to coalesce. There was no particular Athens sound. The-B-52’s kitschy retro party rock was nothing like Pylons angular avant-funk or Bar-B-Q Killer’s chaotic punk or Vic Chesnutt’s gritty songcraft or R.E.M.’s jangly Nuevo folk rock. But the fact that so much varied creativity was blossoming in a particular location was noteworthy and highly influential. That creativity expanded beyond pop as students and artists attracted to a bohemian oasis in the conservative state invented new ways to express themselves and hang out. They got inventive on the cheap with weird food-oriented art shows or made spectacles of themselves while people watching. Outside artists such as Matthew Sweet were drawn to the Athens to catch some of its magic.

Review: 'Can’t Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop’s Blockbuster Year'

Judged solely on the quality of its music, 1984 wasn’t necessarily the best year of the eighties. It did have an unusually high number of blockbuster releases. While 1982 could claim Thriller, and 1983 had Synchronicity, An Innocent Man, and Pyromania, 1984 was the year of such single-spewing juggernauts as the Footloose soundtrack, Born in the U.S.A., Eliminator, Sports, Can’t Slow Down, Like a Virgin, Private Dancer, She’s So Unusual, Purple Rain, and yes, 1984. So you can’t fault Michaelangelo Matos for making the year the subject of his new book Can’t Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop’s Blockbuster Year. 

Review: 'The Best of R.E.M. at the BBC'

R.E.M. had a longstanding relationship with the BBC that began with a live broadcast in late 1984 and continued for the next twenty years. The weighty new set R.E.M. at the BBC collects 104 performances the Georgians recorded for Aunty across eight CDs with two full-length TV specials plus a few bonus videos on a DVD. If that sounds like too much hypnotic jangling and mumbling for you, there are also more concise two-disc CD and LP editions of R.E.M. at the BBC.

A glance at what’s included on the briefer sets may initially be disappointing since they tend to shun the one tantalizingly classic broadcast from the eighties, but the recording quality of that 1984 set from Rock City, Nottingham, is a bit rougher than the rest of what’s available. The Best of R.E.M. at the BBC favors crisp recordings and readings of the songs that differ from the album versions. Both the big box and the Best of begin with a selection of unplugged interpretations. Things continue to mix up from there as “Lotus” from the highly underrated Up whines with strange synth sounds, “At My Most Beautiful” strips back the Brian Wilson-density of the album version, “Orange Crush” roars out as a rawer fruit than the rendition on Green, and “Drive” trades in the dusky acoustics of Automatic for the People for raging, glam distortion.

The one obvious flaw of The Best of R.E.M. at the BBC is the decision to double-up on “Losing My Religion” when so many other—and frankly, better—songs from the big set could have been featured instead. Nevertheless, The Best of R.E.M. at the BBC is a nice opportunity to hear a selection of the group’s songs a bit differently than we’re used to hearing them, and the results are generally lovely and vicious.

Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite Songs of the 1990s!

Wow. A list of Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite Songs of the 1990s. That’s so cool. It’s totally not like everyone else in the entire universe hasn’t already listed their 100 favorite songs of the nineties. Like anyone cares. Whatever. Lists are wack, but I don’t know… music is pretty cool. I mean, not when they’re like “Oooh, look at me! I’m a big rock star! My hair is so big and I screw so many groupies!” That is so eighties. But when they…I don’t know… kind of don’t care so much, I guess I’m kinda like, “That’s pretty cool. I don’t care so much either.” It’s like sometimes I think Kurt Cobain is singing about my life, you know? I don’t know what the fuck Bob Pollard is singing about half the time, but Guided by Voices rock so hard because Bob is like a forty-year-old schoolteacher or something, so it’s so ironic that he’s a rock star. And then there’s all the “Women in Rock” (I put that in quotes to show what I really think of the mainstream media’s “labels”) like Liz Phair, Tanya Donelly, Mary Timony, Juliana Hatfield, PJ Harvey, and like, all the others. They are sincerely hella cool. Sincerely! I’m not even being ironic about how totally dope they are. Don’t think I’m not being ironic? Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind. Then here’s your mom’s 100 favorite songs of the nineties.

