A year after Murmur, R.E.M. released their first truly great album, 1984’s Reckoning.
This collection of songs was a little less experimental and a little more full-bodied than the tracks on their debut, and while Stipe’s lyrics continued to confound, he managed to slip in some words of real substance.
Reckoning‘s songs were darker than anything the band had recorded before, several inspired by the recent death of a friend.
R.E.M.’s real coming out party came with their full-length debut, 1983’s Murmur. Music fans who missed the low-profile Chronic Town would have a hard time escaping the critical orgasms over Murmur.
Rolling Stone named the album the best of 1983, ranking it ahead of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and it was hailed as the introduction of a new sort of alternative rock… too soft to be punk, too subversive to be pop, music made for college radio — for kids who wanted songs that spoke to their hearts and minds more than their stomachs and feet.
I hope you like R.E.M.
It’s been over a month since my last artist theme (Paul Simon) so I’m making up for it by spending some quality time on one of my favorite bands, the Athens, Georgia, quartet (and now trio) that pretty much created the alternative music scene in the early 80s.
Over the next three weeks, I’ll highlight a song from each of R.E.M.’s fifteen albums (including their debut EP, Chronic Town, which is up to bat today).
City Island is a good movie that could have been great if it didn’t spend so much time getting in its own way.
A cousin to Moonstruck, the film follows a quirky Italian-American family living on City Island, an old-fashioned fishing village nestled in the Bronx. That setting is one of the most interesting aspects of the movie… it’s strange and wonderful to see a cluster of fishing boats against a backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. I had no idea such a place existed.
Andy Garcia plays paterfamilias Vince Rizzo, a corrections officer who prefers not to be called a prison guard. His wife Joyce is played by the wonderful Julianna Margulies, a long way from ER and The Good Wife. Their teenage children are portrayed by Dominik García-Lorido (Garcia’s real-life daughter) and Ezra Miller.
Street Legal is only nine songs long, and five of those songs have quickly jumped up my list of favorites after just a few listens. The remaining four are solid as well, though their strength is hidden a bit beneath the distracting production. I believe if this same batch of songs were rerecorded with the band and production style Dylan used in the 00’s, this album would number among his very best.
It’s a pretty great thing to discover new music by an artist you already know so well. Dylan’s discography is so deep that I’ve been able to unearth quite a few hidden gems (hidden to me, anyway) through writing these blog entries. My appreciation for his extraordinary career has only deepened through this process.
Meet Me In Montauk 