How do you make an album in 1983 that sounds like it's from the 1990's?
Michael Stipe, and Peter Buck met at the record store where Buck was working, and formed a friendship over similar tastes in music. They were both later introduced to Bill Berry and Mike Mills, and the four agreed to collaborate on some music, but with no real plan or vision for the future. After considering several names, which I won't mention here to keep it family friendly, they eventually settled on R.E.M.
All four were enrolled at the University of Georgia, but ultimately opted to drop out to pursue developing their band. They released their first single, Radio Free Europe, in 1981 on the independent label, Hib-Tone, and was followed up in 1982 with their first EP, Chronic Town, after being signed to I.R.S. Popularity varied among college radio campuses, with some promoters saying that many people didn't know what to make of it. Ultimately, the experience was better for the band, who used the opportunity to experiment, and learn how to use a studio.
R.E.M. released their first studio album, Murmur in 1983, and while it was critically acclaimed, and backed by college radios, their success remained "underground". It's because of this, that while the band released consecutive albums throughout the decade, they are more so attributed as a 90's band, based on their commercial success of 1991's Out Of Time.
However, before we get there, we need to stop and listen to their debut for today's Retro Spin.
As I said in my opening sentence, "How do you make an album in 1983 that sounds like it's from the 1990's?" Murmur immediately threw me off with its overall style, because while I was familiar with 1988 and 1989 showing signs of the "alternative" era coming in the 90's, I was dumbfounded that it could be found as early as 1983 (and possibly even sooner).
I'm not a fan of the 90's, and this threw me all sorts of off when playing through the record. I won't say that I hated it. In fact, I initially bought it for the song, Radio Free Europe. I just wasn't mentally prepared. As such, with exception of the aforementioned track, nothing else made it to my shuffle list.
Murmur was by no means bad. In fact, I may have to give it a second play through after I've had a day or two to absorb and be prepared for it. I mean, it's definitely R.E.M. Their 80's sound is no different from what they delivered in the 90's. So, there's familiarity there.
To date, all of R.E.M.'s albums, at minimum, have gone to gold status. This is most likely because when their popularity boomed in the 90's, people were eager to devour anything they could get from them. How happy do you think many of those people were to find that they had an entire decade long catalog to dive into? That "familiarity" I mentioned above, probably helped this aspect a lot.
I personally own all their studio albums through 1994's Monster. It was just one of those things that happened unexpectedly. As such, I myself have a lot of R.E.M. to get through. Maybe I'll listen to a couple more albums before re-listening to Murmur.
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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
March 2, 1985
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