25th anniversary reissue, accompanied by contemporaneous live show... โI donโt know if I have any commercial expectations for this one at all,โ Peter Buck told Rolling Stone prior to the release of R.E.M.โs fifth album. โI donโt see this as the record thatโs going to blast apart the chart. Although you never know. Weirder things have happened.โ Indeed. If 1986โs Lifes Rich Pageant had marked the beginnings of R.E.M.โs emergence from their cocoon of indie diffidence, 1987โs Document was where they first properly reconciled themselves to their destiny as the only group of the 1980s American college-rock milieu to graduate to stadiums, and stay there. This remastered 25th anniversary double-CD edition of โDocumentโ โ also available in 180-gram vinyl โ is packaged with a complete concert, recorded on the subsequent โWorkโ tour on September 14th, 1987, at Utrechtโs Musiekcentrum Vredenberg: the previously unreleased show just about triumphs over a tinny, clattering sound, amounting to a twenty-track Greatest Hits of R.E.M.โs pre-Warners period. The Dutch crowd, clearly still unfamiliar with the new work, donโt quite hit their cue on the โLeonard Bernstein!โ exclamation, but are properly hushed for the mournful, half-paced closer of โSo. Central Rainโ. For all Buckโs pre-release expectation-lowering vis-a-vis Document, it is barely conceivable that the man whoโd just recorded the guitars on โThe One I Loveโ, which sounded like a Byrds song played by U2, was entirely astonished when Document went swiftly platinum (Buck would have had cause, however, to be baffled when โThe One I Loveโ became a popular wedding tune, hopefully only among couples who hadnโt quite heard the bit about โA simple prop/To occupy my timeโ). Document was appropriately titled. It was, fairly straightforwardly โ in conception if not execution โ intended as R.E.M.โs state-of-the-nation address. Given that the nation whose state R.E.M. were addressing was the piously purse-lipped yet triumphally patriotic United States which had been dominated for seven years by Ronald Reagan, it does R.E.M. considerable credit โ though the United States possibly less so โ that Document has weathered a quarter century so well. Some of the praise for this should be directed towards producer Scott Litt, beginning a long association with the band. Litt disdained most of the defining sonic tropes of the late 1980s โ although a suspicion that Mike Mills applies his thumb to the bass in the coda of โFinest Worksongโ cannot be ruled out. Document mostly endures, however, because R.E.M. resisted the temptation which often overwhelms the youngish and politically agitated: at no point did Document seize by the lapels and rant, instead making its points with an obliqueness that verged on the Dada. The elegiac โFireplaceโ reacted to the โCrazy crazy worldโ and these โcrazy crazy timesโ by commanding โClear the floor to danceโ. Wireโs โStrangeโ, rendered even more fidgety and frenetic than the original, was recalibrated as the inchoate indignantion of someone slowly figuring out that the world isnโt fair (the line โThereโs something going on thatโs not quite rightโ could have been an alternative title of the album). โItโs The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)โ was (thirteen years early) a 21st century โSubterranean Homesick Bluesโ, a playful and deliriously jumbled portent of apocalypse. Even when Document was relatively obvious, the emphasis was firmly on the โrelativelyโ. โWelcome To The Occupationโ was a hazy survey of the same Central American frontlines previously depicted on โFlowers Of Guatemalaโ and โGreen Grow The Rushesโ. The jaunty โExhuming McCarthyโ โ a template for the subsequent โStandโ and โPop Song 89โ, more of what Buck once defined as R.E.M.โs โvampire surf guitar funkโ โ invoked Senator Joe McCarthy, the demented Wisconsonian witchhunter of the 1950s, as the eternal bogeyman of R.E.M.โs fellow fretfully paranoid liberals. The sample of US Army counsel Joseph Welchโs famous rebuke to McCarthy โ โHave you no sense of decency, Sir?โ โ was, in this context, another iteration of the question asked of America by generations of protest singers, in whose ranks R.E.M. had formally, if hesitantly, enlisted themselves. EXTRAS: Liner notes by David Daley, four postcards, and a complete concert. Andrew Mueller
25th anniversary reissue, accompanied by contemporaneous live showโฆ
โI donโt know if I have any commercial expectations for this one at all,โ Peter Buck told Rolling Stone prior to the release of R.E.M.โs fifth album. โI donโt see this as the record thatโs going to blast apart the chart. Although you never know. Weirder things have happened.โ
Indeed. If 1986โs Lifes Rich Pageant had marked the beginnings of R.E.M.โs emergence from their cocoon of indie diffidence, 1987โs Document was where they first properly reconciled themselves to their destiny as the only group of the 1980s American college-rock milieu to graduate to stadiums, and stay there. This remastered 25th anniversary double-CD edition of โDocumentโ โ also available in 180-gram vinyl โ is packaged with a complete concert, recorded on the subsequent โWorkโ tour on September 14th, 1987, at Utrechtโs Musiekcentrum Vredenberg: the previously unreleased show just about triumphs over a tinny, clattering sound, amounting to a twenty-track Greatest Hits of R.E.M.โs pre-Warners period. The Dutch crowd, clearly still unfamiliar with the new work, donโt quite hit their cue on the โLeonard Bernstein!โ exclamation, but are properly hushed for the mournful, half-paced closer of โSo. Central Rainโ.
