Slow news day

A photo from Linda's Athens trip. Bill and Mike appeared later on in the set.

In what appears to have been a fairly normal week in the R.E.M. world, I am relieved that not too much has happened in my absence. The past week has been totally nuts, with more rehearsals, competitions and exams than I could have possibly comprehended - and there's still more to come on Sunday! Hell, I'll probably live... but three hours of singing Handel's Messiah seems like a tall order for a rookie such as myself.

Anyway, you didn't come here to listen to me rabbit on about how my life was! On to R.E.M.-related news.

First of all, Linda's diary of her visit to Georgia is now on Mike Mills Tribute, along with some fancy pictures (like the one above) documenting her stay. I recommend you take a look, and go green with envy when she gets to the part about meeting Mike Mills. Click here to see it.

The Baseball Project's Cactus tour is still going strong, as expected. They've currently landed in Austin, TX for the SXSW (South By South West) festival which is held there every year, and Michael Stipe is also in town on separate business holding a Collapse Into Now film premiere party, much like the one Ivana attended not long ago. Could there be a possible guest appearance in the works? We certainly shouldn't rule it out.

On the subject of films, it appears that a certain Mr Franco has so far been unsuccessful in delivering his two videos for the album, namely That Someone Is You and Blue. Also not yet finished is Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I, directed by Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan. However, I still hold out hope for Franco's pieces - sometimes good things just take time!

The video for All the Best has also been recently released. You can view it below, along with an interview with Michael about the film, which starts at 6:49. WARNING: Nudity and, err... blood(?) present in the music video. Watch at your own discretion.



There is one last thing I'd like to add, then I'll be on my way. A short while ago I made a post on the great site REMFan.it  about the rankings for the album Collapse Into Now. Here was my order of songs, from favourite to least favourite:

1. It Happened Today (the vocal jam and rich instrumentation makes this one a winner in my book!)
2. Uberlin (spacey synthesisers and soaring Mills vocals... totally)
3. Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I (this is bizarre. I keep wondering why I like this song... but I can't explain it. I just do)
4. Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter (Peaches does wonders for this track)
5. Discoverer (a rocking opener to R.E.M.'s best ever album)
6. Walk it Back (had this song stuck in my head for an ENTIRE day)
7. Mine Smell Like Honey (initially disappointed, but I now like it for what it is)
8. Blue (really cool, but you can't sing along to it per se)
9. That Someone is You (a bit short, but catchy nevertheless)
10. All the Best (the chorus drum groove is just awesome! The rest is interesting too)
11. Oh My Heart (was never a huge fan of "Houston" and slow R.E.M. ballads, but this one is quite nice)
12. Every Day is Yours to Win (just not as good as the others)

It's always been my theory that opinions and rankings will vary wildly from one day to the next, with the final order after a week being totally different from the initial one. So, I propose an experiment. I go on with my life, listening to the record, and I'll post my new ranking in 7 days. Then we'll see how it varies. Until then!

Yours truly,
Auctioneer

I was wrong, I have been laughable wrong...

It seems I was a little hasty to totally condemn Mine Smell Like Honey. After a few more listens on my iPod, I now feel that the pop-punk verses work, and the rest of the song isn't bad, either. While I still loathe the "Mine smell like honey... uh" part, nothing else is as bad as I originally perceived it to be. My initial dislike was partly due to the fact that I was ready for an amazing single, which Mine Smell Like Honey isn't.

So, for that reason, I'd like to re-rate this piece:

Mine Smell Like Honey: ◊◊◊ - It's better than I thought. Not great, but it's a jolly little song and the chorus is still awesome!

Upon reflection, that's the rating it deserves. But in the coming months leading up to Collapse Into Now, I believe I'll be listening to this track a lot less than some of the others.

In other news, I've been having a lot of trouble putting So Much Younger Then, the booteg I promised, onto Megaupload. Due to high traffic at peak times, Megaupload gives me an error message every time I get past 1% - things seem to be doing well right now (I'm uploading as I write this), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Another bootleg I'll be uploading in the near future is Live at Cologne, Roncalliplatz, 2001, as I know that Kirsten has been looking for it for a while. As for MTV Unplugged 1991... that post has been my highest source of traffic due to the bootleg's popularity, so I'm kinda inclined to leave it up there. I'm still undecided on that, however.

Yours truly,
Auctioneer

"Mine Smell Like Honey" streamed!

So much for waiting! Ivana over on Mike Mills Tribute has provided me with the excellent news that Warner Bros. have made the new R.E.M. single Mine Smell Like Honey available for streaming, something which would have had the hardcore fans foaming at the mouth. However, I do say would - apparently the video was taken down shortly after it was released. Thankfully, a user ripped the audio from the video and has re-posted it online. So, without further ado, here it is:

My impression of the song? Unremarkable. The past three songs that have been released - Discoverer, It Happened Today and Oh My Heart - have been of a high standard, and I was really looking forward to this single. But, sadly, this is just another album-filler that competes with even the most bland of R.E.M. songs.

