R.E.M.: Murmur
07/25/2024
I had a very minor little argument online recently with someone of the age classified, in that silly system that we seem to be stuck with, as "Generation X", on the subject of the music of the 1980s. "Boomers" like me, he said, could not understand, could not "relate to," that music as people of his age do. We Boomers had been simply too old for it to have made on us the kind of impression that it had on them.
Well, in some ways that's true. As anyone who's at all susceptible knows, the popular music of one's youth, like everything else in one's youth, makes an impression, has an intense impact, in a way that later similar experiences generally do not. The reason is obvious: the experience is, for that person, the first of its kind, and the person is still newly alert and sensitive, still in some sense a child. People speak of the popular music of their youth as "the soundtrack of my life," a phrase which I understand but find a little disturbing for its implication that one's life needs or ought to have a soundtrack. Still, that's the condition of life in a culture where recorded music is everywhere.
Tears for Fears, the band we were discussing, said my acquaintance, simply could not be for me what it was for him: the soundtrack of his formative experiences as he passed through adolescence and into adulthood: his first love, his growing awareness of the world, and so forth. And, again, that's obviously true. I was already in my mid 30s, married with children, when Tears for Fears was popular. Nevertheless, some of the music of that time did get thoroughly bound up with my life--was, in a necessarily more limited way than when I was in high school or college, the soundtrack of my life. Tears for Fears was part of it, though not a large part: a friend included some of their stuff on a mixtape, and although I have not heard that music for thirty years or so I still recall a few excellent songs, and their somewhat bitter lyrics:
I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
("Mad World")
For the most part that soundtrack played when I was in the car, commuting back and forth to work or on the occasional long drive alone. And R.E.M. is one of the bands I think of first when I recall those times. I found their first two (full-length) albums, Murmur and Reckoning, as exciting as the music of the mid- and late 1960s had been. That was true of other bands of the time as well: Big Country, U2, Ultravox, the Psychedelic Furs, others whose names don't spring quite as readily to mind.
But time went on, life went on, pop music went on, with the flood of inexpensively available music making it possible for me to range far more widely in my listening. And I realized recently that I have not heard most of that music for thirty-plus years, and wondered if it was as good as I remembered. It was time to give it another listen.
Murmur was the first I chose. I would have put it near the top of my list of favorites of the time. It was a peculiar album: the music catchy, and yet having an odd emotional seriousness, partly as a result of Michael Stipe's voice, which really didn't sound like anyone else's. It had a bit of a back-to-basics feel, with a touch of '60s folk-rock, influenced no doubt by the punk impulse but sounding nothing like any punk rock I ever heard. It wasn't bluesy at all, wasn't aggressive at all, miles away from the hard rock and glam metal that dominated guitar-based rock. In comparison to those, it seemed relatively gentle, though it was very energetic, even hard-driving. And it had a mysterious quality, which was not entirely due to the lyrics that were only partially intelligible at best (and even when intelligible not making much sense).
So. Listening to it again--in the vinyl that I bought so many years ago--was a bit like running into someone who had been at one time a good friend but whom you haven't seen for a long time, and realizing that you don't really have a lot to say to each other anymore. Nothing especially negative, no hostility, just a certain distance. I haven't changed my opinion of this album, I would still rate it very highly, but I don't respond to it as I once did. I enjoyed hearing it, but I don't know whether I'll ever hear it again--as it might be with that friend, whom you enjoy seeing but make no plans to see again.
"Radio Free Europe" is the first track on the album, an instant grabber, and one of my favorites
I find myself wondering: have I finally, at age 75, outgrown rock-and-roll? Of late, by which I mean recent months, I seem to want to hear only classical music. It could be just a phase I'm going through.