EARLY GRUNGE? // R.E.M. - I Remember California // Composer Reaction & Analysis

[@p0werfu11]

This song is like a younger moody sister of "Oddfellows Local 151" from their previous album Document.

[@pechondelgado]

I hear a lot of R.E.M. influence in the early/mid 90's midwest emo stuff too. R.E.M. on IRS records was the best stuff.

[@jorel80]

Hey man great reaction/review! I'm glad to see more reactors dive into REM's catalog rather than just the big songs. I do hear the prot-grunge vibe and never thought of it that way. This album came out in '88 or '89 i think and REM was leaning more into harder rock as with the previous album. I also heard the similarity to The One I love when you mentioned it. Cheers!

[@gablen23]

My favourite from the album, I love the dark atmosphere. The "One I Love" is on the album Document, which was released just before Green, so the similarity is not coincidental, they had that sound at the time.

[@mtk3755]

Same the tune is addictive

[@paumorg9249]

This song is absolute perfection and dreaminess it reminds me of something that happened while I was in Vegas remembering California where I met a girl that just fit check out the live version from tour film it's even better the harmony at the end with the guitar and with Bill Berry and Michael Stipe and Mike Mills harmonizing at the end it's different it's awesome it's even better the live version is so awesome.

[@ocrOPK]

Early R.E.M. sounds so special! I love it 😍

[@greggerypeccary]

But this is not early REM... this was the crossover album, after they signed with Warners. But, yes, this was when they still didn't completely suck.

[@robinhocezar738]

That's not quite right. REM have a lot of great work post Green. Automatic for the People, New Adventures in HiFi are great albums. Even their last albums, Accelerate and Collapse into Now are really strong

[@christanzola8633]

Accelerate is one of my favourites of their whole catalogue

[@jorel80]

IMO HiFi was peak performance for them, but i really liked Accelerate too.

[@pascalg16]

I'm here to leave a comment I haven't in a while. Mastodon - The Last Baron will change your perception of the band. Maybe even Crack the Skye as a whole for an album review. Come on ye patrons! Do yer magic.

[@pascalg16]

My only connection with REM is a scene from The Office, where a devastated Dwight Scrute is blasting "Everybody Hurts" inside his car.

[@CriticalReactions]

Oh wait, they did that too? Maybe I know more REM than I thought I did 😄

[@rudymeixell3426]

The only R.E.M. album I've ever really cared for, although I liked some songs off Document and Monster. The whole alternative rock community hand-wringing over who may or may not be selling out on a given album has seemed ridiculous to me for a very long while now. I remember people saying Sonic Youth's "Starpower" was SY going commercial. I heard the same about the Fall's album *This Nation's Saving's Grace* around the time it came out. And of course, "Star Power" and "Paint Work" were immediately all over commercial rock radio when they came out. In some other dimension. Maybe the complaints about this material being overly commercial were just jokes that went over my head. Incidentally, for a non-alternative rock example, Kate Bush was accused of selling out with *The Dreaming* when it came out. Anyway, Green is a good album, but it may have just been released at a time when I happened to be receptive to the type of thing it is. Good song, although I am afraid I have nothing interesting to say about it. The hooks and the long vocals lines are enough for me.

[@CriticalReactions]

Completely honest, I recall being one of those gatekeepers as a teen -- disliking new albums from bands that have "sold out." It's a shame that that seems to be part of popular music conversations in general. I agree about the hooks too; it's not a complex song but it absolutely grabs me.

[@rudymeixell3426]

@@CriticalReactions I was like that in high school to some extent. I remember being shocked to hear Talking Heads on a college radio show I listened to which was almost entirely devoted to music not played on commercial radio, since I knew they were getting some airplay on mainstream stations. By the time I was in college I actually had much less of a "college radio" purist mind-set.

[@dathorndike4908]

Definitely prefer the original version. It has more of a raw edge which fits the dark atmosphere of the song. The remaster kind of took a bit of the edge off the track

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

Not early grunge, but early alternative rock that influenced grunge. R.E.M. were, along with U2, probably the biggest and most influential band to come out of the post-punk scene, and you could argue they basically invented the alternative rock genre. You've almost certainly heard more R.E.M. songs than just The One I Love: Losing My Religion and Everybody Hurts were massive hits, and It's the End of the World (As We Know It) and Radio Free Europe were pretty big as well. This is an unusual track to pick for a request if only because it's from the album that's usually considered to be the beginning of R.E.M.'s downturn after their early-to-mid 80s heyday in which their first five albums were all huge successes, especially critically. During that time they were probably one of the two or three most important rock bands in the world. After this album they only had one more major success (Automatic for the People) before they basically sank into irrelevancy. This is a decent song, but I don't think it's particularly great by R.E.M.'s standards. Personally I've always thought they were a tad overrated; they did have the ability to write killer songs at their best, but they were also pretty inconsistent on an album-level.

