Confessions of a Fanboy

One of the pitfalls of liveblogging is that the beginning stuff gets pushed further down the page and you have to read everything in reverse. There might be some of you who didn’t know what the hell I was doing because you saw the end before you saw the beginning, so here’s a chronological [...]

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I didn’t like the live version of this on the double live set they just released. I forgot they put this one on the record.
Meh. Let’s give the studio version a listen.
I like it a little better so far than I did on the live album.
As we reach the end of [...]

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Am I ready to hear a drum intro on an R.E.M. song, knowing that Bill Berry is on a tractor somewhere?
Michael might have kept his mouth shut and his head down? That will be the day.
Not loving the lead vocal. Not even loving the Stipe/Mills harmony because of the way the vocals are [...]

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Finally some jangle! We’ve had more Peter Buck on this record but it was all Monster distortion and no Murmur jangle. This is the closest thing to that so far on the record and we’re almost done here.
I can’t really tell what he’s singing about; that’s welcome. Something that’s not so singular [...]

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Hey! I like this! Stipe is singing at the same time Peter is playing big guitars!
Harmony and nice bass support from Mills.
The lyrics are a bit on the preachy again, but the music and the vocal performance are saving it/elevating it. You see! This is what a couple of those earlier [...]

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S.Rod likes this one; she says it’s one of her favorites on the record.
This sounds like something from Automatic for the People, musically. Actually, this is “Ignoreland” with better music. They should take “Ignoreland” from AFTP and put it on this record where it belongs.
The electric guitars are gone on this [...]

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The title track and the midpoint of the record. The guitars are pushed out front again on this one; electric guitars with classic ’90s distortion.
Stipe and Mills have this amazing almost-on-key harmonization on this one. They’ve always done that really well. Mills isn’t quite singing the right notes, but somehow it still [...]

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Well will you listen to that? An acoustic guitar now. Okay, we’re varying the approach a little. Good.
Oh, hell’s holy acre! “If the storm doesn’t kill me, the government will?” Puke!
Stipe is singing monotone again with big organ blasts coming out of nowhere.
Hey, mandolin, too.
Is that supposed to [...]

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Good timing, bringing in the piano on the intro of this track. It was beginning to get a bit monotonous.
Ooops, the piano is already gone. Well, the distortion on the guitar has been pruned a little and it’s not quite as thick but it’s still fuzzy.
I’m going to have to listen to this [...]

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Superserious… yeah, that’s a good word for the first three songs on this album; not a lot of humor or lightness yet.
This is Michael Stipe’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi moment. He’s signing like Katherine Hepburn having an epileptic seizure. I know, I used that line on BSCA last Thursday. This is the [...]

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