Jim Connelly

Certain Songs #1765: R.E.M. – “Mine Smell Like Honey”

March 3, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Collapse Into Now
Year: 2011

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File Under Deeper

A few years ago, I used to be worried that I was perhaps getting too old — but not dignified! — to make good old-fashioned dick jokes. Luckily, that was when The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report were on, and both shows — especially Stewart’s — were rife with dick jokes.

And since they’re both around my age, I figured that meant it was OK for me to do so, as well. As, clearly, did Michael Stipe — who participated in a running joke on The Colbert Report that had him just sitting on a shelf waiting to be acknowledged by Stephen — because that’s clearly at least partially the impetus for the abysmally-titled “Mine Smell Like Honey,” another highlight from Collapse Into Now.

Certain Songs #1764: R.E.M. – “It Happened Today”

March 2, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Collapse Into Now
Year: 2011

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File Under Hooray

After the tour to support Accelerate, Michael Stipe decided that he didn’t want to tour anymore, their second WB contract was ending, Peter Buck suggested that maybe they break up, Mike Mills agreed, and so R.E.M. went into the studio to make one last last album, essentially free to do whatever they wanted.

So, naturally, they made an R.E.M. album, pulling out pretty much all of their bag of tricks: jangly guitars, gorgeous harmonies, dumbass rockers, piano-driven ballads, special guest vocals, swirly experimentation. That was 2011’s Collapse Into Now, as fine of a purposely final album as you’re ever going to find.

Certain Songs #1763: R.E.M. – “Horse to Water”

February 29, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Accelerate
Year: 2008

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File Under Easy

For Accelerate, R.E.M. had changed producers yet again, replacing Pat McCarthy, who’d come aboard during Up, with Jacknife Lee, an Irish producer who’d worked with artists like Snow Patrol, Bloc Party and U2. And indeed, it was the Edge who recommended Lee, who helped R.E.M. the album short, sharp and focused as fuck. It had been two decades since they’d worked so fast.

And so my favorite song on Accelerate was the penultimate track, “Horse to Water,” which starts off with a massive Bill Reiflin drumbeat and Michael Stipe singing over clanking guitar noises.

Certain Songs #1762: R.E.M. – “Supernatural Superserious”

February 28, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Accelerate
Year: 2008

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File Under Humiliation

One of the cool things about Accelerate was after years of rejecting “sounding like R.E.M.” they fully embraced it. And why not? They’d created a wonderful, unique sound, and by 2008, it wasn’t like a whole lot of other bands were using it all that much.

That said, it sounded so much like an R.E.M. song that I didn’t trust it all that much at first. It’s only been over the years that I’ve come to appreciate how great it truly is.

Certain Songs #1761: R.E.M. – “Living Well is The Best Revenge”

February 27, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Accelerate
Year: 2008

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File Under Apostles

One of my all time favorite critical one-liners is Rob Sheffield’s quip that Oasis’ Be Here Now was a concept album about long all the songs were. And so while I’m temped to joke that Accelerate was a concept album about how fast all of the songs were, it’s really the album where they finally got over Bill Berry leaving the band.

Having started out defining themselves as a rock ‘n’ roll band, a state of affairs under which you often live and die based upon your drummer, they spent the decade after Berry left kind of avoiding just rocking the fuck out. At least on the studio albums. To diminishing results. And so with drummer Bill Reiflin and second guitarist (and more) Scott McCaughey onboard as near-equals, they decided to rock the fuck out.

Certain Songs #1760: R.E.M. – “1,000,000 (Dublin, 2007)”

February 26, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Live At The Olympia In Dublin 39 Songs
Year: 2007

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File Under Deadlier

Not counting the bonus discs that came with the 25th anniversary editions of Murmur and Reckoning, both of which reclaimed key bootlegs — and not counting video-only releases — R.E.M. put out only two live albums in their existence.

Both were recorded in Dublin, Ireland, and both had a two-year gap between recording and release. And that’s pretty much where the similarities end. In fact, I don’t even think they share any songs.

The first album, simply titled R.E.M. Live, was recorded in 2005, on the Around The Sun tour, and is just. too. big, the aural equivalent of seeing them at the butt end of a giant stadium, and maybe if I hadn’t been digging various bootlegs — and it relied less on Around The Sun songs — I might have enjoyed it. But when it came out in 2007, I played it a couple of times and went back to the boots.

Certain Songs #1759: R.E.M. – “Leaving New York”

February 25, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Around The Sun
Year: 2004

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File Under Proud

I’ve often wondered about whether or not I would have disliked Around The Sun as much as I did had it been made by another band. And while each new record by an old favorite always brings that kind of challenge — how do you balance your history with the artist against your reaction to their new music? — my gut is there is are no circumstances under which I would have liked it, as the only songs that ever jumped out at me were the “Aftermath,” “Around The Sun” and the single, “Leaving New York.”

That said, I’m awful glad that Around The Sun, Reveal, and R.E.M. Live all exist, the turn of the century, proof positive that even the greatest bands can stumble for awhile, and those records threw the awesomeness of their first two decades into sharp relief and made their late-career renaissance that much sweeter.

Certain Songs #1758: R.E.M. – “Bad Day”

February 24, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003
Year: 2003

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File Under Broadcast

Way back in the previous decade, I already discussed how I found the original demo version of “Bad Day (PSA)” in a record store in London back in 1992, and how it became one of my favorite R.E.M. songs.

So you can imagine my thrill when they announced that they were going to issue it as a bonus track on their first Warner Bros best-of, In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003, though I don’t think I knew that they were going to rework it into more of a political screed.

Certain Songs #1757: R.E.M. – “Walk Unafraid (Köln, Germany 05-12-2001)”

February 23, 2020 by Jim Connelly

TV Broadcast, 2001

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File Under Masquerade

On Up, “Walk Unafraid” was a low-key bag of feedbacky guitars and bouncy electronics that even when it kicked into gear, kicked into a low gear at best. It was still one of my favorite songs on the album because of the melody as well as the sentiment, but it wasn’t until they had to arrange it in a live setting that it really took off.

And while there’s a pretty decent version on the otherwise moribund R.E.M. Live, the version that totally kills me was from a free show they did in Köln, Germany on May 12, 2001, which was broadcast live on MTV Europe, and almost instantly found its way into my hands.

Certain Songs #1756: R.E.M. – “Imitation of Life”

February 21, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Reveal
Year: 2001

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File Under Sugarcane

It’s probably a bad sign that “Imitation of Life” almost didn’t make it on to Reveal: it wasn’t until the mixing stage that they realized they needed an uptempo song to offset all of the slower material on the record.

And while it was much-lauded because you could actually hear some Peter Buck trademark jangly guitar, especially on the chorus, “Imitation of Life” was still very much a post-Up song, and in fact the take that they ended up using didn’t even have real drums on it, but a drum machine.