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Top five tunes: R.E.M.

Who? R.E.M.

Years active: 1980 – 2011

Band members:
Michael Stipe (lead vocals) 1980 – 2011
Peter Buck (lead guitar, mandolin, banjo) 1980 – 2011
Mike Mills (bass guitar, keyboards, backing vocals) 1980 – 2011
Bill Berry (drums, percussion, backing vocals) 1980 – 1997

Discography:
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Out of Time (1991)
Automatic for the People (1992)
Monster (1994)
New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996)
Up (1998)
Reveal (2001)
Around the Sun (2004)
Accelerate (2008)
Collapse into Now (2011)

Context:
I would imagine, if you are reading these words, that you are not completely in the dark about R.E.M., the group, the music, and their impact on modern rock. But just in case you are, I’ll flesh out the quick facts from up above. Formed in 1980 in Athens, Georgia as a quartet, they lasted 31 years and ended things up as a trio, losing their full-time drummer to health issues along the way. They’ve released 15 studio albums in all, along with 16 compilations, selling a total of 85 million records worldwide, and were inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2007. They were one of the first “alternative rock” bands and have influenced pretty much every group from that genre worth listening to.

My own first exposure to the group came after the release of their major label debut, “Green”, in 1988 and I saw the video for “Stand” on the Chum FM 30 countdown. I bought the cassette tape and wore it out, later replacing it with the compact disc. When I started transitioning my tastes from pop music to alternative, as the 80s gave way to the 90s, I decided it was still “cool” to like them and I began to explore more and more of their back catalogue. But it was the two albums that followed “Green”, during the period that they took off from touring, that I consider my favourite of their many ‘periods’ in the career. And I know that I am not alone here, but really, how can you argue with “Out of time” and “Automatic for the people”?

Speaking of the latter, we just passed the 25th anniversary of that great album’s release date a few days ago. In celebration of such an auspicious occasion, the album is due to be re-issued next month in a deluxe CD box set format, as well as a new pressing on 180 gram vinyl. Given that “Automatic for the people” is my all-time favourite album by the band, I jumped right on the pre-order wagon and am not-so-patiently awaiting the record’s delivery. The anniversary is also what prompted this particular post, in a sense. Though in truth, I’ve been working on putting together this list of my top 5 songs of R.E.M. for months but have been in serious procrastination mode, given the difficulty I’ve been having settling on just the five out of the great depth and wealth of their tracks.

As always, after reading about my picks, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below. Do you disagree with my choices? If so, what are your five favourite tunes by R.E.M.? Go ahead and choose your own. It’s not an easy task, I promise you.

The top five:

#5: Leave (from “New adventures in hi-fi”, 1996)

An ex-girlfriend got me a copy of “New adventures in hi-fi” on CD for my birthday. Otherwise, I might not have purchased it as soon as it came out. It had felt like decades had past since “Automatic for the people,” instead of just four years and lots had happened, both to R.E.M.’s sound and to my tastes. I didn’t listen to it right away and when I finally did get to it, nothing immediately grabbed me. But it was a slow grower. And this track is like a poster boy for the album as a whole, a song that on first listen, is annoying with that fire alarm guitar motif acting as a cover for the beauty of the song. I think it took hearing the alt. version of the track at Dance Cave one night (check it out here) for the song to really click. But where that one is shorter and quieter, I do prefer the album version for its length and boiling rage. The roaring and foreboding guitars threaten to overtake Stipe’s vocals but he doesn’t let them here, very much needing to be heard. So much emotion in all that sound.

#4: Orange crush (from “Green”, 1988)

From the files of misheard lyrics humour, I freely admit that for many years, I thought that when Michael Stipe sang, “Follow me, don’t follow me, I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush”, I thought that he was saying: “I’ve got my sprite, I’ve got my orange crush”. Sure, I thought it was strange to be singing about soda pop but I was young and full of shrugs. Of course, I know now that it is an anti-vietnam war song, the “orange crush” referring to a chemical weapon agent and the rapid fire drum beat that I loved to shuffle my feet to on the dance floor was meant to resemble machine gun fire. And sure, armed with the real meaning, the helicopter sounds and the marching chants towards the end of the tune make a lot more sense. But knowing their intent doesn’t change what a great pop song this is and didn’t at all ruin my love for dancing to it.

