#197 of the Top 200 Albums of All Time

R.E.M. - Murmur comes in at 197. This could be considered the founding document of ‘Alternative,’ as Rolling Stone calls it, and I don’t think that’s inaccurate. In 1983 rolling into my first year at the Savannah College of Art and Design, this was a hot disc of local boys having made good. The single Radio Free Europe was heard and the album was available, but they weren’t burning up the airwaves. Bands like Yes and Asia that were taking touches of New Wave and painting themselves as new brand were taking up most of the radio oxygen. Prince was making a splash with 1999 along with a host of bands that were coming apart and new strains of punk and power pop that were replacing them. In the background was the whisper of the NWOBHM.

R.E.M. was a group of college guys playing for arty college kids that wanted something of their own distinct from the typical radio trends and the dying dinosaur of old school punk. The kids of the day would mix pop punk art new wave noise slut bitch tart funk into a brand new brew. One strain of that was the jingle jangle college pop that R.E.M. didn’t start but certainly defined. It wasn’t punk, it wasn’t folk, it wasn’t rock, it wasn’t exactly pop. It was shoe gaze before shoe gaze and it was art punk that really wanted to be popular but wouldn’t never admit it. Over time they only went from strength to strength with a lucrative career and a slew of hits that made them a household name throughout the world.

Murmur is a giant hug of an album. It has its power pop center, but it has warmth and depth with Stipe’s unusual voice presenting art school lyrics from down a well. The band is very DIY self taught style, but it has a charm and an intensity that drew you in. It has beautiful ballads and pop songs that should have been all over the radio. They refined this approach on their second album Reckoning which might actually be better.

The only missteps for me as a fan was their need to not be a rocking teenage combo. They were defiant to not just rock. They always broke the energy, the always added something to the mix to make it clear they weren’t here to be a pop band but an art project. I commend their integrity, but there were times when they just needed to embrace the fact that the were a strong rock band with an amazing power pop vocabulary and burn a stage down. The closest they got was the ‘86 tour for Life’s Rich Pageant where they were a hungry, energized band touring behind a high powered release.