Green

Today's Music of the Day is R.E.M.'s Green. No R.E.M. history lesson, just music talk today.

I rather like this album, though it probably isn't my favorite R.E.M. album. Stylistically, it is kind of across the board. There are some straightforward rock songs ("Orange Crush" and "Turn You Inside Out"), some more jangly emotional songs ("You Are the Everything", "Hairshirt") and some oddly dour tracks ("World Leader Pretend", "I Remember California"). Then, of course, there's "Stand", the song Michael Stipe hates. "You Are the Everything" is a sweet song, and anyone worth their salt likes "Orange Crush". Some of the songs just seem to lack direction ("Hairshirt", again), though.

The album as a whole is certainly 'literate' in that it isn't Def Leppard, but it seems to have slipped into a simpler style than its predecessors. Given how political and driving the previous album, Document was, it was hard to look on this as being a real step forward, despite some strong songwriting. The more polished R.E.M. of Out of Time and Automatic For The People wasn't really present yet, but some of the songs on Green are creeping towards that sound. Again, I think Green is a solid album, but it didn't have the personal touch that the earlier works did. Though I like the albums that would follow Green, albeit to varying degrees, it's hard not to look on this album as a bit of a fall, as something we settled for but couldn't really love.

In other news:
I need some more music, after all. And I'm really sore today.