Michael's vocals sound a lot like they did on Reveal, with a possible slight compression/chorus effect that can be heard on such songs as Imitation of Life and All the Way to Reno. The only difference between its use on Reveal and this single is that, on the former, it works. The chorus that we heard on the trailer is perhaps the best part of the song, as everything before and after it just doesn't compete. The beginning of the track sounds something like a pop-punk record, before cutting to the pre-chorus:

Mine smell like honey, uh,
Mine smell like honey.


Wait a second... his what smell like honey? The addition of "uh" on the first line is a very Accelerate thing to do, and although it was beneficial (even a little 'cool'!) on that album it just doesn't work on a song like this. In fact, it has the opposite effect - the sound is nauseating and has some pretty sexually explicit implications. I'm sure I could explain further, but I think you get the gist.

Having said all that, the lyrics are fairly decent, and the chorus is still a redeeming quality. But like I said on Ivana's site, why on earth didn't they choose It Happened Today instead? That song is catchy as hell and miles better than the trite of Mine Smell Like Honey. I don't mean to be over-critical, but I was expecting bigger things from this track, which really just sounds like a bunch of loose ideas bundled into one song. And so, my rating:

Mine Smell Like Honey - ◊◊ - I might have put it on a par with Oh My Heart, if it weren't for the fact that my hopes for a great single have been crushed. A poor effort.

However, like I also said in my post on Mike Mills Tribute, we still have the rest of the album to go. I hope there'll be some gems hidden in amongst that tracklist... in fact, I'm sure of it. Bring it on!

Yours truly,
Auctioneer

"Oh My Heart", AKA "Houston, Part 2"

Most fans, I imagine, were expecting Mine Smell Like Honey to be the next track released by the band (I certainly was!), but instead R.E.M. chose to surprise us all by giving us a special New Year's treat in the form of Oh My Heart, the fourth track from the eagerly-anticipated Collapse Into Now. Those of you who read my last post will remember my frantic edits as I realised, to my horror, that I had been oblivious to its release during the entire writing of the day's blog post.

So what were my first impressions of the new track? Well, as I wrote yesterday (albeit in a rushed, unpolished form), Oh My Heart alludes in more ways than one to their previous album Accelerate, namely the song Houston. Not just in it's lyrics either* - Oh My Heart evokes the emotion as Houston does, with an acoustic, minor-key verse dominated by Peter Buck's guitar. However, where the new song differs lies in the instrumentation of the track. Heavily distorted drums and guitars that were present in 2008 have been replaced with a mandolin and a brass section, and the chorus focuses more on the backing vocal than it did in Houston.


Speaking of the backing vocals, I was surprised at the change of direction they took in this song. R.E.M.'s harmonies are usually very close and tightly-knit (for example the Mills/Berry vocal duo in Wolves, Lower), and so I suppose I could be excused for being rather taken aback at  how much has changed over 30 years. Scott McCaughey and Mike Mills deliver an emotional, reverb-filled sound, which they further emphasise by placing their voices an octave apart, giving a unison effect. Actually, it kinda reminds me of one of those churches in America, where people join in massive sing-a-longs and add their own little ornamentation as they go.

Drums this time round are increasingly quiet, and in all honesty I didn't even realise they were there until my second listen. The musette used, along with the mandolin, gives the song a feeling I haven't experienced since I listened to Green for the very first time.


Alas, the question still remains in my head - do I like the song? After a whole night of  deliberation and constantly putting my iPod onto 'repeat', my answer is something you'd probably expect from an adolescent:

"Uh... yeah. It's okay, I guess."

The truth is, I was never a big fan of the more downbeat elements of Accelerate, much as I praise the album, nor am I a huge fan of R.E.M.'s slow, sad songs in general. In fact, it was only yesterday that I actually listened to Houston all the way through. I feel nothing but shame. :(

So, in order to give this song the review it deserves, I have devised a simple 5-star rating system. Here's how it works.

◊ - 1 Star: Just don't listen to this. Please, for the love of God!

◊◊ - 2 Stars: A below-average track. Not really worth your bother.

◊◊◊ - 3 Stars: A good song. Not the greatest, but it's nice to listen to.

◊◊◊◊ - 4 Stars: Great. I highly recommend this song, and you'll want to hear it again and again.

◊◊◊◊◊ - 5 Stars: Excellent. R.E.M. at their very finest!

