REM's LIFES RICH PAGEANT @ 40

This is what happens when you lie down after work. You don't want to get up again but when you have to, you cut through the routine and find easier ways of doing things again. That includes a vow to never make the same mistake. Everything starts leaning towards formula but it works. It also means you dismiss all the tiny accidents that keep your life from being too predictable. When R.E.M. lay down after years of touring that had led them to the good but patchy Fables of the Reconstruction, they came back with this. Front loaded with the hardest rock they'd ever done and a wind down on the second side for a poignant acoustic moment before a big finish: The Formula.

After a sharp and twangy tango riff the band bashes into Begin the Begin with layered guitars, feedback, big gated drums and a huge bass clean enough to distinguish individual notes. Stipe at the centre sings right out front and in a perfectly cleared stereo pocket that you can hear every syllable. It's still word salad or deflected malaprops but it's right there in your ear. From here to the end of the decade, REM albums started with a barnstormer.

I'm not knocking the number. It's a big, rousing rock song that grinds and prods in all the right places. It's just set in an album side that does the same thing. Also, there's no more space. The difference between Radio Free Europe, Pilgrimage and Laughing on the debut Murmur is enough to feel like three different places described by the same band. Here, after the big push of the opener, we get what feels like the same song, even though the first is in a minor key and the second in a major. Play them on an acoustic and they're different. Hear them on the record and it's like getting crushed by a compactor.

Things change with Fall on Me. The opening guitar figure is gleaming and clean. The tune is very easy and it works a treat, a plea for environmental respect. The drums are huge and Stipe is right out the front delivering the syllables as though they've been cut by a Sheffield knife. It's beautiful but it's up to standard rather than standing out. 

Ok, enough of the whinge about mainstream slickness. I'm getting sick of it myself. One of the positive points about all this is that things like Stipe's environmentalism have been brought out more clearly with this more conventional approach. Fall on Me works a treat because of that. So, too, does the next track, Cuyahoga about a river that was so defiled by industrial contempt that the water itself caught fire. The band's take is a mix of former jangling glory and multi-layered guitars. Stipe is again front and centre with crisply defined vocals. His plaintive performance is strengthened through melancholy but there is another card up the sleeve. The verses are long enough for listeners to think that there won't be choruses but, after two of them the music mounts and releases into the river's name with the backing and lead vocals harmonising. It still sends shivers down my spine. 

In Hyena, a racing rock effort begun with the sounds of real hyenas, the chorus resurrects the band's patented coutrapuntal choruses in which the title is sung like a riff against backing vocals that carry more of the message. This feature, evident in the first independent single onwards, is R.E.M.'s foot-down insistence of the retention of something of what they were and were still good at.

The lowes-fi point of the record closes side one. Underneath the Bunker is a guitar tango with Stipe singing down the line on a hotel Bakelite phone. This just sounds like a goof off like the one on Reckoning when the band goes into a disco workout before Don't Go Back to Rockville. But then the Latin influence, title, and strangled vocal about sitting out disaster presage side two.

The Flowers of Guatemala is a beautiful showcase of a band who showed they could combine big with gentle in numbers like Camera and Perfect Circle. I played this once while getting through a wrenching hangover and it soothed to near banishment. The trippyness and mentions of colour and happiness suggest psychedelia but the lyric is worth pursuit. The flowers are covering bodies left on the street by US bullets and covered by local grief. Amanita, repeated in the words, is a deadly mushroom. This wouldn't be the last time the band turned its sight on US foreign aggression but it was the most poignantly presented one with music of glory that celebrated the fallen rather than the victors.

I believe starts with a burst of solo banjo before kicking into a full band performance. "When I was young and full of grace, I spirited a rattlesnake." Images of transition rush past as fast as information to the young. This is a song of discovery, of mistakes and triumphs, of all things worked out by trying and seeing. It's a joyous celebration of change which the exultant chorus reaches high to exclaim.

What if We Give it Away? is the closest thing to a song form the first two albums. A leisurely pace and space between the strings, drums and voice, like the skeleton of a machine. The lyric is a dialogue remembered by a single voice. Someone has lost the way they lived and people who wear designer labels like symbols of success are distant and triumphant. The chorus is the title. The song stops for it as it lifts then falls, the guitar riffing under the last syllable as the machine starts again. There is a real ache here. It's not the quiet grief of Camera, there's a whole landscape here, but more of a lament of a loss that happened without a fight. 

Just a touch might mean something but I've never found it. A punky guitar riff bends back on itself as Stipe yells and the band goes along. There's something like this on all the albums to this point and, depending on anything catchy I'll either live through them or skip them. This< i've since learned, is a very early song that someone at a practice resurrected and they used for filler. I'll still skip it.

In Swan Swan H a lvoley minor key 12 string acoustic plays along with a 6 string in the other channel which describes a strong countermelody. Stipe's vocal is grinding and frequently feels angry or frustrated. Images of the defeated South, slavery and the wasteland of longing for a past that never was or, if it had existed, was a far more morally arid and brutal place.

