Losing My Religion

When they first came on the scene in the early 80s, R.E.M. was the best new group around. They had a sound that combined punk and Americana – before anybody even knew what that was – with indecipherable lyrics that, when you could make them out, were abstract, dream-like mumbles, adding extra significance and meaning to the band’s name.

The cover of their first album, Murmur, pictured a field overrun with kudzu, a commentary on an invasive junk culture threatening to take over not only the South and their home state of Georgia, but regionalism in general. These guys were smart and subversive; the overall vibe was one of Andy of Mayberry on acid.

We saw them at the Capitol Theatre in June 1984, a strange concert that was being filmed for MTV. (Strange on three counts: it was held on a really hot night and the Capitol didn’t have air conditioning; MTV handlers were milling around on the lookout for girls they could fill in the front rows with; and the opening acts were John Sebastian, Roger McGuinn and Richie Havens, each of whom, according to MTV, influenced R.E.M.’s folk-rockish sound. The band apparently disagreed and pointedly opened with a cover of a Velvet Underground song).

Here, they perform “Radio Free Europe” from that night. This is a band firing on all cylinders, and maybe because they made so many videos, did we watch them age over the next 20 years or what?

 

As R.E.M. grew to become an international force of nature and entered a long-term residency on MTV, I started to lose interest. It felt like there were too many people in the room and their music began to change direction. With the inescapable and bleak “Everybody Hurts,” and the bubblegum nursery rhymes “Stand” and “Happy Shiny People,” I was already backing away.

Around the same time, I had similar reactions to a couple of other favorites, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.

Springsteen began to take on some sort of Dust Bowl affectation, with a lot of desolate ballads, usually addressing someone as “sir” and sung with, I guess, a Western accent. His zillion-selling Born In the USA album was four good songs and the rest filler – if things fall in my favor, I’ll never sit through “Glory Days” ever again. In Costello’s case, I kept buying his records well into the 90s before I realized the music had become not just overly crafted but utterly joyless.

Yet there’s hope. For the longest time I felt the same way about Paul McCartney. His post-Beatles output seemed to be based more on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “All Together Now” than say, “Penny Lane” or “Hey Jude.” His ill-advised teaming with Michael Jackson and the embarrassing videos that followed drove me out completely. But right around the start of the century, Paul seemed to remember he was a Beatle, not a Bay City Roller, and began – and continues – to record albums that play to his many strengths and make me glad he’s still around writing and recording.

R.E.M. broke up a few years ago and when I can find them, I check the latest albums by Springsteen or Costello out of our local library. I always give them a hopeful listen, but we seem to be growing ever-further apart.