Music

REM: Around the Sun

Recently I heard a debate on BBC Radio where the proposition was that R.E.M. should just call it quits and disband. The argument being made by disappointed fans was that the best American band of the eighties had not produced a good album in the past dozen years. Furthermore, the detractors were annoyed that R.E.M.’s recent songs all seemed to be slow moody ballads, and that the band simply didn’t “rock out” anymore.

It’s true that the band’s decision not to replace drummer Bill Berry has changed their sound – the percussive energy of songs like Don’t Go Back to Rockville is gone now, and I wish they would do more fast-tempo songs. But although I understand the complaints, these critics are not seeing the very interesting transformation that R.E.M. has undergone, and their ears are closed to the different pleasures of the band’s new work.

They’re also forgetting the original underground nature of the band: Stipe, Mills, Berry and Buck had never planned to be superstars – their megaplatinum success in the late eighties was a happy accident. Unlike their contemporaries U2, they had never aspired to winning the banner of World’s Greatest Rock Band. R.E.M. has always been a quirky alt/folk/rock band making quirky alt/folk/rock music; sometimes in fashion, sometimes not.

Of course, they’ve changed over the decades. The band members have had various health scares which probably contributed to the sense of melancholy that now permeates their music, as well as Bill Berry’s decision to retire. R.E.M. are now just three guys pushing fifty, and they realize that they’re no longer the hip new gods of alternative rock: they have graciously praised their younger successors such as Radiohead. But they also have no intention yet of becoming relics like Crosby, Stills and Nash – their recent albums are still exploring new territory.

In the band’s early days, Michael Stipe was notorious for being intensely private, to the extent that his lyrics were deliberately mumbled and buried in the mix. The early albums never included a lyric sheet, and fans tried in vain sometimes to decipher the words of their favorite songs. All that has changed: Stipe is now comfortable in public, coming out as a “queer artist” (his own description) to Time Magazine in 2001, and his lyrics are more openly confessional and have come to the fore in the band’s music.

Which brings us to the new album, Around the Sun. It opens with a wonderful song, Leaving New York, which is the best example of the band’s current direction. Now that Stipe is willing to reveal his innermost concerns, R.E.M. songs have acquired a wonderful new soulfulness.

The album almost seems designed to work as one long pleasant lullaby. If you hate REM’s ballads then you will definitely dislike this record, which consists of nothing but slow-paced tracks. I really like listening to Stipe these days - he seems like a fine friend to have along on the journey of life, sharing his meditative reflections with us. At the same time, there are few truly memorable tracks on the album, and many of the songs are indistinguishable from one another.

Those hoping for another  “great” album like Murmur or Reckoning will certainly be disappointed - this is merely a “decent” REM album, which is still a good thing to have these days.

Reviewed by Patrick Lawlor

Bjork: Medulla

Bjork’s new experimental album recalls Yoko’s avant-garde recordings from the seventies. Both women come from outside the traditional Anglo-American rock axis and make music that sounds distinctively alien to the ears of the typical pop listener. The big difference between them is that while Yoko’s musical experiments were only sporadically successful and never found a real audience, Bjork’s work has been consistently marvelous and made her an iconic pop phenomenon.

Many fans probably hoped that Medulla would turn out to be a sequel to Bjork’s last album, the lushly beautiful Vespertine. But Medulla is a different animal entirely. Listeners would be better off if they approached Medulla as a sort of “sonic art project” rather than expecting a new collection of pretty pop songs. Viewed from this adjusted perspective, Medulla is a daring, rich, and rewarding work. The album has been recorded almost entirely without musical instruments – the pieces consist primarily of a variety of human voices (tribal singers, human beatboxes etc) which have been carefully sampled, looped, and layered in the studio.

The result is a blend of a capella singing and modern technology into a new hybrid music form. Bjork’s own distinctive singing style is complemented with guest voices and choirs, elaborately programmed to bounce back left and right across your headphones. This is not a throwback to 50’s doo-wop: the high-production sheen, use of digital sound effects, and Bjork’s unique songcraft together create a sound that definitely belongs to the new millennium.

Stripping away all the plushy orchestration of her earlier works has also exposed the true structure of Bjork’s songs. Her fine minimalist writing skills now stand out clearly; her lyrics, often odd, are also very affecting. Bjork has mentioned that her recent pregnancy was a major influence, and many of the lyrics draw on visceral images of flesh and bone.

This is a challenging album, to be sure, but not a difficult one, and this is why Bjork has been more successful in her experiment than Yoko ever was. Medulla will not have the mass popular appeal of Vespertine, and is not recommended for first-time listeners, but it is a wonderful, sure sign of Bjork’s maturation as an artist.

Courtney Love: America's Sweetheart

The new Courtney Love album also brings up a Yoko Ono parallel: both women are unfortunately known most widely today because of their status as rock-star widows who at various times have been vilified in the press. While Yoko had to endure being unfairly called “the woman who broke up the Beatles,” Courtney has met an even harsher fate: to the tabloids she is That Crazy Witch, and the gossips have accused her of every vile crime imaginable.