#3: Losing my religion (from “Out of time”, 1991)

I feel like this is the song that changed everything for R.E.M. It was their highest charting single up to that point and the video (seen below) was on constant rotation on all the music channels. It really is a brilliant tune. Not so obviously pop with its heavy leaning on Peter Buck’s mandolin and seemingly rambling and nonsensical lyrics, but the straightforward beat, string flourishes, and handclaps made it pretty catchy. But don’t let the name or all the religious imagery in the video fool you. According to the group, it’s a tune about unrequited love. And you can almost hear the pleading in Stipe’s vocals as he sings about the largesse of life, the lengths he will go to and the distance in her eyes. Really? Who is this woman that can resist that delicate mandolin and Michael Stipe’s one of a kind vocals? I’m projecting here, of course, assuming it’s a woman, but whoever it is, whatever it is, this feeling of being left like a lost fool is universal and now we have an anthem for us all to get behind.

#2: Nightswimming (from “Automatic for the people”, 1992)

“Automatic for the people”. As mentioned above, my absolute favourite of their albums, but also considered by a great many others to be the band’s best. ‘Dark and brooding’, it’s called. But I disagree, preferring ‘contemplative’ as a descriptive. It has its happy moments, as well as its sad, but it’s all very thought-provoking. “Drive”, “Man on the moon”, “Everybody hurts”, “The sidewinder sleeps tonight”, “Sweetness follows”, the list of great tunes goes on and on. I could have easily filled this top five list with songs from this one album (but that wouldn’t have been very representative). And yet, I chose “Nightswimming”, the penultimate track, a quiet wonder, a tune I didn’t even know was released as a single until I started writing these words. Why? Because it’s brilliant. It’s use of piano and strings is so anti-guitar rock and so anti-everything that was popular music in 1992. Michael Stipe is the star here, singing so lovely and waxing nostalgic about the end of summer and swimming naked by the moonlight. It’s all so real that the memory feels like its mine. A song I could listen to forever and not grow tired of its beauty.

#1: It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine) (from “Document”, 1987)

…On the other hand, this is a song that I feel like I have been listening to forever and has many real memories attached to it. One of these happens to have been formed in that year I took off between high school and university and I was having pints after my shift in the bar I worked at for few months. I got to talking with a gentleman a number of years older than I was (and probably quite a bit drunker that night) and we talked a lot about music, some of which I knew, some of which I would discover over time. At some point, this particular track came over the speakers and my “friend” started singing along. But when he got to the line, “Lenny Bruce is not afraid”, he insisted that “Lenny Bruce is not insane”. I didn’t argue with him for long because he just kept getting louder about it and of course, at the time, there was no such thing as google or wikipedia, so I just ordered us both another round of pints and joined him in singing the incorrect line. And really, with a song this great, so rocking and energetic, a rhyming off of historical moments and figures at a frantic pace, trying to get it all in before the end, what’s one wrong lyric? Cheers.

For other top five lists in this series, click here.

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Top five tunes: The Tragically Hip

Who? The Tragically Hip

Years active: 1983 – present

Band members:
Gordon Downie (lead vocals) 1983 – present
Paul Langlois (guitars) 1983 – present
Rob Baker (guitars) 1983 – present
Gord Sinclair (bass) 1983 – present
Johnny Fay (drums) 1983 – present
Davis Manning (saxophone) 1983 – 1986

Discography:
Up to Here (1989)
Road Apples (1991)
Fully Completely (1992)
Day for Night (1994)
Trouble at the Henhouse (1996)
Phantom Power (1998)
Music @ Work (2000)
In Violet Light (2002)
In Between Evolution (2004)
World Container (2006)
We Are the Same (2009)
Now for Plan A (2012)
Man machine poem (2016)

Context:
It’s Canada’s 150th birthday today and I can’t think of another homegrown band that is as well-known and is as loved across this large country of ours as The Tragically Hip.

For a good stretch from the 1990s to the early 2000s, they were definitely the undisputed heavyweight champions of Canadian rock. Their blues-infused rock with folk storytelling style leant itself well to sit beside pretty much every genre of music so they were played on all radio formats, from rock to pop to alternative to top 40. In those days, everyone in Canada knew who they were and you were a either a diehard fan of the band or you were just a casual fan. But nobody really hated them. Unfortunately, this phenomenon never translated to international success. Besides a bit of love from Australia, New Zealand, and patches of Europe, The Tragically Hip never really gained traction outside of Canada.

Right up to last year, they played to massive arenas and stadiums and headlined festivals here in Canada but if you crossed the border into the states, you could catch them playing tiny club shows. However, last May, frontman, Gord Downie, announced that he had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The Hip embarked upon what many called their final Canadian tour that summer, culminating in a concert in their hometown of Kingston that was attended by the Prime Minister and televised across the country.

