Remember when R.E.M. was great? A new collection of the band's
early years will help jog your memory.
In a 33-year career as a music lover (12 of which I have been paid
for my opinion on the matter), there have been only two times that
a music video has stopped me in my tracks. The last time, it was
Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," in 1991. The first time was in
1986, when I saw "Fall on Me" by R.E.M. on
MTV's 120 Minutes.
Unlike Nirvana, which came crashing through the television like a
battle-ax-wielding tsunami of sound, "Fall on Me" was subtle and
mysterious. The video was black-and-white. The images were
postindustrial mayhem. It was a working-class manifesto for
emerging ecofriendly iconoclasts - and the band was nowhere to be
found. I'd never seen or heard anything like it, but it seemed …
important.
Of course, those were the hair-metal days. Videos and album covers
were basically a vehicle for a band's hairdresser. I went to the
record store and found the album Lifes Rich Pageant. More mystery
ensued. What was the title all about? Its cover featured a
black-and-white shot of drummer Bill Berry (and a herd of buffalo),
though he didn't look like any drummer I had ever seen, and since
the cover was designed to look vaguely antique, I assumed the photo
wasn't of him at all. Who was this strange, faceless band, and what
kind of music was this? And what on earth was an R.E.M.? It was so
foreign to me, I couldn't even bring myself to buy it.
Fast-forward 20 years, and there are few folks anywhere in the
world who don't know what an R.E.M. is. Anyone who doesn't (along
with those who do) should check out the band's latest anthology,
And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987, which,
in a two-CD collector's edition, features 21 of the band's
favorites as well as an extra disc of rarities, live recordings,
alternative takes, and previously unreleased diamonds in the rough.
It's a starting point, anyway, released to coincide with the band's
induction into the
Georgia Music Hall of Fame. That kind of fame is
certainly not something I expected from the band - at least not
back when I first picked up Lifes Rich Pageant. I even lived in
Atlanta but had no idea the band was from Georgia.