R.E.M. and the 20th Century

Three weeks ago, my friends and I listened to three R.E.M. albums consecutively, all from different eras: "Murmur," the genre-defining debut from 1983; "Automatic From the People," the multi-platinum hit-filled blockbuster from 1992; and "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," from 1996, which was the start of the "difficult part" of the band's career, shortly before drummer Bill Berry retired, but is surprisingly excellent.

It was the first time I'd listened to that much R.E.M. in such a short span in at least several years. What struck me the most was how unusual the sound of "Automatic for the People" is for how commercially successful it was, in a way that popular albums can't be today, when the short-attention spans of the 21st century dictate hyper-paced stuffed songs and people. "Automatic for the People" is actually filled with lots of well-composed midtempo ballads and dirges that don't populate top-40 records anymore. The record's best song, "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1," is a simple instrumental that builds over an organ and horn section until it gently fades after about two minutes and 30 seconds. Brilliant.

"Automatic for the People" demonstrates how the 20th century, all of 18 years ago (from when the album was released), is such a distant era from Aug. 19, 2010. First, no band sells 3.5 million records anymore. Second, I think the listening public was able to warm to such a depressing song like "Everybody Hurts," which was the smash single, because its music video was so captivating. And who watches those anymore? Third, the number of people who have the patience for albums to reveal themselves slowly as this one does has shrunk exponentially. How 20th-century.

In one of its posts, Pitchfork Reviews Reviews notes how the Pavement song "5-4 = Unity," from "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain," (1994) would never be included on a record released in present-day because the song so royally screws the album's momentum that everyone downloading it in on iTunes (or wherever) would uncheck it and not buy the song. He's right the song is a gigantic drag, but, then, that misses the greater point of why Pavement was a great band. They required you, the listener, to find the brilliance in the rough -- and that the rough was part of the brilliance. They weren't a band for a-la-carte downloading. They also never took themselves too seriously and would gladly place a song of messed-up noodling in the midst of a barnburner because that's what countercultural bands do and that's what made them so good. If you don't get that, you probably don't get indie rock.

R.E.M. also started as an indie band, before breaking through with a sustained run of commercial success. Its 1990s' output was slicker than that of the previous decade, but nonetheless meaningful and widely accepted by the popular masses. Like Pavement's oevure, R.E.M.'s is another demonstration that the 20th century is fundamentally different from the twenty-first. Anyway, above is that video to "Everybody Hurts."