Personally, I never actually owned a Tragically Hip album until my wife’s CD collection merged with my own when we began cohabiting and her copy of “Trouble at the hen house” was filed beside my copy of Travis’s “The man who”. I think it was four years later that they released their first ever “best of” compilation. I went out and procured a copy of the two disc version of “Yer favourites” (it was also released as a deluxe edition including DVDs called “Hipeponymous”) because although I couldn’t ever see myself listening to their albums, they had a few singles that I really loved.

I finally saw The Tragically Hip live for the first time with my wife at the Ottawa Bluesfest a few years ago. We both considered it almost like a rite of passage as Canadians and though neither of us have ever been the biggest of fans, both of us knew every single song that they performed. It was almost as if the band’s music was in our bones and in our blood, and it all felt as natural as knowing the words to “O Canada”.

If you’re not Canadian and have never heard them before, these five songs can serve as a great introduction. But if you are Canadian, well… you know all these songs. You might as well sing along. It is Canada day, after all…

The top five:

#5: Bobcaygeon (from “Phantom power”, 1999)

This song and its mellow acoustic groove makes the list mostly because it’s named after a tiny town in central Ontario that I’ve driven through a million times but have never stopped in. But it also reminds me of my first real job after university working in a tool rental shop. “Bobcaygeon” received so much radio play that it drove my boss, Cam, nuts. It wasn’t long before I began randomly mimicking Gord Downie’s whine of the chorus to drive him even more nuts, and strangely, a fondness for the song grew. I still love it today.

Favourite lyric: “Could have been the Willie Nelson, could have been the wine.”

#4: New Orleans Is Sinking (from “Up to here”, 1989)

For a while in 2005, certain radio stations took this song out of their rotations out of sensitivity for the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It’s The Hip’s second ever single and perhaps best representation of their blues rock influences with its killer guitar zingers. Despite being released twenty-five years ago, it is considered one of the band’s best-known tracks and a fan favourite at their live shows. Speaking of which, if you’ve ever seen them perform “New Orleans is Sinking”, you might have also inadvertently caught a glimpse of a future song in development. The Hip often use the middle of this song to test out new songs. “Nautical disaster” and “Ahead by a century” both started out as bridges to this track live.

Favourite lyric: “My memory is muddy, what’s this river that I’m in? New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don’t want to swim.”

#3: Scared (from “Day for night”, 1995)

Don’t ask me why but this song evokes images of late-night chill sessions for me, candles lit and incense burning, people passed out on the floor, and empty red wine bottles everywhere. It’s not as if I lived that sort of lifestyle (he says smiling facetiously) but if I had, this might be just the sort of song that would have been on my stereo on nights like that. It’s quiet and riveting and emotionally charged. Like tears welling in your eyes for no reason at all but that are wiped away before anyone notices.

Favourite lyric: “Now there’s a focus group that can prove this is all nothing but cold calculation.”

#2: Ahead by a century (from “Trouble at the henhouse”, 1996)

This song was released during what was perhaps the peak period of The Hip’s career trajectory and is likely one of their biggest songs. I was entering the late stages of my university career. It was there, living in residence, that I discovered the ferociousness of their fans. Up to that point, I had only paid them minimal attention but on many occasions in 1995 and 1996, I was subject to polemics from multiple sources on the intricacies of their guitar work and the beauty of Gord Downie’s poetry. He “spoke” to their fans. So when he said in this particular track that life is “no dress rehearsal”, a whole generation of young Canadians swooned.

Favourite lyric: “And disappointing you is getting me down.”

#1: Courage (for Hugh Maclennan) (from “Fully completely”, 1993)

“Courage” has always been my favourite Tragically Hip, even before I learned of the dedication to Canadian author Hugh Maclennan in the parentheses to the title. It’s never even been a close race with number two but that attribution of this loftiest of personality traits to a fellow wordsmith only improved it for me. Never mind that the synergy of the driving drum track with the guitar hook wizardry makes the song arena encore ready, complete with devils horns salutes and white male air guitar dancing. And even as I am writing this down, I can’t believe I am writing it. Without the song to back them up, my words don’t aptly describe something I would normally listen to and enjoy. Yet I do love this track. Perhaps that’s the magic of The Hip and their ability to transcend genre and appeal to Canadians from across the country.

Turn it up! You know you want to.

Favourite lyric: “Courage, it couldn’t come at a worse time.”

