Green is the first album after REM moved from IRS to Warner Bros. The pressure was on with this album. They had to prove themselves to their new record company and had to deal with accusations of "selling out" after moving to a major label. Their main reason for moving was unhappiness with overseas distribution combined with a guarantee of full creative freedom, but they also got something between 8- 12 million out of it. Peter Buck used some of his new disposable income to purchase a mandolin and learned how to play it basically overnight. As a result some songs of the album are strange acoustic experiments, with mandolin as a main instrument. At the time, they mus have seemed like some fun little experiments, like King of Birds on Document, which had a dulcimer as a lead instrument. They are stuck between off beat bubble gum pop songs and Document style rock songs. I like to believe that REM played the bubble gum pop songs whenever someone from the record company came to visit the studio and the acoustic songs were secretly recorded in their back yard.

Green
The bubble gum pop songs dominate the album. They are all a bit off beat, Pop Song 89 is ironic, Get Up is about Mills liking to sleep in and Stand is a pop song on steroids. 11 is sweet though and makes excellent use of Mills as second vocals.
The Document style songs are, unsurprisingly, political or dark. There are themes of war (Orange Crush, World Leader Pretend) unrest (Turn You Inside Out) and environmentalism (I Remember California). The chorus of Orange Crush has a cool call and response going on between Mills and Stipe. Turn You Inside Out has amazing background / second vocals going on and a really nice lead guitar by Buck.
Last there are the acoustic experiments. As my history with REM started with Out of Time, they did not seem out of the ordinary to me, when I listened to Green the first time. I wonder what people thought when they heard Hairshirt or The Wrong Child (the lyrics are really strange here, too. Amplified childhood trauma). The stand out song, not only from the acoustic songs, but from the whole album is You Are The Everything.

Shout outs:

Mike Mills used to oversleep and turn up late to recording sessions. So the lyrics of Get Up are all about how life is hard and you want to just sleep, but have to go and do stuff. It's the most relatable REM song (or any song) ever. Life is unfair, I oversleep and come late to work all the time , no one ever wrote a song for me, all I get told is to correct the sign in times at the end of the month.

Stand is kind of amazing. It has this over the top organ / carnival riff, has not one, but two key changes and the lyrics are what would happen if aliens tried to write a pop song. It's an over the top pop song on a sugar rush.

You Are The Everything starts with the sound of insects chirping in the dark (hence my theory that they recorded all the weird acoustic songs secretly at night in their backyard) and the whole song is the music version of a warm summer night in the country side. Bucks mandolin and Mills accordion (is there an instrument he cannot play?) create a beautiful atmospheric soundscape and Stipes lyrics flow over them. Hands down, best song of the album.

Closing thoughts: Green is my least favourite album from the Warner era with Bill Berry, but this is the era, which includes Out of Time and Automatic for the People, so this does not say much. With the next album my history with REM starts. I think no one really knew where REM would go next. Would they go full on pop? Have they finally sold out completely? They had had some hits with the bubble gum pop songs, like Stand after all. Instead, they chose the experimental acoustic songs as their inspiration for Out of Time and somehow managed to become world famous with an album featuring a mandolin and a harpsichord.

Here is a very important list of the Doctors as bad ex-boyfriends:

1. Will abduct you AND THEN complain about you coming along.


2. Might be homeless, is definitely unemployed, very probably in trouble with authorities. A walking disaster you cannot let near anything or he will destroy it. You suspect it's all a clever ploy to avoid responsibility. It's working.


3. Is always too busy with some important research to do ANY of the housework. 100% expects you to bring him coffee when he is working.


4. His Tinder profile says "fun and adventurous" what it means is erratic and reckless. DO NOT let him "fix" your computer.


5. He thinks a quirky accessory is a good replacement for a personality. It isn't. Will patiently explain to you why he is right about .... everything.


6. Is either full of unearned confidence or suffering under crippling self-doubt. A drama queen, manages to make EVERYTHING about him


7. He always has an elaborate plan for everything, including your life. He will never tell you what it is though.


8. He is convinced he is in love with you, it is actually Nightingale Syndrome.


9. You thought him being dark and tortured by his past was exciting. Then you found out that his past included war crimes,


10. You get whiplash from the mood swings and a headache from the constant, uninterrupted talking.


11. Is always late. Sometimes years. Also you suspect he is married, but he refuses to give you a straight answer. He might be unsure of it himself.


12. Definitely going through a midlife crisis. It is not pretty.

Now that we are leaving the IRS era behind, I decided to make a playlist. It consists of the singles of each album and 2 songs of my choice from each album. REM always picked their own singles, the only time they let the record company interfere was with Up, when they were asked to have Daysleeper be the first single. I don't agree with some of their choices and some of the songs I chose are what I thought should have been singles instead, others are simply personal preference.

