REM were a college rock band. In America this refers to the network of campus radio stations, which popularised a certain style of music, not metal, between 60s retro and punk. As an aside, campus culture is under threat, globally speaking caught between cuts and profit making; a vision of education austere and functional.
In Britain the ideal of comprehensive education is being dismantled. This will impoverish popular culture, pop music especially. Musicians have traditionally met in college or on the dole queue. Both avenues are closing, if not already closed. Popular culture is nothing without free time and disposable income. We face a future of more and more public schoolkids dressing up and twanging banjos.
Let's pee in the corner
Let's pee on the spot-light...
5 comments:
Calling Jamaica!
Stand-out albums are probably murmur, document, green, monster and new adventures; reveal and up are uneven but have some great tracks; around the sun was the one shit album in 15.
in fact scratch that. new adventures is the stand-out album and i wouldn't regard it as overly long as there are no real weak tracks.
best track is harder. between organge crush, the wake-up bomb, crush with eyeliner and imitation of life.
in terms of the 'we hardly knew ye', the band were at least pretty explicit about their politics, being librals who supported generally useful causes. they take in themes including vietnam, the cold war, mccarthyism, iraq, distrust of big government and alienation. i don't feel much need to know them much better than that.
REM's entire charm was built on Michael Stipe who was/is an American analogue of Morrisey (minus the contrary racism). His entire artistic being was one long tease. REM would not have been remarkable without him.
When I heard about REM splitting up I fainted into my curry. That's me in the korma.
I went to a potato shop. That's me in the spud-u-like
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