For other top five lists in this series, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Top five tunes: The Cure

Who? The Cure

Years active: 1976-present

Band members (selected):
Robert Smith (vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, six-string bass) 1976-present
Michael Dempsey (bass) 1976-1979
Porl Thompson (lead guitar, keyboards, saxophone, 6 string bass) 1976-1978, 1984-1992, 2005-2010
Lol Tolhurst (drums, keyboards) 1976-1988, 2011
Simon Gallup (bass, keyboards) 1979-1982, 1985-present
Roger O’Donnell (keyboards) 1987-1990, 1995-2005, 2011-present
Peter Bamonte (guitars, keyboards) 1990-1994, 1995-2005
Jason Cooper (drums) 1995-present
Reeves Gabrels (lead guitar, rhythm guitar, six-string bass) 2012-present

Discography:
Three Imaginary Boys (1979)
Seventeen Seconds (1980)
Faith (1981)
Pornography (1982)
The Top (1984)
The Head on the Door (1985)
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)
Disintegration (1989)
Wish (1992)
Wild Mood Swings (1996)
Bloodflowers (2000)
The Cure (2004)
4:13 Dream (2008)

Context:
What can I say about The Cure? They’ve been around forever. They’re iconic. They’re influential. And they’re a damned great live band, especially these days.

I started listening to The Cure in my last couple of years in high school. This was right around the time that Robert Smith was wavering between wanting to be a pop star and hating himself for wanting it. The band had just recently released “Disintegration” and was working on the recordings that would become “Wish”. However, my own introductions came the way of their early singles collection, “Standing on a beach” (or “Staring at the sea”, if you had the CD), copied to cassette tape by one of my friends, John or Tim, I can’t remember which now. I played that tape to ruins, from listening to it on my stereo blasting in my bedroom while playing games on my C64 to cranking loud volumes on my yellow Sony Sport Walkman while strolling the streets of Bowmanville or Oshawa. I became intimate with all the tracks on that compilation well before I moved on to explore their albums proper and really only felt compelled to do so after watching a “Spotlight” on the band on MuchMusic and enjoying the videos for a few tracks I had not had the pleasure of hearing.

I saw The Cure live for the first time in Toronto in 2000 with my little brother Mike. They were touring in support of their latest record, “Bloodflowers”, so the better part of their set focused mostly on the material therein (and also some their more recent tunes) and while it was a fine album, I couldn’t help hoping to hear some of the older tracks that I grew up loving. I saw them for a second time a few years ago, closing the first night of Osheaga in Montreal with my friends Mark and Tim (the same Tim mentioned above) and it was a completely different experience. They played for well over two and a half hours, sampling from the best of their entire catalogue and rocking through a killer encore playlist that read like a greatest hits catalogue. It looked and felt like Robert was having the time of his life and wanted to play all night, finally ending the set only after the festival organizers pulled the plug halfway through “Boys don’t cry”. Even then, the band finished the song all acoustic like. And from what I hear, this is The Cure’s M.O. of late, so if you get the chance, don’t hesitate to see them live.

The Cure has been one of the many bands that soundtracked the latter part of my teen years and into my twenties throughout the 1990s and I still listen to them quite a bit today. They’ve released some great albums over the years and many of these include a ton of standout tunes so it was quite hard to whittle this list down to only five tracks. I briefly thought about doing a series of top fives for The Cure, splitting them up by decade or genre or theme, but in the end decided to just do the one for now and focused on their singles. It was a hard decision and I am sure there are plenty of diehards out there that will look at this list with disdain and completely disagree with my picks, but the truth of the matter is that The Cure was a great pop singles band. Just as they were a great gothic rock or post-punk band. And perhaps one day, I’ll do another one of these lists on The Cure and focus on their darker and more epic tracks but until then, here are my Top Five tracks by The Cure.

The top five:

#5: Friday, I’m in love (from “Wish”, 1992)

“Friday, I’m in love” is the second single off “Wish”, The Cure’s highest charting and most commercially successful record. Both this song and “High” (the first single) charted well but looking back, the latter seemed to fare slightly better where “Friday, I’m in love” lasted longer in our cultural memory. It is probably the song for which Robert Smith and company are best known and the one most likely to be played at a wedding reception. Smith, himself, said of the song upon its release that it’s “a throw your hands in the air, let’s get happy kind of record.” To me, that’s almost an understatement. It’s three minutes and thirty eight seconds of pure joy. It’s a celebration, all jangle and pep and handclaps, a burst of music that sways and swirls on the dance floor with confetti tossed all about. It is as engaging as the first thrills of love, where nothing else seems to matter, no dark clouds or bills to pay. Then, just as quickly, it ends and there’s nothing to do but press Replay.

