Right out of the mold, R.E.M. was determined to be different than most bands. With lyrics that often bordered on indecipherable due to the style of Michael Stipe\u2019s delivery to the conscious decision to not use solos in general, they took the rule book of rock and tossed it out the window.<\/p>\n
Their 1983 debut Murmur<\/i> belies their youth, and has a maturity that was not seen in many bands, then or now. But while it\u2019s a strong effort out of the gate, it\u2019s not perfect.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get that statement out of the way right now. If anything, their attempt to make an album that defied pigeon-holing into any particular time period through the absence of solos, in fact, does<\/i> pigeon-hole the album. But, if we\u2019re honest about it, there was little that could be done about that, whether guitarist Peter Buck was allowed to cut loose with a solo or not. The simple growth of R.E.M. as performers and songwriters, as well as Stipe\u2019s vocals smoothing out over the course of time, doomed this\u2014as well as many of their early albums\u2014to be locked into an unintentional time capsule. While one could argue that the 12 songs on this album didn\u2019t need<\/i> guitar or keyboard solos, their absence didn\u2019t guarantee the album eternal youth.<\/p>\n
In fact, some of the songwriting, which has always bordered on the quirky side of things\u2014I mean, who writes a song featuring a phrase someone said when punching Dan Rather?\u2014isn\u2019t quite at the level that would eventually lead the band to superstardom. Tracks like \u201cWe Walk\u201d and \u201cWest Of The Fields\u201d aren\u2019t the strongest efforts that Stipe and crew ever put forward\u2014but, for a first effort, are admirable in their own right.<\/p>\n
In fact, one would be hard-pressed over the first half of Murmur<\/i> to find a weak song. While I\u2019ll always prefer the rawness of the original version of \u201cRadio Free Europe\u201d that you\u2019ll find on Eponymous<\/i>, the \u201cofficial\u201d version has its own charms that tell the listener from the first few notes that they’re in for a real trip. To follow it up with tracks like \u201cPilgrimage,\u201d \u201cTalk About The Passion,\u201d \u201cMoral Kiosk\u201d and \u201cPerfect Circle\u2019 is like getting hit with a flurry of Mike Tyson uppercuts, each one more powerful than the last.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, R.E.M. sets the bar so high with these six songs that it is nigh impossible for them to keep that momentum going for the second half of the disc. On any other album, tracks like \u201cSitting Still\u201d and \u201cCatapult\u201d would have been standout tracks; here, they pale a bit in comparison, though they are by no means failures.<\/p>\n
All in all, Murmur<\/i> is a solid first effort from the Athens, Georgia-based quartet, even if it has been overlooked due to the success of latter-day I.R.S. releases like Fables Of The Reconstruction<\/i> or Document<\/i>. Nevertheless, it is still one that is well worth your time to check out, even if it\u2019s only to discover the roots of a classic American band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5748],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-47035","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-r-e-m","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47035"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}