Meme alert! R.E.M. versus U2 cropped up everywhere last week. It’s not a new argument, but the revival of this debate is apropos of, well, nothing. But last week there were articles in Stylus and Slate, followed by commentary at Rolling Stone. My personal favorite is a headscratcher, but trying to choose between Achtung, Baby and Monster on their merits is kind of fun. Viewed differently, it’s trying to figure out who fared better with his mid-life crisis, version 1.0.
[I prefer Monster. It’s R.E.M. at their most reactionary and obnoxious. The album takes as a fait accompli that Nirvana and Sonic Youth were rock’s purest, noisiest, most rebellious conceit and that this expression of cocksure idolatry would get the point across. It makes a great tribute record, an ode to the nineties, etc. etc. When you factor in that Maxim hated it, listing Monster number 5 among the 30 worst records of all time, it begins to make a lot of sense that sentimental mallpunks would latch on to it, then and now. In any case, I guess “Tongue” would’ve freaked out their readership anyway.]
2 responses to “Yeah, all those stars drip down like butter, and promises are sweet.”
How much someone may have liked or disliked Monster might rest on how much of a fan of R.E.M. they are. If nothing else, Stipe changed his lyrical style quite radically for that record, both in terms of playing characters and dropping the sincerity act, and in terms of writing about sex (something he’d never done before). For a knowledgable R.E.M. fan, this might be something new and challenging. For the guy or gal who bought Automatic for the People at K‑Mart because they liked the hits, the reaction might be “This is too weird. What’s they echo‑y sound on “Bang and Blame”?
Monster is a tribute album, it’s a tribute to Mission of Burma. But that’s just me. It’s also the last album where Peter Buck got really adventurous with guitar, and used his infrequent but always welcome psychadelic guitar solo (on “You.”)
The thing about Monster is that the critical dog-piling is something of a revision. The album received positive reviews from Rolling Stone and Spin (in fact, the excellent Spin Guide to Alternative Rock from 1994 gives it a 9 out of 10. I agree).
It’s funny because I really loved Monster [I read about music in the hippest of places as a kid — Newsweek and the Philly Inquirer’s weekend entertainment section] but maybe some of the revisionists’ revisionists are trying to refresh some lost cultural memory, you know, that REM used to be good. They really went out of their way to be “edgy” after Out of Time and Automatic, and I can see how folks would think it was overwrought.
Granted, I’ve liked two albums since. New Adventures and Up were both returns to form in their own way, but everything else is too embarrassing for words. I listened to Reveal once and sold it, which is too bad because I liked “Imitation of Life” and a handful of other songs. I may have heard Around the Sun once, but have never owned it.
I guess what’s craziest about all of the U2/REM talk is that had they broken up, we’d likely be talking about reissuing their older albums [Oops, REM already did at least some of that!]