TS: R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageant" vs "Document"

But yes, LRP is pretty much perfect - great songs, lots of variety, stellar lead and backing vox and a really punchy, garagey sound. No duff tracks, in comparison with the wretched 'It's the End Of The World', and the dull Fireplace and Lightnin' Hopkins. I'm not sure about Exhuming McCarthy either. I hated it at first, but now I think it's a half-written curio, perhaps not bad, but sub-standard definitely. I've always loved Welcome To The Occupation - great vocals on that, especially near the end : 'Listen To Meee, LISTEN to MEEE'.

I also think that Fables might be the best of the lot though.

It's his enunciation that's imprecise.

If you really stretch the idea, "Disturbance at the Heron House" has a subtle political message, though, even if it is (I agree) child-like (but not childish). It's somewhat of a cry against mindlessly obeying authority. And it has a nice opening riff from Peter Buck to coat the messsage.

"You're sharpening stones, walking on coals
To improve your business acumen."

and

"Vested interest united ties, landed gentry rationalize
Look who bought the myth, buy jingo, buy America"

I don't know, I think that's much more clear (and less subtle) than anything on LRP, though I like the song enough, anyway (just the sharp horn-break with the "McCarthy hearings" sound-bite is enough for me to like it).

Put a gun to my head and demand I choose one over the other, I'd probably go with LRP. That being said, Document heads into some interesting sonic territory on side two, once you pass "The One I Love." I'm thinking of "Fireplace," "Lightning Hopkins" and "Oddfellows 151" in particular. The band cooked up some new studio ideas with percussion and guitar for those, leading to a new style for them, kind of a feeback laden, Mission of Burma/Gang of Four-ish style, with maybe even some Sonic Youth moves dropped in (I'm pretty sure Peter Buck was name dropping SY in the press by 1987).

But, recently a friend gave me a dvd of an rem concert on some german show (the same show that wire dvd is from) and it was in support of fables and they played hyena and fall on me (with improvised verses), so they definitely wrote those themselves.

whoa! can anyone else substantiate this?

It's tough.

it was a secret supposedly to the public, but in athens people were like "oh yeah that guy just lives off of rem royalties because he wrote most of lifes rich pageant". and these were mutual friends saying this. i never knew him well enough to hear it from his mouth, but that's what his friends said. i remember thinking at the time it was weird that someone could just live off of songwriting royalties but now that i know more about bizzzzzzzzzzz it makes sense.

i had a friend who went to iu at the time, she told a funny story about stipe showing up at hoosier parties.

interesting. i wonder if that's all it was then.

No, because Fables was so damn slow and boring. It was good that they started rocking again.

LRP, no contest. I remember thinking at the time that, if not as mumbly as Murmur-but how could it be?- it was a bigger and better return to form.

LRP for me. Begin The Begin and These Days make politically conscious arena rock sound like a good idea. Cuyahoga was magnificent when they played it on the Up tour. I Believe is ace and Fall On Me possibly my fave REM song. The goofy stuff is great too. Anyone who doesn't like Superman is a humourless curmudgeon. I remember getting the reissue of Horses with the My Generation cover and had one of those euraka moments with the "I'm so young, I'm so goddam young" bit.

Document's a good album, but the production dates it. Still, some interesting G04 moves on there, as mentioned xpost. I'm a bit bored with The One I Love to be honest, but End Of The World is great fun (again, what sort of humourless curmudgeon do you have to be to hate this?).

LRP has infinitely better cover art too. Bill Berry's monobrow in a lo-fi collage!

So was I, for a long time, until I first listened to the live acoustic version, which was the b-side of the ITEOTWAWKI single. (You can find it on one of the "IRS Vintage Years" reissues as a bonus track - that's where I heard it). It's not radically different, but it has a strong folk-country sound which gives the song a new flavor. In a couple of interviews I've read over the years, Peter Buck as described the song as an Appalachian folk ballad, or something similar. I had no idea what he meant until I heard the b-side version.

Document had "King of Birds" and a really grand set of acoustic B-sides, but not near the record that LRP is.

Finest Worksong is a fucking jam

I was too young for the early stuff. My brother, who was seven years older, was obsessed with them, but all the singles from that era kind of annoyed me.

I started digging through the early recently and made an “early REM” playlist and “Country Geedback” was probably the biggest revelation.

AFTP came out when I was in middle school and I loved it. It was my only REM album. I later ate at Weaver D’s once a week for like 2 years straight and got to hear “automatic!” every time my food was ready.

Feedback

It's interesting how much my taste was affected by economics (my tape-buying budget) as well as happenstance.

In those days I could afford a collection (Eponymous for example) but jot necessarily every previous record that fed it. Owning every full album was out of the question; one had to choose.

In those instances you would miss out on album tracks that had not been chosen for the collection, giving a distorted lens.

(This is also shaped by what was available in stores and also what one could copy from friends.)

Long way of saying I had Fables, LRP, Greeen, and some other odds and ends* But a full listening of Document didn't reach my ears until later. And Murmur and DLO still later.

* "Losing my Religion" was a muthaflippin CASSINGLE, yo.

oh yeah, that resonates. i had Out of Time on cassette, then Automatic as one of the first 20 or 30 CDs I ever bought. Somewhere around there I went back and got Eponymous but didn't actually hear the full IRS albums until years later.

My cassette of Automatic had some kind of tape issue, and it had this soft thump every few seconds - although strangely it always kept in time with the songs. Obviously it wasn't meant to be there, but pre-interent I kept wondering "is this deliberate?!?"

Now when I hear it on streaming I miss the thump.

I like Document a lot, although it's very metallic and oppressive! Their most "indie" record? In my head it kind of slots into Warehouse: Songs and Stories and Candy Apple Grey.

*pre-internet

I love Document and think it’s one of their very best albums.

Re: Document, I noticed a lot of later reissues really boost the upper frequencies which brings out a metallic (and I would add harsh, clangy and bright) sound, but I always preferred the original releases, including CD, which mastered it pretty well - you get that metallic quality without going too overboard with it, and it's more about muscle that the ear-bleeding highs.

I love both of these albums myself, though I love all of their I.R.S. albums. LRP I'm guessing was a surprising turn - getting John Mellencamp's producer was probably an unexpected choice, and it turned out brilliant.

(And IIRC Mills and/or Buck said they got Gehman specifically because they loved the sound he got on Mellencamp's records.)

I don’t like the mix or guitar parts on Fables

I love the PARTS, but they went from great guitar and amp sounds on the early records to who knows what in the London studio with Boyd.