‘Maps and Legends’ is the first R.E.M. song that I remember experiencing. The year was 1988 and I was a sophomore in high school. My sister had discovered R.E.M. in college, I guess, and was obsessed with the song ‘Green Grow the Rushes’ on their third album, Fables of the Reconstruction. She has always been one to focus in on a single song and play the hell out of it (currently, it’s Vampire Weekend’s ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa‘), a trait my daughter’s apparently inherited.
Song of the Day #200: ‘So. Central Rain’ – R.E.M.
For my second single-band theme week (actually fourth, counting the two Beatles weeks I did several months ago) I am turning to another of my very favorite groups, R.E.M.
I’ll proceed chronologically today through Friday, as I did with Belle & Sebastian, hoping to demonstrate how the band’s sound has changed (or hasn’t) over the years.
Kicking the week off is ‘So. Central Rain,’ which I consider in many ways the quintessential R.E.M. song. Though their debut album Murmur was a critical success and a breakthrough for them, it was their second album Reckoning, and this song in particular, that really defined their sound.
Oh no he di’int…
So the big news this Grammy night is that Rihanna and boyfriend Chris Brown both pulled out of their performances at the last minute because he (allegedly) beat her up in a car earlier today. She called the cops and they’re currently looking for him.
Police haven’t confirmed that Rihanna was the victim — only that Brown is wanted for questioning in a domestic violence incident. But sources are leaking that she is indeed the woman involved.
What. The. Fuck?
Song of the Day #199: ‘The Other Side’ – Aerosmith
Steven Tyler turned 60 last year. That’s like 140 in rock star years. But it occurs to me that Aerosmith, or at least their management and marketing teams, have done a fantastic job of remaining relevant and hip to younger generations.
They are like the wizened old newspaper reporter who starts a blog and shoots and edits his own video while colleagues half his age complain about having to post stories to the Web. Proof positive that age is just a number.
Song of the Day #198: ‘Back on the Chain Gang’ – The Pretenders
When ‘Back on the Chain Gang’ came on the radio the other day, my wife said “I hate The Pretenders but I love this song.”
I found that a funny and bizarre statement but it made perfect sense coming from her. She forms strong opinions quickly and a little contradiction like that is hardly enough to derail her. I’m a lot more tortured when it comes to matters of taste, so if I found myself loving a song by a group I hated, I’d start to question whether I could really hate the group, or really love the song. Maybe I’m the bizarre one.
Then I started wondering if there are any songs about which I could say the same thing.
