super groovy delicious bite: document

R.E.M. finally broke into the mainstream with the crisp production and murky left of west politics of this confident,vitriolic, patriotic declaration of rock. 'Document' was the first album co-produced by the band and the first of six albums with producer Scott Litt. They recorded it at Nashville's Sound Emporium with Bill Berry on drums and backing vocals; Peter Buck on guitar and dulcimer; Mike Mills on bass guitar and backing vocals; Michael Stipe on lead vocals. The sessions also included Steve Berlin on horns and Carl Marsh on synthesizer.

Buck says: “It’s a sideways look at the world and us. It has a kind of Orwellian wry humour. It’s not that we’re making light of America, it’s just that I can’t look at it the way Bruce Springsteen does. To me, America in 1987 is Disneyworld.”

Stipe adds: “In America, if you can’t make money, they think it’s because you’re a failure. The work ethic is really intrinsic to American thought and that has a lot to do with this LP. The idea that you can work and work and get what you want and then try for even more. It’s the American dream but it’s a pipe dream that’s been exploited for years. I could get by without money, I’ve done it before. You can get by in this town without money, it’s not a necessity. But it’s kinda gross what money does to you. Businessmen say hello to me on the street now. They acknowledge me when I go into a nice restaurant. They let me put my bike in the kitchen at the best restaurant in town. I can wear a smelly tee-shirt and they’ll take me to the best table. It’s really gross.”

Mills considers: "I don’t know; it just seems very natural for us to change. Every record’s usually a reaction to the last record. We don’t necessarily change for the sake of changing; we just do what we want to do, and that usually happens to be something different from what we were doing before. We just walk in there and say 'How do we feel?', and the way we feel is almost always different than the way we felt the year before. So it’s not like we have to force ourselves to change — we just do what comes naturally, and it’s usually different...Plus, everybody in the band is growing musically, and between us we can play just about any instrument we need. I guess I had the biggest musical background of anybody in the band when we started, and I could play the most instruments, but I think there are a couple of people in the band now who would be capable of filling my shoes."

Berry asserts: "R.E.M. is a democracy. If one person in the band does not want something, it won’t happen. That’s just the way it is. Decisions have to be unanimous. But we’re also sensible people, so there are compromises. As for songwriting, we all have guitars and pianos at home, and we all write. We get snippets of ideas. Rarely do we come to rehearsal and say, 'Look, I’m convinced that this arrangement, from beginning to end, is perfect.' So there is collaboration."

Mills explains: "We were shooting for having some weird songs and having a lot of different things going on musically. But we also wanted a very direct sound and very loud guitars. We also wanted to write some of the songs a little differently. We’ve found that when we write together — when we’re all in the same room making noise until something comes out — we come out with a different kind of song, and we tried to concentrate on that. The songs that are written that way are not necessarily better, but they’re definitely different — a song like 'Finest Worksong' could have never been written by one of us at home with a guitar. We wanted this record to be pretty heavy on guitar, and we wanted it to kind of jump out of the speakers at you, a little bit more than our other records. But as long as Michael continues to write oblique lyrics like he does, I don’t think we’re in any danger of becoming ordinary or anything like that. 'The One I Love' is probably the most straight-forward thing we’ve ever written, both musically and lyrically, but it’s still pretty weird...It was kind of the same thing we’ve been doing all along, only more of it. We’ve always had as much input into the production as we’ve wanted to have, and over the years we’ve had more input as we learned more about the studio. We’re not that good at engineering, certainly not on those real big boards, so Scott pretty much took care of that. But everybody tended to hang around the studio a lot more. We made the record in Nashville because we try and stay out of recording in big cities, and Nashville, for all of its size, has a small town feel to it. We tended to stay in the studio or this one section of town where there’s a couple of clubs that we’d go to. I don’t think making a record is ever easy for us, because there is so much work involved, but this was a lot of fun, and everybody felt pretty good about it."

Buck maintains: “Every record is a process of reacting against the prior one. I was really happy with Pageant but none of us wanted to make that record again. I think we made the perfect record we could in that style and the new songs, because of the way we wrote them, wouldn’t have lent themselves to that big AOR thing...We always go into the studio with a set idea but it never comes out that way. It’s hard to write to order. I think this time we wanted a really big sound with lots of chaotic stuff on top. Big in a way that a Peter Gabriel record would be, but not as clean – full of weirdness, backwards stuff and noise.”

Stipe confesses: “I think my most artesian profundity comes when I have no idea and I’m just rambling. The best time to catch me is when I’ve had seven cups of coffee and I haven’t slept in three days. I just vomit and, if you’re there, you can catch the little chunks. I’ve read some interviews with myself and it’s like I could not believe that I had said these things, they are so amazing.”

Berry admits: “No one in the band ever thought we’d see this kind of success. We all realize how lucky we were and still are. There are a lot of bands that do what we do, and there are a lot of drummers who are better players than I am. But I don’t know; something sort of clicked for us. It’s a great feeling to know your music has had an impact on people… I’d like it to go on like this forever.”

'Document' ushered in a new phase for R.E.M. and ended up being their last album on the independent IRS record label. It went to forty-seven in Australia, twenty-eight in the UK, seventeen in New Zealand, twelve in Canada, and ten in the US; certified platinum in Canada and the US. It led to a contract with major label Warner Brothers and superstardom.

http://www.remhq.com/

'The One I Love' was their big breakthrough hit, going to eighty-four in Australia, eighty-one in Germany, sixty-nine in the Netherlands, sixteen in the UK, eleven in Canada, nine on the US pop chart, six in New Zealand, and number two on the US mainstream rock tracks chart.

This one goes out to the one I love

This one goes out to the one I've left behind

A simple prop to occupy my time

This one goes out to the one I love

Fire. (she's comin' down on her own, now)

The apocalyptic ambivalence of 'It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)' went to sixty-nine in the US, thirty-nine in UK, and number sixteen on the US mainstream rock tracks chart.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs. Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength, Ladder start to clatter with fear fight down height. Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site. Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped. Look at that low playing! Fine, then. Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign towers. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down. Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier. Renegade steer clear! A tournament, tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.