R.E.M's Up

By Josh Kaplowitz

R.E.M.'s latest release, Up, comes two years after a harrowing world tour in which three-fourths of the band suffered from life-threatening ailments. As a result, drummer Bill Berry decided he could no longer afford his rock 'n' roll lifestyle, and he split.

Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe have carried on, and their first album as a menage-à-trois contains, well, not much drums. In their place are synthesizers, a few samples, sparse drum machines, and...string arrangements. And there are a lot of slow songs.

Up plays a lot like Murmur, the group's groundbreaking debut. On that seminal album, the young band wove dense layers of instrumentals into a collection of solid pop songs—but you couldn't pay too much attention or you'd go nuts trying to decipher Stipe's mumblings. On Up, the situation is quite the
opposite. For the first time ever, the band has included song lyrics in the liner notes.

Excited by this, I read along during my first listening. The album sucked. Don't do this. Later, I gave it another stab, putting the album on in the background as I typed up a political science midterm. Damn, it was good (the album, not the midterm). Mood music—therein lay the secret to experiencing mad Ups.

The band must have had this in mind when it led off the album with four minutes of ambient music. The Brian Eno-inspired "Airportman" finds Stipe growling softly over a mellotron and spare guitars. A risky choice indeed.

As if to reassure us, the band then breaks into the hardest-rocking (and the best) track on the album, "Lotus." Stipe wails like Axl Rose over Buck's tight guitar and a swirling synth-and-strings backing. The lyrics are as enigmatic as ever: "It was hell/ Sarcastic silver swell/ That day it rained/Tough spun, hard won." No one knows what the hell lyrics like that mean, but it doesn't matter in a song about someone who has abandoned reality.

On the other hand, the stately piano lead and background vocals of "At My Most Beautiful" recall the Beach Boys circa Pet Sounds. Quite simply, it's as gorgeous as anything the band has ever produced. "Falls To Climb" gives it a run for its money, boasting the album's best lyrics: "I'll be pounce pony/ phony maroney/ pony before the cart."

Diversity of style has been an R.E.M. trademark in recent years, and this release is no exception, moving deftly from the ominous grind and personal prose of "The Apologist" to the friendly strumming and sterile lyrics of "Daysleeper," Up's first single.

Not everything on this album comes up roses. "Hope" is worse than it could be—the buzzing guitar hook becomes monotonous and the song crescendoes to a climax that never arrives.
"Why Not Smile" borders on schmaltz, as lines like "You've been sad for a while/ Why not smile?" are not quite up to
Michael Stipe's usual lyrical standards. In addition, "Parakeet" could have been dropped at no cost to the
album's integrity.

Whether Up can catapult R.E.M. back to the top of the rock world remains to be seen. The album is as sonically and emotionally rich its 1992 popular masterpiece, Automatic for the People, yet Up, at 64 minutes, is a tad too long and falls three or four kick-ass songs short of classic status. If, for some bizarre reason, you're an R.E.M. neophyte who has never purchased one of its albums, this may the best place to start. But for fans, Up is an essential piece in the puzzle of a great American band. (Warner Bros.)

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