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Show MUSIC in a rock-and-ro- montage. Images, puns ll and narrative chunks often don't fit together cleanly. It's then up to the listener to create explicit meaning, if possible. Some- times the wordplay comes together powerfully, as with "Oddfellows Local 151," a foreboding character study of a raving drunk who "preaches" behind the But "Disturbance at the Heron House," described by Stipe as a "dire outlook on free will," is impenetrable. (Maybe someday a graduate student will explain it all. Or maybe not.) The first single from the album is, appropriately enough, the simplest song on the album, "The One I Love." Here is the only verse, which is repeated, almost verbatim: "This one goes out to the one I love This one goes out to the one I left behind A simple prop to occupy my mind This one goes out to the one I love." The chorus is one word, "fire," sung, with Stipe's melismatic phrasing, as, fire-hous- EBET ROBERTS 'We are thrilled and terrified': With 'Document, 'R.E.M. confronts success few to Mop Sure, you can make out the words on the new R.E.M. album, but what do they actually mean? since R.E.M. put out its first Ever the single "Radio Free Europe," in people have admired the band's music and puzzled over the lyrics. In fact, indecipherability became such an issue printed lyrics have never been available that the band sardonically issued a video with subtitles. But with each successive record, the audio mixes have become clearer and lead vocalist Michael Stipe's phrasing more distinct. Now, on "Document," R.E.M.'s latest and best album, the words and music have come into sharp focus. Still, there's an ironic punch line: now that you can hear the words, it's possible to discern just how hard they are to understand. What was once obscured is now oblique. On "Fireplace," what does it mean when Stipe sings, "Sweep the walls into the fireplace"? Then again, nobody would ever classify R.E.M. as easy listening. And that, undoubtedly, has been part of the appeal. Listening to the band's ringing melodies and surging rhythms is certainly a pleasure, but many also enjoy breaking those lyrical codes. "We get the kind of people who are willing to invest some time and thought," OCTOBER 1987 says lead guitarist Peter Buck. Perhaps that's why R.E.M. started in Athens, Ga., home of the University of Georgia has found much of its popular support on college campuses. Critics have been substantial boosters of the band; R.E.M. has won reviewers' polls over and over again. All this despite the verbal roadblock. So, why the new sonic clarity? "It seems like the material needed to be more immediate lyrically as well as the way the vocals sound in the mix," says Buck. Still, "immediate" means something different for R.E.M. "Welcome to the Occupation," for instance, has a political purpose. But it takes persistence to figure out that the song is an attack on American foreign policy in Central America, since it has no specific geographic reference. The only direct accusation concerns Congress, "where we propagate confusion, permanent and wild." Stipe uses a combination of list and metaphor to describe the capitalistic interest in Central America: "Sugar cane and coffee Copper, steel and cattle An annotated history The forest for the fire." On "Document," phrases are juxtaposed e. The garage door never went up: Some of R.E.M.'s iconoclastic approach to rock can be traced to environment. The quartet Stipe, Buck, bassist Mike Mills, drummer Bill Berry came together in Athens, a town that encourages rockers of every type. Mills and Berry had played together professionally before, but Buck had never played guitar. Stipe says he'd played in "a number of garage bands where the garage door never went up." The four musicians got together to play a birthday party in 1980 and just kept going. Through relentless touring, R.E.M. built a loyal following in the Southeast and then gradually developed a national audience. Now they threaten to break out of their reputation as a cult band or, as Buck says, "It's getting to be a fairly large cult." And success has come without compromise. From the beginning of their adventurous career, R.E.M. has controlled such things as cover art and music videos. Which explains why covers and videos are often as perplexing as the music. The front of "Document," for instance, has a WPA-lik- e painting in color on the left side and a multiple-exposur- black-and-whi- e, te photo- graph on the right not the same as a cute picture of the guys. "If we do something stupid," says Buck, "at least it isn't because we took the advice of some guy in an office." So far, "Document" looks to be the most successful of all R.E.M.'s records. It took four months for "Lifes Rich Pageant" they don't like apostrophes to go gold (sales of 500,000 copies), but "Document" reached that mark with its first shipment. Of this achievement, Michael Stipe remarked in a press release, "We are thrilled and terrified. We are bloated." Ron Givens record-compan- y NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS 43 |