100. “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox” by Guided by Voices

So we get started the way every party must get started…with a chant of “GBV! GBV! GBV!” Then Bob Pollard is all like, “Rock and Roll!” Then he’s like “This song does not rock,” which is so cool, because sincerely admitting that you rock is so lame! But the real irony is that “Over the Neptune” really does rock! It rocks like Cheap Trick (and not lame Cheap Trick, like “The Flame”). Then “Over the Neptune” morphs into “Mesh Gear Fox” like that cop in T2 morphs into water or whatever, and guess what…it stops rocking but it remains awesome as Guided by Voices get all psychedelic. It sounds like your dad’s best records… and Uncle Bob is like your dad’s only cool friend.

99. “I Wanted to Tell You” by Matthew Sweet

Review: 3 Vinyl Reissues from R.E.M.

R.E.M. made some of the very best albums of the eighties, but they were also a fabulous singles band in a decade when gimmicky one-hit wonders often dominated radio and MTV. The totally organic jangle of “Talk About the Passion”, “Fall on Me”, “Driver 8”, and “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” provided a nice contrast (some may say “antidote”) to all of the new romantics, hair bands, and MOR popsters. R.E.M. didn’t just make the most of their short-players to put forth their top-shelf material; they also took advantage of the B-sides to slip out their quirkiest ideas. On the flipside of the brooding “So. Central Rain” you’d find a shambling version of Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”. Behind the topical “Fall on Me” is the jazzy noodling of “Rotary Ten”. Under the cape of “Superman” is the surf-movie rush “White Tornado”. On the other side of “Can’t Get There from Here” is the wacko heavy metal pastiche “Burning Hell”. These B’s weren’t all goofs either. The original flips “Ages of You” and “Burning Down” are even more top-shelf than the A-side they support (“Wendell Gee”). The version of “Crazy” that supports “Driver 8” is even better than Pylon’s original, and dare I say, R.E.M.’s breathless, totally sincere, totally killer, totally unexpected cover of “Toys in the Attic” slays Aerosmith’s original. I dared.

A new trio of vinyl reissues showcases all sides of eighties-R.E.M. nicely. Representing their 45 A-sides is the marvelous 1988 compilation Eponymous, a must-have even if you already own all of the albums because of its superior versions of “Radio Free Europe” and “Gardening at Night” and the really good “Romance”, a song much more enduring than the movie for which it was recorded (has anyone actually seen Made in Heaven?). The B-sides are collected on Dead Letter Office, which may not be the most essential R.E.M. album but does contain a lot of essential tracks as described above. Finally, R.E.M.’s long-playing prowess is present on the classic Life’s Rich Pageant, which does double-duty by filling out the R.E.M.-on-45 story with the inclusion of the band’s elating cover of The Clique’s “Superman”, an A-side that was not included on Eponymous for some reason.

The vinyl is standard thickness, which means it isn’t top-of-the-line quality but authentic to the way I.R.S. Records originally issued R.E.M.’s albums (for whatever that’s worth). A bonus of Chronic Town would have been a great supplement to Dead Letter Office since R.E.M.’s debut E.P. is appended to the CD release of Dead Letter Office and quite possibly the best thing they ever did. Lack of mastering details suggests that digital masters were used for these reissues, but they still sound excellent when compared with the original I.R.S. release of Document (the only R.E.M. record I had on hand for comparison purposes). Compared to their original CD equivalents, Life’s Rich Pageant is less muddy and Eponymous and Dead Letter Office are both considerably warmer (the bass solo at the end of “Finest Work Song” is shockingly present), so there are sonic improvements from CD to vinyl all around.

Review: 'Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me'

In 1973, Big Star had their most significant coming out at a rowdy convention for rock writers (Lester Bangs and Cameron Crowe were among the attendees). A very apt event since the Memphis power poppers were always best loved by the critics. In a time when rock was all about big stadium bands like Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Big Star’s concise, fresh-faced, jangly pop was at odds with popular tastes but a total balm to the professional music listeners chaffing beneath all the proggy bombast. Today it seems amazing that music so instantly accessible and timeless could have ever been unfashionable, but it’s at least one explanation for why Big Star never got to be the big stars they deserved to be.