For all Buckโs pre-release expectation-lowering vis-a-vis Document, it is barely conceivable that the man whoโd just recorded the guitars on โThe One I Loveโ, which sounded like a Byrds song played by U2, was entirely astonished when Document went swiftly platinum (Buck would have had cause, however, to be baffled when โThe One I Loveโ became a popular wedding tune, hopefully only among couples who hadnโt quite heard the bit about โA simple prop/To occupy my timeโ).
Document was appropriately titled. It was, fairly straightforwardly โ in conception if not execution โ intended as R.E.M.โs state-of-the-nation address. Given that the nation whose state R.E.M. were addressing was the piously purse-lipped yet triumphally patriotic United States which had been dominated for seven years by Ronald Reagan, it does R.E.M. considerable credit โ though the United States possibly less so โ that Document has weathered a quarter century so well. Some of the praise for this should be directed towards producer Scott Litt, beginning a long association with the band. Litt disdained most of the defining sonic tropes of the late 1980s โ although a suspicion that Mike Mills applies his thumb to the bass in the coda of โFinest Worksongโ cannot be ruled out.
Document mostly endures, however, because R.E.M. resisted the temptation which often overwhelms the youngish and politically agitated: at no point did Document seize by the lapels and rant, instead making its points with an obliqueness that verged on the Dada. The elegiac โFireplaceโ reacted to the โCrazy crazy worldโ and these โcrazy crazy timesโ by commanding โClear the floor to danceโ. Wireโs โStrangeโ, rendered even more fidgety and frenetic than the original, was recalibrated as the inchoate indignantion of someone slowly figuring out that the world isnโt fair (the line โThereโs something going on thatโs not quite rightโ could have been an alternative title of the album). โItโs The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)โ was (thirteen years early) a 21st century โSubterranean Homesick Bluesโ, a playful and deliriously jumbled portent of apocalypse.
Even when Document was relatively obvious, the emphasis was firmly on the โrelativelyโ. โWelcome To The Occupationโ was a hazy survey of the same Central American frontlines previously depicted on โFlowers Of Guatemalaโ and โGreen Grow The Rushesโ. The jaunty โExhuming McCarthyโ โ a template for the subsequent โStandโ and โPop Song 89โ, more of what Buck once defined as R.E.M.โs โvampire surf guitar funkโ โ invoked Senator Joe McCarthy, the demented Wisconsonian witchhunter of the 1950s, as the eternal bogeyman of R.E.M.โs fellow fretfully paranoid liberals. The sample of US Army counsel Joseph Welchโs famous rebuke to McCarthy โ โHave you no sense of decency, Sir?โ โ was, in this context, another iteration of the question asked of America by generations of protest singers, in whose ranks R.E.M. had formally, if hesitantly, enlisted themselves.
EXTRAS: Liner notes by David Daley, four postcards, and a complete concert.
Andrew Mueller