12 Overlooked Pieces of Awesome: R.E.M. – Up
January 26th, 2009 by Flint12 Overlooked Pieces of Awesome is an article series where each month Flint hopelessly rambles about an album in his collection that he dearly loves, even when they have their flaws. Each of the albums chosen tends to be usually overlooked, or forgotten, in one way or another and thus this article series aims to give an alternative view on said albums, or simply just bring something a bit less known to the spotlight.
R.E.M. – Up (1998)
Welcome to the first part of my monthly article series about albums that I love. It took me a long while to think what I wanted to do with this article series because I’m an OCD-nut that frets about the tiniest details that most people wouldn’t give a toss about, before I finally decided on an angle: to bring forth albums I love (even if not devoutedly so) that tend to get a bit of flak or just simply aren’t mentioned much due to the artist’s other output getting all the kudos.
To start, one of my personal very favourite albums ever made: R.E.M.’s masterpiece Up.
The thing with Up is that whilst people these days acknowledge its quality (in various amounts), it still doesn’t really get much of a mention which is pretty wild from the most adventurous album by one of the still largest names in rock. The reason for this is simple, and forgive the rather holier-than-thou attitude that will come up following this, is because there are people who do not like change and refuse to accept it. R.E.M. already had to face this when they switched from the small IRS label to the major label Warner Bros back in the late 80’s, causing some fans to go all weird towards the band. Whilst this chance has pretty much been brushed under the rug of history as just a minor step in the band’s history, during the late nineties R.E.M.’s very existence was shaken by the drummer Bill Berry’s decision to leave. The band continued onwards and ever since they’ve been neglected in the media and by the critics. On bogus reasons one might add due to the fact that their creativity never left.
Up was the first album after Berry’s retirement due to increased stress and dissatisfaction on the music business. As one might guess, it’s an album haunted by Berry’s absence. It’s the band’s most melancholy album, equal amounts thanks to the big change in recording thanks to Berry’s absence as well as the band’s general dislike towards everything (including themselves) during the studio time. It’s also the band’s biggest change in sound in their history as they stripped down the traditional rock instruments and relied more on synthesizers, keyboards and drum machines. The band claims, truthfully most likely as well, that this was a direction they were already heading with Berry before he left but one can’t help but think that the drummer leaving caused the band to rely more on electronic rhythms than they had planned to.
It’s up for debate how much of it was influenced by the general melancholy in the band during the time, but Up hatched into an introspective moodpiece. Much of it is the same, mid-to-low tempo. The soundscape is full of detailed textures, soft keyboard walls and electronic fuzz. Peter Buck’s guitar takes a backseat and instead of his traditional jangly riffs, it’s subjected to heavy e-bow treatment or being left out all together in favour of keyboards. Michael Stipe sounds fragile, worn and frustrated yet given up throughout the album and the narrator characters of his lyrics are all a bunch of depressed losers – people who have been beaten by the world and are too tired to rise up again, who succumb to accusing everyone else but themselves or simply giving up, or just feel eternally confused and out of place in the world. Up’s 14 (15 if you count the unlisted “I’m Not Over You” hidden in the middle of the album) songs carry Stipe’s greatest lyrics set on paper, full of strength and amazing lines.
Up opens with what is possibly my favourite self-complimenting double act ever. “Airportman” starts the album in the most un-R.E.M.-like fashion: a tiny electronic percussion pecks at the background while a strong, distorted bass appears and disappears randomly amidst a sea of all sorts of ambient noise. A tiny piano melody seems to go its own way in the background. Stipe whispers and mutters his words almost incomprehensibly. This goes on for four minutes until the song ends into total silence. And then everything crashes. The following “Lotus” starts out with a couple of banging drums and begins the dangerously seductive and oddly funky big rock act. The mood is completely tossed topsy-turvy from the start, the ambient drone switched into a highly energetic monster rocker. But Lotus keeps a mysterious atmosphere to it – Stipe’s lyrics border on nonsense in their extremely abstract obliqueness, his vocals are doubletracked throughout the song to play the part of a soft singer and a vicious crooner, and the song’s instrumentation has something very beautifully unsettling to it with its nauseatingly swooping synth-strings and constantly buzzing synth lines in the background.