#4: Boy’s don’t cry (from “Boy’s don’t cry”, 1979)

Before all the big, teased hair and the lipstick, The Cure was a post-punk band, following in the footsteps of Elvis Costello or the Buzzcocks. A tour supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees (in which Smith often had to play double duty on guitars with both bands) changed everything. “Boys don’t cry” is a non-album single that was released just before said tour and shows off their angular guitar chops in a quick, two and a half minute tune. It was their second ever single and so was the second track on the aforementioned singles collection, “Standing on a beach”, which as I’ve already made clear, I played to death. The track made an indelible impression on me with its instantaneously recognizable three chord guitar strum intro that leaps into that irresistible guitar and bass line that gently climbs up before sliding back down your spine, getting into every one of your bones along the way. How can you avoid dancing to this track as Smith prattles on about forcing laughter to cover his broken heart at the loss of a girl? You can’t. It’s a fact as plain as the one that says boys don’t cry.

#3: Lovesong (from “Disintegration”, 1989)

I said a few moments ago that “Friday, I’m in love” is the Cure song most likely to be played at a wedding reception but I know a few cool couples that selected “Lovesong” to be their first dance song. It is, of course, as its title suggests, a love song. In fact, it was written by Smith as a wedding present for his wife, Mary Poole. The third single off “Disintegration”, the album considered by many to be the band’s crowning achievement, “Lovesong” is like an untouched rose in a murk of bramble and gloom. It was a huge hit in the states, climbing high in the singles charts, beaten out for the number one spot by Janet Jackson’s “Miss you much”. The song is quite lovely with its lazy organ sounds and bursts of jangle guitar and Smith’s breathy and breathless vocals, all underpinned by that bass line. Oh, that bass line. It’s one that I’ll always remember for the time just before I moved from home and my younger brother Mike learned and played it incessantly at varying speeds whenever he picked up his guitar. But above all, I am forever touched at the beauty and honesty in the lyrics: “Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again. Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am whole again.” Gorgeous.

#2: Close to me (from “The head on the door”, 1985)

“Close to me” is another track that I fell in love with off “Standing on a beach”. It was the final single released off The Cure’s sixth album, “The head on the door”, whose title is taken from this very track’s lyrics. It is a total pop gem, replete with jaunty drum rhythm and handclaps, staccato high notes on the keys juxtaposed with the sustained organ chords, and all topped off with Smith’s breathy gasps and vocals. The song is an exercise in construction, each of these pieces added in layers through its three and a half minute length, until it just abruptly ends. It evokes building nervousness and a sense of longing and waiting and hoping, perhaps without real hope. And the video, directed by frequent collaborator, Tim Pope, only adds to the delirium. It shows the band members miming out the performance of the song within some Alice in Wonderland dreamt wardrobe at the edge of a cliff. By the end, the chaos brought about by Smith’s voodoo puppetry ministrations rocks the precariously placed wardrobe off the cliff and into the English Channel below. If you’ve never watched the video, I’d definitely recommend giving it a spin.

#1: Just like heaven (from “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me”, 1987)

“”Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick, the one that makes me scream” she said. “The one that makes me laugh” she said, and threw her arms around my neck.” Those opening lines, they always make me want to dance. This is more than likely because I have danced to this song countless times. When I was living in the residences at York University in the mid-90s, my haunt of choice on Thursday night pub nights was the main campus pub, The Underground. This was because it was hosted by DJ Steven Rigby, who spun a wide range of alternative rock that kept the dance floor packed. I think “Just like heaven” might also have been his favourite Cure track because it was the one he played most often on those Thursday nights. And every time, I was there in the middle of the floor with a beer in hand, jumping and shuffling to that snappy, immediate drumming, that tumbling guitar riff that chimes beautifully between the verses and the misty synth washes, shrouding the proceedings like dry ice. It is yet another of Smith’s composition where the instruments are introduced in stages, each one showcased in its delicate beauty while he sings and reminisces about a trip to the south of England that he took with Mary Poole. The track glistens and sparkles with nostalgia and makes one wish they could live forever wrapped up in its dream-like pastoral melodies. Dancing, once again to well after last call.

Disagree? Think I’ve missed a track? Share your own top 5 The Cure tracks in the comments section below. I’d love to compare notes.

For other top five lists in this series, click here.