1. Gardening at Night (from Chronic Town, their debut EP and the epitome of their sound)


Murmur

2. Radio Free Europe (single)


3. Talk about the Passion (single)


4. 9-9 (a crazy song from Murmur, a bit wild for a single, so I get why they chose Radio Free Europe instead)


5. Perfect circle (a beautiful song written by Bill Berry and what should have been the second single from Murmur as Talk about the Passion is a bit boring)


Reckoning

6. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)(single, So. stands for south. "I'm sorry!!!!!")


7. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville (the other single, lots of people really like it and it was written, including lyrics, by Mike Mills and no disrespect, but why was this a single? It sounds like a song a 20 year old would write about his girlfriend leaving. Which it is.)


8. Harborcoat (This song exists and you guys made Don't Go Back To Rockville a single?!?!)


9. Time After Time (Annelise) (I don't know why so many song titles on this album have (). This song is amazingly beautiful and why it wasn't chosen over Rockville is beyond me.)


Fables of the Reconstruction

10. Cant Get There from Here (single. A crazy song with a crazy brass section and music video)


11. Driver 8 (second single, probably the most radio friendly songs on the album, so I get the choice)


12. Wendell Gee (third single)


13. Feeling Gravitys Pull (this song is amazing and should have been a single.)


14. Green Grow the Rushes (because it is beautiful! Stipe, Mills and Berry harmonizing )


Lifes Rich Pageant

15. Fall on Me (single and a showcase REM song)


16. Superman (second single. They chose cover song of a pretty unknown sunshine pop band, sung by Mills, who usually does background vocals as single. Either they were trolling the record company or Mills has some leverage over the others. After all, his song Don't Go Back To Rockville also was chosen to be a single for Reckoning.)


17. Begin the Begin (the single that should have been)


18. Hyena (one of the many good rock songs on the album. I like it more than Begin the Begin because of the crazy piano part, but Begin the Begin would have been the better single, so I put both)


19. Flowers of Guatemala (Stipe manages to be very poignant with basically 4-5 sentences)


Document

20. The One I Love (single, the song has two really strong hooks, so it makes sense to be a single, I find it a bit meh, though)


21. It's the End of the World as We Know It (second single and brilliant)


22. Finest Worksong (third single)


23. King of Birds (my favourite song from this album, the dulcimer is great and I love Stipes vocals in it)


24. Oddfellows Local 151 (this is a grunge as REM can get)

I had only listened to document a few times, so when I listened to it again now, I should have made a reaction video, because some things really surprised me. I might have judged it a bit unfairly, there are a lot of good things on this album (and one musical misstep, I'll talk about below).

The album is basically a political protest album. REM never wanted to be shoehorned as a political band, but this album consists of 4 explicitly political rock songs and all the other songs deal with imagery of unrest and fire. It is a fitting album to listen to in these times. It is also a good opportunity to talk about the politics of REM.

Not so much the political activism, they are pretty much the usual for a 90s liberal band, supporting the democratic party and then being disappointed when a capitalist president is not going to make the grand systematic changes they were hoping for. There is this really funny video on youtube from the time they and other liberal bands had organised the Tibetan Freedom Concert in '98 and then were told that the president they had helped get elected (Clinton) isn't even going to meet with them. To their credit, their activism never reached the embarrassing heights of U2, mostly involved supporting their local community of Athens, Georgia and they (as far as I know) never committed grand scale tax evasion.

More interesting than their political activism is their internal politics as a band and business. REM is basically a workers cooperative. They do not call themselves this, but they describe themselves as radically democratic, each member sharing equal in income, decision making power and songwriting credits. Their legal entity (a LLC), which takes care of licensing etc is also equally controlled by them and their attorney/manager, meaning that they were always in control of their own business affairs. Peter Buck seemed to have come up with the idea, based on some ultra leftist bands they new in Athens. It seemed to have been a successful model, in 30+ years they never had to fight to keep creative control over their brand, never had any internal legal fights with each other and the only time someone left the band was because he wanted to be a farmer. Well done comrades.

Document

This album is as hard rock and grunge REM can get. The lyrics are even more explicit politically, you can even understand the topic of the songs, which are anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, especially Welcome to the Occupation and Exhuming McCarthy. It is missing the diversity from Lifes Rich Pageant, but it is the most "rock" REM album of the IRS era and it is understandable that they got a lucrative record deal with Warner after this album (can you hear the cries of "sell out" in the distance?). Except for King of Birds (my favourite song from the album!) it is entirely up or mid tempo. This album includes The One I Love and It's the end of the World as we know it. Both firmly established in the public consciousness now, even though one is chronically misunderstood and the other one is unintelligible and the ultimate karaoke challenge.