From then on Up lowers the tempo once again and focuses on the instrospective both musically and lyrically. The songs can be divided on two categories. On the other hand we have the more frantic, beat-heavier pieces which are equal parts hypnotic in their crooked drive and harmonic. “The Apologist” swivels between self-loathing and endless apologising, “Hope” pushes onward like a train in its electro-acoustic glory, “Walk Unafraid” ups the tempo to create something that resembles a traditional rock track although in a twisted, masqueraded form. Each song utilises a wonderful percussion beat as its main rhythm, devoid of traditional rock beats and focusing on the deeper, softer drum sounds and random percussion, or simply drum machines like the frenetic Hope. Then we have the more stripped-down, melody heavy moment pieces which offer their melancholy mixed with hopeless beauty. The dreamy “Suspicion”, gorgeously swirling “You’re in the Air” with its pastoral instrumentation, the ethereal and sleepy “Daysleeper”; one of the greatest moments perhaps being the clear and simple, deceivingly pretty “Why Not Smile” charms the listener with an immensely beautiful and downstated melody before drowning itself into an electric guitar storm.
Walk Unafraid (live)
But one moment in the middle stands out in a special way. Whilst the vast majority of Up is filled with worn melancholy, not even of the sad kind but simply tired of all the crap sort, there’s one song that stops all the low-key sorrow for a little over three minutes and replaces it with honest happiness. After “Hope”‘ dissolves in a chaotic pile of feedback and electronic noise, a quick stop and a moment of silence is followed by a singular piano, shinily ringing with beautiful clarity before joined by a downstated and serene backing. “At My Most Beautiful” is R.E.M.’s most uncomplicated love song. A tribute to Beach Boys musically and vocally (as the majestic backing vocals can tell), the song is a simple and heart-in-sleeve confession of pure love and infatuation, a celebration to all the silly little things you do when hopelessly in love. It’s the only moment on the album where the narrator isn’t mentally lost or confused in any way. It’s one of the greatest lovesongs ever written.
As gloriously as it started, Up ends with an amazing closer that deserves its own paragraph. After the long journey of the album, “Falls to Climb” offers the final confessional. Built entirely around an organ sound and Stipe’s tortured-waiting-on-release singing, Falls to Climb is the final self-defeat: the narrator throws himself into the wolves with a martyr act (”someone has to take the fall/so why not me”). The music gradually builds, sometimes with bogus steps – the acoustic guitar that only appears for a moment before disappearing forever again – and finally climaxing into a march beat as Stipe yells his final lines of the album before the music dies down and leaves the listener in silence. There are very few album closers that so well not only nutshell the album but offer such a perfect and touching finale to it.
Up was one of my first R.E.M. albums, bought very shortly after I became interested enough of the band to start collecting their discography. It’s been with me for a good several years. It was an album that immediately grabbed me, even if it did not open in an instant. It hypnotised me to its grasp, made me listen to it more and more and each time I unraveled its secrets further. It still continues to do so as my familiarity with the songs allows me to leave the most familiar parts of them to the background as I focus on the tiny details in the background. Each song is full of little moments of life that journey their own little paths hidden from the public eye (ear) – Up is an album enjoyed best with headphones.
The years with the album have molded it into a part of the basis of my music taste. For me, it’s one of the greatest albums made. It was a long struggle with me whether to really start the series with this or another R.E.M. album, 2001’s Reveal which is possibly much more overlooked and misunderstood than Up (how anyone could hate such a perfect, blissfully summery album is beyond me) but my instincts took over me – Up deserves every mention it gets.
Daysleeper
MP3: You’re in the Air