Superman is a cover version of a late '60s obscurity by The Clique. It's worth tracking down. The original is mostly acoustic but features a big group vocal which just spreads out in the chorus. R.E.M.'s version begins with a ring pull audio from a Godzilla toy and launches into a full electric arrangement that takes a lot of the charm from the original but brings it up for a larger venue airing. That said, it's a stunner, immediately catchy and joyful. And that said, the lyrics are as icky as John Lennon's for Run for Your Life or The Who's I Can See for Miles. All up, if you pretend it's in Latin, it's a corker of an album closer.

So, where does this leave us? A band that had hit the ceiling and driven itself into exhaustion, depression and frustration that the world didn't hear things its way, pulled itself out of that quicksand (lumpy with the remnants of other bands, most bands) and broke the ceiling. Or, did they get sick of everything and push to get into the bigger venues and on the syndicated radio stations and start letting their epistle to the Worldians ring out louder than the blander hitmakers? It's a mix as they never quite ditched the charm of their melodism and contrarian edge but, in diving into the unambiguous statement and the big, long show, they risked being dismissed as sellouts.

I saw them just after Green came out. It wasn't at The Corner, it was at Melbourne Festival Hall. After a breezy set by The Go-Betweens, R.E.M. came out blasting with Pop Song 89 and owned everyone in front of them. If Stipe had been notorious for anti-stardom ploys like turning his back on the crowd or saying nothing all that had gone. He communicated directly, comparing the effects of imperialism between the USA and Australia, joking about sub-atomic particles (after a show of hands, he laughed and said, "you're all liars"). Then, when the intimate number You Are The Everything came up he did turn around, facing the audience for the crucial final couplet. He knew the power of it and it worked. It was, in fact, a show, the type of which they had never deigned to perform only three years earlier. I left afterwards, making my way through the crowd with a numb smile on my face, and walked home the few kilometres it took.

A week later, I went to see Sonic Youth (who did play at the Corner) and slammed and swayed my way through a set that developed like a time lapse film, from creepy cinematics to deafening roars, the guitar textures alone would have impressed. The show was shorter and the venue tiny by comparison. There was no message more than the punk gigs I'd gone to in my teens. You like this? Go and do it yourself! I got out, sweaty and exhilarated. 

But I didn't think it was better. R.E.M. played a set that worked the world over and got to the furthest reaches of the stadium. Sonic Youth made you part of it. R.E.M. sold more, were sung along to while dishwashing and hoovering happened and everyone came to know the singer's name and his stance on anything he was asked about. He became Sting and Bono's rival on the world's stage and we understood every last word he said. That began here.

It began with Lifes Rich Pageant more than the three seminal indy albums before it because this felt like they had a plan. Part of that was sounding more radio friendly with singalong choruses and force. Do I miss the earlier records? I still have them and will easily put any of them on to hear. In the house I shared when this record was new, this was the first LP we all yelled along to, dancing in the living room and the hallway.

It was spring in Fitzroy, big, bright and warm. One day was a trip to the beach, another night was a gatecrashed party. After one of those, I was washing the dishes with flatmate Tracey and a song from this came on the radio, an album track.  I didn't have a copy at the time but mentioned that's who it sounded like. Trace asked how I was so sure. That, I said when the next verse started, the unmistakable voice of  Michael Stipe. She bought her own copy by the end of the week. I taped it.

I thought the big rocky sound was a sellout but I kept that to myself. I loved this album. As much as I'd enjoyed the obscure lyrics from the growling voice and the oddly sweet '60s guitar of earlier, I really did get hit by this. They would never be the "college band" again and I would miss that, but they would be big and shiny and happy, ridiculed by the cool but bought in millions of discs by new fans. Begin the begin. Well, they did warn us.

Listening notes: I put the recent hi-res remaster for this review. It's respectful and doesn't suffer from the brickwalling of the loudness wars. You can hear all of it online but I'd recommend you hunt down an early CD in an op shop. I think it would sound stronger that way.

NEW ORDER'S LOW LIFE @ 40

A rapid fire snare intro leads to a full band assault, topped with the same melodica that helped us grind through In a Lonely Place. But the grind has left, replaced with a bouncing energy and sweet lead vocal. The story of the song is the surprise return of a soldier to a wife who's been told he's been killed in action. 

Next is Perfect Kiss. Some deft electronics before the riff bursts in and the story of a self-destructive friend and his tragic end could be about Ian Curtis or the litany of deaths reported from AIDS in the mid-80s. The chorus about believing in a land of love and a land above have a frail religiosity to them, rendering the rest of the tale sombre. The perfect kiss of the title is declared the kiss of death in the final line. This is supported by a structure that goes from a bright dance arrangement in the verses to a more intense chord backing for the choruses and then a passionate rushing chase with the opening riff developed. By this time New Order were releasing their singles on the albums but adding the value of different mixes or even perofmances. The twelve inch single version of Perfect Kiss adds a zoo of extra effects both naturally recorded and electronically created and it extends the rushing conclusion to an orgasmic effect, playing it again and again until a final descent in the bass and a baby's cry. We don't get that here (you can hear it on the Substance album) but the song, even constrained, still yields power.