It also has a few songs which divert so far from the usual REM jangly guitar and into power chords (!), that I had to check a few times, if youtube had autoplayed away from the album. Strange (a cover), Oddfellow Local 151 (which I really like), Lightnin' Hopkins and Fireplace. Fireplace gets ruined by a saxophone solo. A saxophone solo is never a good idea. I listened in abject horror, I need a word with whoever had the idea. REM does not have a lot of genuine musical missteps (the next is on Out of Time), but this is one.

Shout outs:

Strange is a cover, so maybe not too surprising it is far from REMs usual style. Buck is playing power chords and doing a solo! It is as if they exchanged the guitarist for one song. I was kind of glad when it ended with Micheal and Mike harmonizing at the "duh", "duh" in the end, just for the familiarity

End of the World as We Know It: this song has endured 30+ years for a reason. It is a perfect pop song. There are too many hooks to count, the lyrics are wild, the baseline is walking up and down, the drum roll at the start is perfect, Bucks guitar is spot on and I especially love the short call and response of: "right?", "right!" between Stipe and Mills and of course all the backing vocals (Mills is singing "time I had some time alone" over the chorus, which is eerily fitting these days)

The One I Love, the song is basically a short guitar riff and the chorus of "Fiiireeeeeeeee!". It was one of the first songs I learned on guitar (5 chords) because REM ruled my life when I was 14.

King of Birds, Buck plays a dulcimer on this song, a folk string instrument from the Appalachians (I think he can basically play anything with strings). This song has my favourite vocal part of all REM songs "awaaaayyyyyyy!"

Closing thoughts: This is the last album of the IRS era. I don't think it is an album every record collection needs, though I liked it more after listening to it again. I will be making an REM IRS era playlist before we move on to Warner Bros. REM signing with Warner Bros and having become more and more radio friendly worried the "REM is selling out" crowd to no end. Green did not erase these fears, nor did it eliminate the worries from Warner, that REM might be a bit too weird. It is one whiplash of an album.

I did not misspell the title, it is the original spelling of the album. They always write contractions without the apostrophe on their album and song titles, because, art, I guess. Now this is the first (of many) albums, which "is the one REM sold out with". I'm firmly on team "REM never sold out", but as I don't want to be commenting on hairstyles each post (yes, there will be more of that, once we get to Monster) and my music knowledge is limited, we'll be looking into the claim of selling out today.
For Lifes Rich Pageant, the accusations of "selling out" is due to changes in musical style and production. REM moved from folky post-punk to more straightforward rock, with the most obvious change being Buck moving from his fast arpeggiated guitar to shorter riffs. The production is cleaner, instead of all the instruments and vocals being mixed into one interwoven sound, Stipes vocals are firmly in the foreground and each instrument can be heard clearly. The result is that the album is a lot more accessible than the previous ones were and much more radio friendly (in theory, more about this later). And to some people making music more people want to listen to = selling out. But let's take a closer look:

Lifes Rich Pageant
This album rocks, it has 5 really good rock songs, Begin the Begin, These Days, Hyena (with some crazy piano, I'm guessing by Mills), I Believe (with awesome banjo playing by Buck) and Just a Touch, which they kindly added to have a good comparison to their old style, as it is an older song (written around Reckoning) and mixed the old way (everything squashed together, to use professional music jargon). It also still has appropriate REM weirdness (selling out my ass) with a weird samba? thing and distorted vocals in Underneath the Bunker, strange folksiness in Swan, Swan Humingbird and Superman, which will get a shout out. The lyrics, while still obscure, are clearly political, with Fall on Me and The Flowers of Guatemala using very few words to very effectively address pollution and US involvement in counter-insurgent genocide in Guatemala.

Shout outs

I tried to google if Mills is playing the piano parts in Hyena and Just a Touch (live he is always playing bass and the piano is missing) because they are wild

This is the first album where Mills gets to sing lead, on Superman, a cover from the relatively unknown sunshine pop band The Clique from 1969. I think at this point REM was trolling the record company, choosing this song (which sounds very 1970s) as a single, over all the radio friendly rock songs on the album

Fall on Me, the other single, makes more sense, it is very REM, jangle guitar, melodic bass and vocal harmonies. Thanks to the cleaner production you can even hear Berry in the chorus singing "It's gonna fall". Which is cool, because Bill Berry is cool.

Flowers of Guatemala is a song you have to listen to. The lyrics are a masterpiece.

Closing thoughts: I own this album and Murmur and I have always preferred it over Murmur. This is the most consistently good album of IRS area, with Fables of the Reconstruction having higher highs. These two I would recommend, though I also like Reckoning and Murmur. My least favourite album from the IRS area is Document and up next. It is the album where they started working with Scott Litt as a producer, who had an immense influence on the REM sound of the 90s.