[@greggerypeccary]

"College Rock" was the term used for this type of music in the 80s. I actually think REM, even in the 80s, were overrated. Songwriting was pretty basic... kind of simple pop songs with a nice jangly guitar sound dragging on for too long. I own all of these records, but Chronic Town is the only one I'd actually really bother with (though my favourite song of theirs is probably Camera -- a shame they didn't further pursue that direction).

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

@@greggerypeccary Yeah, they used the term "college rock" since that's where R.E.M. and similar bands became popular, but that eventually merged into the (even more umbrella) alternative rock genre. In recent years I've really come back around to appreciating pop songcraft after having spent most of the last 20 years exploring prog, metal, classical, jazz, etc. I wonder if I'd like R.E.M. more now than I did back when I first heard them.

[@greggerypeccary]

@@jonathanhenderson9422 The thing is that their songs were not well-written pop songs... they had a good sound (Mitch Easter?) but tended to meander. Out of Time is probably where they have the best pop craftmanship. I can't say I appreciate _modern_ pop songwriting... it's become a matter of adding lots and lots of layers on a DAW, but no real talent of actual songwriting (the same goes for stuff like metal, BTW, to much emphasis on chops and overloading "complexity", but no actual talent for writing songs). I think the best pop songwriter these days is noko: He can write poppy songs: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rqnccmVsnK9laKc Punky songs: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qamvfquQjdyIb7M Rap: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5KWh3lqrLOUo9U And even what is basically house music: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l17Zg2uQZsyqrKs Truly a mad genius -- he does what he wants and it's always him.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

@@greggerypeccary I actually appreciate a lot of modern pop songwriting for the same reason you say you don't: I love how DAWs allow producers to add tons of layers to create such complex (but often seemingly simple) soundscapes. I also appreciate how pop in particular is the one genre that embraces experimenting with a wide range of genres, sounds, and styles. I guess one can quibble over the line between the art & craft of production Vs songwriting, but it's a pretty blurry line; there's a reason George Martin was considered the fifth Beatle. I haven't heard of Noko (playing them in the background now as I'm typing this; enjoying it so far!), but funny you should mention a Japanese artist as my recent pop obsession is Gacharic Spin, also a Japanese band. One thing I'm really starting to appreciate about J-pop/J-rock is their melodic sensibility. Way too much of Western music has become obsessed with one/two-note melodies. Gacharic Spin are similarly very versatile: Funk: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h56vYYlsa5yEsKs Rock: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iF7JoHV_i92DpsU House: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3qylneZd8t5rbs Metalcore(ish) kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4OZf6WolNSgoKc Pop Ballad kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXvIfWVopLShkMk

[@greggerypeccary]

​@@jonathanhenderson9422Noko is the guy behind Shinsei Kamattechan. He writes all the music, the way Juko does in Sokoninaru. I do know Gacharic Spin, but the only thing of theirs I like is the video where they play toy instruments (Hana really rocks out those toy drums! ). And Hana's Cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. She really is talented. My problem with them is that (i) everything always ends up as disco (ii) I don't like slap bass... (iii) I just don't find that their songs "work": if Sokoninaru is like Juko took a few songs, put them in a blender and then made a nice collage out of them, then Gacharic Spin sounds to me like someone took a few songs and just crammed them together and ended up with a kludge... like they say, "OK, now let's add a prog part, now a bit of soul, now the disco chorus". (BTW, am I the only person who is irritated by that disco beat nearly all Japanese bands keep using? That snare+hi-hat with the hi-hat on the offbeat -- like nearly every Ling Tosite Sigure song...) The thing about Shinsei Kamattechan is that -- unlike most Japanese bands -- they're not good players! The instrumentation level is minimal, they play sloppy, but they enjoy themselves and are full of passion. And noko doesn't give a fuck about anyone... unlike most Japanese bands who totally play by the rules (just look what Gacharic Spin look like... all that industry is like that).