Once in awhile I spin the dial and land on a Random Weekend song that I’m (wrongly) certain has been on the blog before.
Such is the case with today’s selection, R.E.M.’s cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Pale Blue Eyes.’ This recording was released on the 1987 album Dead Letter Office, a collection of rare cuts and B-sides, and it has always been a favorite of mine. But while I have featured the Velvet Underground original, I’ve never gotten around to posting R.E.M.’s version.
The Random iTunes Fairy has been eavesdropping again, serving up a song related to my recent listening habits.
I’ve been working my way through the entire R.E.M. discography in order, as I suggested I would back in September. And I just recently finished the band’s 2001 album Reveal, on which today’s random selection appears.
Today’s random selection is a track from R.E.M.’s 2011 album Collapse Into Now, their 15th studio release and the last album they released before breaking up later that year.
Hard to believe it’s been more than a decade since the band split. And any hope of a reunion is likely fruitless, as just last year, Michael Stipe had this to say about the prospect: “We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together.”
Honestly, I’d be fine with a tacky, money-grabbing new release from R.E.M.
As I wrote yesterday, I’ll spend the next two weeks featuring songs I believe could (or should) play a prominent role in the next season of Stranger Things. My aim is to predict the next 80s viral sensation, following in the footsteps of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill.’
I have a few ground rules. First, I’m looking only at songs released in the year 1987, a year after the setting of the most recent season. Granted, the show could pull music from any year leading up to 1987, but I wanted to narrow the scope to give myself more of a challenge. I’ll also set aside the question of whether artists would continue to release music on schedule even as world-threatening events are taking place in middle America.
R.E.M.’s 1987 album Document, their fifth, is an underrated entry in their discography. Underrated by me, at least. I rarely think of this album when I conjure up R.E.M.’s best work, but it is a consistently great collection.
Document started the band’s collaboration with producer Scott Litt, who would go on to produce their most successful albums, and it featured their first top ten hit in ‘The One I Love.’ It was also their first album to go platinum.
Meet Me In Montauk 