That was great, now take a breath, kid
123. R.E.M. "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (live)"
As mainstream radio and MTV became more and more restrictive in their programming, the popularity of college radio opened up the field to countless bands who didn't fit that cookie cutter sensibility. R.E.M., from Athens, Georgia was one of them, one that went on to multi-platinum success. At the beginning, this must've seemed highly unlikely. Led by a record store clerk with rock instincts on guitar named Peter Buck and a beat poet inspired vocalist named Michael Stipe, they were capable of excellent songs but too often Stipes cryptic lyrics crossed the line into utter inscrutability. But when everything fell together just right, the results could be jaw-dropping.
Like here. Opening with a machine gun burst from Bill Berry's drums, and some high speed guitar jangle, this song flies by in a flurry of words* (this live version shows that the original recording was no fluke) that approximate the information fog of our time. The teens and young adults of the eighties and nineties were often chided for apathy, but as director Richard Linklater once said "Apathy and withdarawal in disgust are not the same." And both this songs chorus and the line "Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline" (sung in uncharacteristically emphatic voice from the often willfully enigmatic Stipe**), sum that sentiment up better than anything else in music.
*I've witnessed several radio contests where callers are challenged to sing the whole song without flubbing a line. winners are rare
**this is odd, considering Stipes extensive involvement in numerous forms of activism, but I'll take my wisdom where I find it, I guess
As mainstream radio and MTV became more and more restrictive in their programming, the popularity of college radio opened up the field to countless bands who didn't fit that cookie cutter sensibility. R.E.M., from Athens, Georgia was one of them, one that went on to multi-platinum success. At the beginning, this must've seemed highly unlikely. Led by a record store clerk with rock instincts on guitar named Peter Buck and a beat poet inspired vocalist named Michael Stipe, they were capable of excellent songs but too often Stipes cryptic lyrics crossed the line into utter inscrutability. But when everything fell together just right, the results could be jaw-dropping.
Like here. Opening with a machine gun burst from Bill Berry's drums, and some high speed guitar jangle, this song flies by in a flurry of words* (this live version shows that the original recording was no fluke) that approximate the information fog of our time. The teens and young adults of the eighties and nineties were often chided for apathy, but as director Richard Linklater once said "Apathy and withdarawal in disgust are not the same." And both this songs chorus and the line "Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline" (sung in uncharacteristically emphatic voice from the often willfully enigmatic Stipe**), sum that sentiment up better than anything else in music.
*I've witnessed several radio contests where callers are challenged to sing the whole song without flubbing a line. winners are rare
**this is odd, considering Stipes extensive involvement in numerous forms of activism, but I'll take my wisdom where I find it, I guess
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