Keeping in mind I am an R.E.M. fan, some songs which I would rate '5' on an ordinary system would now probably be a '4' on this scale, as it is in relation to the rest of their back catalogue. I think you'll get what I mean. If you're pining for another example, I might give one fizzy drink a 10 out of 10 on an ordinary scale, but if I was rating it in comparison to other fizzy drinks of the same kind it may not be as highly rated (or, indeed, may be even more so!).

Now that that's out of the way, I'll rate the three songs I've reviewed on the blog thus far:

Discoverer - ◊◊◊◊ - A rocking tune that I'll put on my CDs for weeks to come.

It Happened Today - ◊◊◊◊◊ - This is possibly one of my favourites at the moment, of all time. I can't tell you how much I like it!

Oh My Heart - ◊◊◊ - A decent song, though not one I think will stand out on the new album.

And there you have it. If you're clamouring for Mine Smell Like Honey, you'll have to wait until January 18th, I'm afraid. Amazon have a 30-second preview of the track here, and you can hear a shorter snippet on the CIN trailer, but sadly that's all we have. My body can't take much more of the waiting - oh, my heart!

Yours truly,

Auctioneer

P.S. Sorry for the lame pun in the last line. I couldn't resist. :P

*The lyrics I'm referring to are in the third verse: The storm didn't kill me/The government changed, which closely resembles the first two lines of Houston: If the storm doesn't kill me/The government will. That's why I think of this song as "Houston, Part 2".

"Discoverer" and "It Happened Today" - Reviews of two great new songs

It was really just by chance that I 'discovered' Discoverer (apologies for the major pun). I came home from school, switched on the computer and checked out R.E.M. HQ on the off chance there might be some new info about the album. Little did I know at the time of the sonic powerhouse that awaited me...

Perhaps I'm laying on the praise a little too heavily here, but Discoverer is still a rocking tune, by any means. Buck's overdriven guitars, panned to the max, give the track an ambience that is complemented by Mike Mills' frankly eerie bass and Bill Rielfin's minimalist drums (at least, I assume it's Bill - if anyone can confirm this it would be much appreciated).

Then Michael Stipe comes in. At first listen I didn't like his vocal approach, and I admit that freely. The chorus sounded particularly dire - the sound coming from his throat was more like shouting than singing at times, and when it came to the last line "Noooooow!" was more like a wail than a note. But it would seem the vocals here were somewhat of an acquired taste, because with each listen I found myself enjoying the track more and more, and my opinion of Stipe's vocals turned from awful to awesome overnight.

On the whole, I was glad they hadn't taken too much of a leap from Accelerate, as that was the album that got me hooked on them in the first place. But they have added elements from their previous albums too. Whilst Accelerate was a short, fast, politically-charged attack, Discoverer lowers the tempo slightly, and every so often you notice things that eluded you on your previous listen, much like R.E.M.'s early albums.

I have only one complaint about this song, and that is the absence of Mills' excellent vocal harmonies. One of the reasons I didn't like Around the Sun was because his vocals were mixed so low that they may as well not be there at all. On Discoverer, he's louder, but he's just singing in unison with Michael. I guess it's better than nothing at all, but I would have liked him to be a bit more... there.

Thankfully, I can't say the same about It Happened Today, which I can essentially describe as a two-minute song with a two-minute vocal jam at the end. And that, my friends, is why I like it so much.

The chord progression used by Peter Buck in the song is a standard I-V-vi-IV, for those who play an instrument, but the melody is interesting enough and the lyrics are astute, for want of a better word. Considering the clever word choice here (who on earth would think of putting "allegory" in a song? I know I wouldn't), the chorus seems a little odd when taken out of the context of the music:

It happened today, hooray, hooray,
It happened, hip, hip hooray.


See what I mean? But when Stipe and Mills are singing as well as they are, it doesn't matter anyway. Speaking of singers, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Hidden Cameras' Joel Gibb make guest appearances on the track, adding extra counter melodies and turning this song into something special. I recall someone saying he was "Vedder-deaf" when listening to this, but he is definitely there - he's singing higher than Stipe and lower than Mills, and he applies his own unique style which can be heard throughout and quite audibly at the end. As for Joel Gibb, I had never heard him prior to this, so I'm not sure which voice is his - I'm guessing, but I think it may be the falsetto you can hear sometimes on the near right pan.

So, my overall impression? That this may just be the best R.E.M. album yet, if things continue the way they're going. Judging by these songs and the trailer, I can find no fault in the direction they have decided to move in. I've seen a lot of people criticise Michael Stipe's lyrics on the new album, calling them "uninspiring" and just plain "boring", but I don't mind, really. They may not be his best, but it's the music that matters most, and it's the music that we'll still be playing a whole year after the album comes out this March!

Yours truly,
Auctioneer