Rem Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage Rar
Elis Riebow
R.E.M. spent the majority of their 31-year career putting out top-quality albums, while a chunk of their audience wished they would just break up already. Though some of this was a bit reactionary and a by-product of their roots in the nascent indie rock scene of the 1980s, it was mainly a consequence of one of the band's most admirable qualities-- a restless desire to reinvent themselves with each record and create a discography in which each new entry had a distinct character. This much was clear by 1984: R.E.M. could have mined indefinitely the fascinating blend of murky atmosphere and crystal clear chiming guitar parts on their debut, Murmur-- lord knows many other bands of the era tried-- but they took a left turn into the sunnier, more lyrically direct Reckoning and kept throwing curveballs at their audience from that point onward.
This tendency yielded a rich body of work spanning 15 studio albums, but the creative shifts-- however organic they may seem in context-- gave listeners valid reasons to jump ship along the way. It makes just as much sense to enjoy all their records as it does for someone who favors Peter Buck's early jangle-centric guitar style to recoil at his flamboyantly distorted tone on Monster, or for fans of their immensely popular chamber pop records Out of Time and Automatic for the People to shrug off the skewed, highly politicized arena rock of their late 80s records. This isn't even factoring in the uneven albums they made following the departure of original drummer and songwriter Bill Berry, which spanned from the tentative lounge pop of Up to the often dreary melodrama of Around the Sun and the "back to basics" rock of Accelerate.
With this in mind, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011-- the band's first career-spanning anthology-- does an exceptional job of presenting this body of work as a chronological survey that neatly summarizes their major themes and artistic tangents while being highly listenable. The song selection is exceptional-- a few relatively minor singles didn't make the cut, but every major hit is here, presented alongside crucial album tracks such as "Country Feedback", "Begin the Begin", and "Life and How to Live It". The quality of the material up through at least the middle of the second disc is unimpeachable; the sheer concentration of classic tunes makes a strong case for the band ranking among the 20th century's greatest songwriting partnerships. The set handles the band's leaner years with grace and minimal revisionism, though the electronic and ambient textures of Up are sidelined in favor of that album's delicate Beach Boys homage "At My Most Beautiful". A few wild card selections from their more recent records, such as Accelerate's "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" and "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" from Collapse Into Now, shine in this context.
Though R.E.M.'s dissolution is not necessarily a cause for celebration, having a clearly defined end point makes it much easier to grasp the scope of their achievements. Part of a collective anxiety about R.E.M.'s ongoing existence up until this year was based in a desire on the part of the audience to impose a manageable narrative on their career. Now that they have disbanded, it's much easier to understand the trajectory of their post-Berry output in particular: Basically, they spent some time in the 2000s trying out new sounds and ways of working, but they eventually reconnected with their rock'n'roll roots before wrapping up their career with Collapse Into Now, a set of songs that revisited their creative strengths. Those records are never going to as beloved as their first 10 brilliant and remarkably consistent albums with Berry, but Part Lies makes a good case that their later period has value too, and that the group had raised the bar so high for themselves that merely being very good could be interpreted as a failure.
The band compiled the contents themselves, attempting to capture different periods of their songwriting. Vocalist Michael Stipe has explained that the inspiration for his approach to compiling the songs was the David Bowie compilation Changesonebowie.[6] The title of the album comes from a quip that guitarist Peter Buck made about the band during an interview in 1988, "R.E.M is part lies, part heart, part truth and part garbage."[7]
R.E.M.'s Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage 1982-2011 (Warner Bros. 529088-2) marks the fourth compilation by the Athens band in my collection. As a young teen, I fell in love with their melodic, confident pop/rock with In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 - but that was only part of the picture. The rest would be filled in by the 2006 release of And I Feel Fine...The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987, which captured the quartet at what may be their creative peak. (The third compilation was 1988's Eponymous, picked up used to get the three alternate or rare tracks I didn't already have.)
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Here we are with the UP reissue and honestly, this is where the band lost the majority of fans. In my original set of posts, the revisit was very positive. The more I dove into the album lyrically and musically, the more I realized the songs were staying true to the R.E.M. process. I came away impressed with the songs and with the new three piece overall. This remaster doesn't really change that assessment and I had some of the same thoughts, particularly that the songs are all individually solid. In retrospect, I think an intro and a wrap up would have been interesting with the original posts--what are my thoughts going in and coming out--because, going in I wasn't looking forward to it!
Musically, forget the electronica, these basslines are bananas! They ALL skew to the low bass which is anti-Mills like. The bass for R.E.M. in the past always needed to walk and create in order to balance the arpeggiated guitar. They sustain uncomfortably and sometimes sound out of tune here, which they might be as it's hard to tune to electronica--it could also be on purpose to create an unease--I encourage you to listen again and pay attention to what the bass is doing because it made me tense for the entire album. As I said before, they don't want you to feel comfortable and since Mills has said this in general about the new direction UP was taking (particularly in relation to Airportman leading off) it should not be surprising. As an example, a past R.E.M. arrangement of Daysleeper probably has the bass play something akin to the slide guitar part, but here it kind of just creates a heavy and brooding layer.
The night Laura and I met - July 20, 1985 - we were talking about music at the old Ritz (11th St. ?). Fables had been out for a month or two and I mentioned them in relation to college radio and what music I liked and was interested in. (I believe L disagrees with me on this conversation, but) I mentioned REM and she said, "Don't they have a single out?" (Meaning the song Can't Get There From Here). Apparently, I made some type of unconscious sour face at the very idea of referring to a great non-commercial band like REM as "having a single out". Luckily, that involuntary twitch was not held against me (very long, if at all), as things continued to go well during the evening.
Two nights later, I brought pizza and Molsons to the apartment L was house-sitting at and she gushed about Joni, I gushed about Peter Buck, we both gushed about Keith - and here we are.
I made some type of unconscious sour face at the very idea of referring to a great non-commercial band like REM as "having a single out".
The only access to music I had where I was apartment-sitting was MTV! :)
Two nights later, I brought pizza and Molsons to the apartment L was house-sitting at and she gushed about Joni, I gushed about Peter Buck, we both gushed about Keith
Oh my, I'm teary-eyed just thinking about it. One of the best nights of my life.
Big corporations raking in record profits. The media shouting, "inflation"...... "looming recession". Hmmm, let's look at the timing of this... before the midterms. Unfortunately, a vast number of voters place blame on the president and current administration for any economic downturns. And media messaging supports this (even liberal media). Which party do corporations and deep pocket executives generally want in power?!?! Ahh, therein lies an incentive for big corporations to continue to raise prices. They would LOVE to see the legislators back in power who will continue to give them tax breaks and open wider loopholes. Voters who feel this crunch will blame those currently in power. Doesn't the Fed see this?? Is their only course of action to raise interest rates?? Do they even see the big picture; a major CAUSE of the inflation?? (Me? NOT an economist, and I realize I've addressed one cause-effect. But, c'mon folks. Let's see this manipulation for what it is.)
To this end, Ernst volunteered with the Freikorps Sauerland, a military unit independent from but supportive of the German army. Its battalions, made up largely of disabled war vets and ill-trained teenagers like Ernst, dressed in old German army uniforms. Wehrmacht and SS officers trained the recruits on Sunday mornings. Yet much of the Freikorps aggression was ultimately taken out not on the Allies, but on fellow Germans, particularly deserters and after-bombing looters.
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