Perhaps she really is The World’s Most Horrible Person – I have no idea. What I do know is the one thing the tabloids will never tell you: Courtney’s music is fucking marvelous, and I love it. The rock press scorns her work as “bubblegum punk,” which is exactly what I adore: Courtney’s songs are the perfect vehicles for her rage and intelligence, transformed into expressive pop art.

Now that her band Hole has finally broken up, Courtney has released her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, and there is a noticeable shift of focus. Without the protective cloak of being “just one member of our band,” there is nowhere to hide now, and so she faces this squarely: the subject of the album is quite simply, herself, Courtney-the-Icon. Like Madonna, she realizes that her greatest creation is her own cultural image, and she uses this to her advantage. The songs on this album both celebrate and mock her own tarnished celebrity status. After all, we already know all about her trials and tribulations, so she figures she might as well use this to serve her dramatic purposes. (The album is even being marketed with a tie-in comic book, reviewed here.)

The blatant narcissism of the album works, because it is so brazen, funny, and yes, moving. On “Hold On To Me” Courtney is able to howl “I am the center of the universe” in a piece that is actually a very touching love song. Another song is addressed to the dead Kurt Cobain and asks “would it be uncool if I could write one love song… I don’t wanna die, and I don’t wanna live, Baby I just want a chance to be with you.”

The songs reference her past musical heroes, with a nod to the Ramones and a friendly jab at Led Zeppelin. Now forty, Courtney has also written a love-letter to the twenty-something singer of The Strokes, mischievously titled “But Julian, I’m a Little Bit Older Than You.” Her new supporting band has a deliberately anonymous, glossy Beverly-Hills-punk sound; they’re competant, but certainly not the equal of Hole. It doesn’t matter, since they are clearly not meant to upstage the star. Courtney's voice has never been beautiful, and it sounds a little ragged here sometimes, but she's still able to tear into each song with passion.

Her old bandmate in Hole, Melissa Auf der Maur, was recently quoted in The New York Times saying: “Courtney is indestructible. She should have been dead ten times already, and I don’t care how many times she goes to hell and back, she will make it… Courtney will figure it out one way or another.”

For her own sake, and her daughter’s, I likewise hope that Courtney Love overcomes all her demons and troubles, and that she rocks on and on.

PJ Harvey: Uh Huh Her

I’ve only seen Polly Jean Harvey in concert once, in less-than-ideal circumstances. Her band was the supporting act for U2 in Madison Square Garden; she does not make big arena-music, and most of the mainstream middle-aged audience members who had bought $150 tickets to see U2 had no idea who she was. On stage in her high heels and skinny red dress, Polly Jean at first seemed quite vulnerable, but once the performance started it was clear that she was perfectly confident and in command. It’s the kind of courage I should have expected from knowing her albums, which have always had a fierce unblinking power.

However, her work also reminds me of the films of John Cassavetes: while I admire their raw integrity, I often find them too excruciatingly painful to sit through – I cannot bear to watch the slow, detailed unravelling of his characters’ lives. Likewise, PJ Harvey’s songs are often about damaged individuals who inhabit forgotten badlands where events always seem likely to end in violence. (Actually, Lars von Triers’ recent Dogville film would be a classic PJ Harvey scenario.) I appreciate her talent, but this is not the kind of music I can listen to very often. So for ages I always bought each new Harvey album because the songs were so great, and then only played them once a year because they scared the bejaysus out of me.

Her last album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea was a major change in direction. She had moved to New York and must have absorbed something from the new environment – she sounded uncannily like Patti Smith, the songs were emotionally uplifting, had a glossy sheen, and Harvey sometimes sounded, believe it or not, happy.

Now comes her new album Uh Huh Her and another shift. Harvey played most of the instruments and produced the album herself: the sound is intentionally raw and stripped-down. Her guitar-playing is gutsy, dirty, and fantastic, and her voice sounds great with the lo-fi production, by turns intimate, then yowling. The songs, often driven by lust or torment, are darker than in Stories from the City. But Harvey’s universe no longer seems to be as bleakly fatalistic as in her early albums – her characters are still in trouble, but hope has somehow entered their lives. Now there is at least some possibility of salvation, however unlikely.

The Killers: Hot Fuss

The Killers are a young 2004 Las Vegas band, but their music is unashamedly that of Eighties’ England. They’ve got a bouncy New Wave guitars-and-synth sound that perfectly evokes the pangs of my pubescent crises of the Reagan-Thatcher era: their terrific song about jealousy, “Mr. Brightside,” achieves the painful poignancy of Joe Jackson’s classic on the same theme, “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”

It’s easy to imagine one of the Killers’ songs slipping back in time and fitting seamlessly onto the soundtrack of a John Hughes flick, right between tracks by the Cure and the Psychedelic Furs. The Killers have the golden knack for creating danceable rock tunes with catchy hooks that sound great on the radio: I found the deliriously silly chorus of “Somebody Told Me” constantly chanting in my head for days as I rode the subway to work.

However, a problem with the album is that most of the songs are rather lightweight, the lyrics inconsequential, and there’s often no depth below the shiny retro surface of the sound. Hopefully on future albums the band will drop the blatant 80's mimicry, move forward into new territory of its own, and tackle stronger subject matter. But for now, while The Killers are probably not the future of rock’n’roll, they certainly bring a smile to the face of this grad of the Class of ’87.

reviews by Patrick Lawlor