The video of this song (directed by Jonathon Demme) was presented as the bend playing it in a studio which, right or wrong, was convincing. Around the room there were doors with frosted windows. In one of those a silouhuette of a short haired man was lightly moving to the rhythm. This was widely believed to refer to Ian Curtis, as a tip of the hat by some accounts or an outright ghost caught on camera by others. 

This Time of Night used to be announced by Bernard Sumner at live shows as Pumped Full of Drugs. A strident electro arrangement with a mournful lead vocal by Bernard whose using the lower end of his range. It tells of a destructive relationship wherein the love that began it has dried to a husk and the rest is mechanical routine. The second half of the song, under an insistent keyboard figure, is a lengthy plea from the victim to the abuser to cease but this is couched in a crippling co-dependance. It fades without conclusion.

Sunrise starts with a thick, dark, and slow figure on the synthesiser. Peter Hook's bass riff enters with urgency, bringing the rest of the band in with a galloping rush. Large dramatic chords bring thunder between the verses. The pained lyric tells of an authority who might hear every petition given them but refuses to respond. Is this a path to atheism through personal agony. Perhaps it's another abusive relationship. The cruciality and pace of the teller's frustration continue in the instrumental conclusion, itself ending with a fragmented guitar delay. A whimper not a bang. End of side one.

Elegia is an instrumental that could be a horror movie theme. Minor key arpeggios creep up from the silence. A chorused guitar provides a counter figure. The arrangement thickens and progresses through different expressions of the same ground like a Baroque chiccone. It does outstay its welcome if you're waiting for a vocal but it's a fine side opener on an album dedicated to making grave statements through bright and shining electronics.

Sooner Than You Think is a story from touring. The arrangment is more big electronics and small guitar skirmishes. Is it a road romance gone wrong or, more generally, impressions of the culture and lifestyle of the country being toured? Possibly the least affecting track on the album.

Subculture begins with a beautiful cinematic riff in a harpsichord-like synth voice. Over a Georgio Morroder-style synth bass throb, Bernard coos lines about walking in the dark, talking in his sleep, solitude and social life. "What do I get out of this?" he asks. "I always try. I always miss." This could be the lament of every Joy Division fan who went to a party in the '80s. It's a compelling song that is never allowed to burst into histrionics to sound self-tragic. This was a single, though, and the twelve inch was a massive overproudction of this version with female backing vocals played on a sampler and big instrumental breaks. I like bits of both but, for the honesty in the lyric, I would always prefer this one on the album with its plainer telling. It really does feel like its under the culture.

Face Up crashes in with the kind of blinding brightness that the band would charge into headlong from here onward. In a Lonely Place gets a whole line to itself in this song about about a breakup. "Oh I cannnot bear the thought of you." That line isn't as negating as it first appears. After the disintegration of a relationship the very thought of the other can be agonising while any of the initial love is morphing from passion to torture. The song appropriately ends on a fade and points to the rest of the band's initial career.

To listen to the first few New Order albums is to take a moment wondering how they got from one to the next without a smoother transition. From Movement's Martin Hannet-dominated helming that made it sound like Closer II rather than the new start the band were trying for to the piping melodica at the start of this set there seems only the vaguest continuity. The thing to glue them aurally together is to listen to the singles which do speak of more gradual changes, making a smoother curve. From the Joy Division accredited Ceremony/In a Lonely Place, though Everything's Gone Green, Blue Monday, Cofusion and Thieves Like Us, we get a band neither abandoning their initial dark punk attitude nor jealously preserving it. There is a clear progression in the trek from guitar based rock to the heavy electronics of the mid-80s. This would later form a rift but for now, the band had found a sound of its own.

Peter Saville was still directing the band's cover art and, here, broke with his own tradition of concept-laden work to a more conventional representation of the band with photos created with a Polaroid camera. It was the only time the likenesses of the band had appeared on their cover art and, typically, it was unconventional (if appropriate). Percussionist Steve Morris was the first face you saw and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert was the last, Hooky and Bernard went inside. This was alterable with tracing paper and adjustable photographs (maybe I'm confusing that with the CD release, I never had this on vinyl).

By the mid-80s, fans and casual listeners alike could expect change within a slow curve from New Order. If anyone still asked them in interviews about Ian Curtis they would reduce their responses and move on to the next question. Low Life took them beyond even the contrary pull of things like Blue Monday which seemed to harbour the same dour concerns as anything from Joy Division but was clear about forging ahead with the technology. The songs feel more crafted and the overall brightness of the music never gets too samey (as it threatened to do on the previous set Power Corruption and Lies). It was the sound of a band with a past who only wanted to talk about the future.