The stars are the greatest thing you've ever seen and they're there for you

Continuing my trip across the output of Athens' finest...

Green (1988)

Their first album on Warner Bros, I think this was the second R.E.M. album I bought - but things all get a bit hazy that far back so don't hold me to that.  I revisit some of the songs on a regular basis, but I couldn't tell you the last time I took it on as an album so it will be interesting to see how it hangs together.

Side One – "Air side"

1. Pop Song 89
For an R.E.M song, this is indeed quite poppy - I believe the idea was to parody/subvert/something the genre but (of course) it ended up being a big hit for them.  The official video features Michael and three women dancing topless - unsurprisingly, MTV applied some censorship.  I don't mind it, but it's a bit silly.

2. Get Up
This is a pretty quirky one - I think I like it, but I'm never quite convinced.

3. You Are the Everything
There's some beautiful imagery in this song ("I look at her and I see the beauty of the light of music") without me having the faintest idea what it's about.  Children and childhood memories come into it, but whether that's all of it - who knows?  Whatever it's about it's a lovely, evocative song with a charming intro.

4. Stand
It's not bad, but a bit too sing-along and repetitive for my liking.  Peter Buck said that it was "without a doubt, the stupidest song we've ever written. That's not necessarily a bad thing though".

5. World Leader Pretend
A nice slower one which always sounds very serious - once again I have no idea what it's on about but I like it.  The guys just sound so together on it.

6. The Wrong Child
A quirky one to close the side - not my favourite but it's quite intriguing.

Side Two – "Metal side"

1. Orange Crush
They've really got into the swing of starting the second sides now - I really like this.  It is, however, absolutely bonkers - particularly the spoken-ish bit in the middle.

2. Turn You Inside-Out
I always forget this one - and then I hear it and I'm totally "Oh yeah - it's that one".  It's got some nice Stipesque warbling on it.

3. Hairshirt
You can totally hear where they were heading with Out Of Time on this one.  Fine, but not my favourite.    

4. I Remember California
If you like the sing-along stuff, you ain't gonna go for this but I think it's nicely brooding.

5. Untitled
Why wouldn't give you this track a name?  What's it ever done to you?!?  I quite like it - Michael's voice goes on quite the ramble on this one.

I think this and Document make a nice pair - they both come after their early phase and before things really take off for them.  For me, Green sounds more polished - I think I prefer it as an overall unit (even though it's probably less cohesive).  I also think it has higher high points so I'm making it a four track album - but the fourth track isn't an easy call.  The easy choices are "You Are The Everything", "World Leader Pretend" and "Orange Crush" but most of the tracks on the second side are in with a shout for the final slot - I'm going to go for "Untitled" partly because I feel sorry for it not having a title and partly because it's the most upbeat of the available options.

Wikipedia tells us that Scott Litt was invited back to produce this one with the band having been promised total creative freedom by Warner Bros.  And they certainly mixed things up with the recording process, with all demos being recorded in two styles - a) drums, guitar, and bass and b) percussion, mandolin, and accordion before they decided what to do with them.  Apparently the plan was to have one side with electric songs and one side with acoustic, but a lack of suitable acoustic songs put paid to that idea.  It's also the first R.E.M. album to deign to include some lyrics in the packaging, but they started slow by only including them for "World Leader Pretend".

There's a lot of talk from both the band and critics about how this is massively different from what came before or after.  Personally I don't see that - yes, they've made some changes but they do that on every album and it feels like an interesting link between Document and Out Of Time (although I'm also not going to argue with the band about their own album).  The critics were mostly very nice about it - Robert Christgau did not like the second side ("dubious poetry and heavy tempos") but Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy loved it all (Wikipedia can be very random at times).  Whatever the critics thought, the public were convinced and the singles brought more fans to the band - it got to #27 in the UK, #12 in the US and sold more than four million copies globally. 

I enjoyed this, although I suspect that now I've got the "best" songs on my R.E.M. playlist I'm unlikely to revisit it very often - but you never know...

Document - The first one I bought
Out Of Time - The one where it all kicks off big time