Reveal

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.

Certain Songs #1755: R.E.M. – “The Lifting”

February 20, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Reveal
Year: 2001

. . .

File Under Never

Reveal came out during a particularly difficult period in my life, a phrase I’ve never written about any other R.E.M. album. Oh, wait, that was pretty much most of them in the 80s and early 90s. In this particular case, it was during one of the three major unemployment phases I’ve had in my life, one where at the end of it, I found myself in a place where I’d never thought I’d live: Los Angeles.