Friday, January 14, 2005

REM's Murmur Revisited

I wrote this a few years ago, but I'm inspired to post it here after reading the incredible Jeff Clark trashing of REM's last album in Stomp And Stammer. It made me realize I'm not alone in thinking they suck.

REM's Murmur used to mean everything in the world to me. In the days when a punk rock shirt signified a co-conspirator, Murmur might have been from the college rock wing, but it was part of the same left of the dial fabric. Its kudzu draped cover promised a Southern mystery tinged of bohemia. I fell for their Byrds and Velvet Underground laced stew hard. I even embarked on my own trip to Athens, GA in the spring of 1986. It was a "pilgrimage" of the highest order. I bought records in the Wuxtry that Peter Buck used to work at and strolled the streets downtown in an amphetamine dazzle of thoughts. My issues of Tasty World (an Athens music magazine) I had bought in the Murfreesboro Cat's Records sprang to life and for a few days in which I didn’t sleep I felt more than alive, I absolutely felt electric.

College rock was indeed an alternate universe in those days and it felt like a movement was sweeping the cognoscenti across the land. The last of the boomers were finishing college and the eldest of my generation were entering college. Green On Red sang about a "Brave Generation", but the Replacements really summed it up with "Bastards of Young" years before the term Generation X was used. We latchkey children from the 70's seemed destined to always sit at the kid's table while the boomers made their mark, but at least we had great music made by the last wave of the baby boom. For better or worse, it would be my peers that put the alternative lollapalooza world on the map. REM is perhaps the biggest of the groups that escaped the college rock ghetto with hardly a cry of sellout to be heard. Does their music still move me?

REM was one of a handful of acts I worshipped and their influence cannot be denied. One of the great things about being young is being idealistic and having the energy to put those thoughts into motion. Whenever I felt off the path of the future places I envisioned for myself, Murmur became a reassuring soundtrack that re-energized my youth and quieted my fears. When I put the record on now I'm left wondering why the record does nothing for me today. I sometimes question where the problem lies. Did my heart grow smaller? Is the inevitable second guessing (ha-ha) of oncoming middle age the problem? Maybe I can no longer live up to the expectations and hope the record used to inspire. Or maybe it was REM's own inexorable slide into mediocrity, which accompanied their arrival into superstardom that has laid a patina of green (pun intended) onto the copper majesty of their early days.

The fact that I'm not unhappy lets me know my heart is fine. Sure, middle age is coming, but I don't wallow in the past very much. There are times when I do and a few examples of records that still make me feel good all over are the Replacements Let It Be which Pete Buck played on, Minutemen Double Nickels On The Dime, and Husker Du's New Day Rising. Music from the past and music from today can inspire my hopes and expectations, so I don't believe my potential to be touched is suspect. The REM slide into mediocrity is definitely the main culprit in my appreciation of Murmur, but that alone should not be such a guarantee of the feelings of boredom and disgust that accompanied the album the last time I tried to listen to it.

Perhaps it is something as simple as Pete Buck's idiotic escapades or Michael Stipe's overbearing political activism. I'm not averse to people having opinions seeing as how I have plenty of my own, but REM's constant sloganeering since Document just gets on my nerves. I like songs like "Cuyahoga", a political moment offered in song, and not podium speeches or magazine articles filled with ideology. Then they went and kept on after Bill Berry left, which was something they had said they would never do. At what point do words mean something? Judging by REM's lyrics, sometimes never. It makes me wonder if they truly believe the political platitudes they espouse. And if that's not enough of a reason to taint my once fond feelings for Murmur, maybe I should realize it's just music after all. But like the Replacements sang, "I hate music; it's got too many notes." Musically, Murmur goes nowhere. The Byrds laced with Velvets no longer shines to my ears. Buck's guitar work no longer inspires. Stipe's voice has lost its mysteriousness and it only grates. The lyrics sometimes are painfully intelligible after so many repeated listenings over the years. Has mere familiarity bred this contempt? Well, Mills and Berry's work does remain sparkling, but it's the shine of a geode stone. Most folks overlook them, including myself, and there's lots of ugly rock that has to be smashed to get to the pretty part. "Shaking Through" and "Perfect Circle" are the limits to my former love, like getting together with a divorced partner because of the kids can sometimes make one glow fondly.

Murmur may no longer touch me on an aural level, but it still commands respect. Heck, if I had never heard REM, I may have missed out on "Beatle Boots" by Love Tractor. I might never have picked up a copy of Tasty World magazine and been exposed to the twisted writing genius of the man known as Ort (if you've ever met him, you couldn't forget him) whose knowledge of the past gave me a bridge to the future of music. I might never have left the "Athens of the South" Nashville, for Athens, Georgia once upon a time. Seeing a punk rock t-shirt today probably only means you've bumped into a Sum 41 fan and you’re twice their age, instead of a fellow traveler who these days is more likely to be looking dreadfully normal. I hope the fire is still in all of our hearts like it was 20 years ago for those of us who lived through the rise and fall of college radio; albeit tempered with the joy of getting older. Besides, the best moments always seem to about getting there. Arriving is when it gets tough. I think even REM would attest to that.

I also posted this over at blogcritics and it's gotten some response so if you like it or don't like it, go on over and drop a comment.

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