Fact #165749
When:
Short story:
The album Murmur by R.E.M.enters the Billboard chart in the USA where it will enjoy a 30-week stay, and peak at No36.
Full article:
Peter Buck : We thought we were so smart when we made it, but we were actually really stupid. We didn't have a clue.
Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) : I think this was the album that created alternative music for this generation. The analogy to The Velvet Underground is somewhat appropriate, too, in that they created 50,000 guitar bands after them. America was inundated with jangly R.E.M.-type bands. The record sounds so simple but so different. It has a murky southern soul, a real spookiness about it. You can't understand what he's (Stipe) singing and that's definitely something I can relate to. I'm sick of having people insinuate all this bullshit about what I'm supposed to be singing because they can't understand.
Guy Garvie (vocalist, Elbow) : I first heard Murmur when I was about 17. I lived in Bury at the time and my best mates were John, Bob and Nick. The four of us were inseparable, and we used to spend all our time driving round in John's mum's car. It was a white Peugeot 309 that we used to call the Phantom 309 after the Tom Waits song. When we weren't squabbling or trying to score week, we'd drive around stoned listening to R.E.M.We had Green, Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, but it was Murmur that we bonded over. We had it on cassette and we used to plat it to death.
Like most R.E.M.records, it sounds upbeat and optimistic on the surface, but when you listen closely you realise the melodies are actually quite moody and melancholic. I have most of the albums R.E.M.have put out since, but there's an edginess and rawness to Murmur which is lacking on the others. It might not sound as slick or well produced as Up or Automatic For The People, but there's a hunger and sincerity running through it that makes it their best album.
I listened to it again last night and, bizarrely, I think it sounds better now (2005) than it did in the 80's. The drums sounds really tight and uptempo and the production is really raw and stripped down. I could talk about it for hours, but the thing I love most about Murmur is that it sounds like a bunch of old friends having fun. All the instruments are given space to breathe and, every now and then, old Stipey drops in one if his Elvis warbles. It's just magic.
(Source : not known)
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Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) : I think this was the album that created alternative music for this generation. The analogy to The Velvet Underground is somewhat appropriate, too, in that they created 50,000 guitar bands after them. America was inundated with jangly R.E.M.-type bands. The record sounds so simple but so different. It has a murky southern soul, a real spookiness about it. You can't understand what he's (Stipe) singing and that's definitely something I can relate to. I'm sick of having people insinuate all this bullshit about what I'm supposed to be singing because they can't understand.
Guy Garvie (vocalist, Elbow) : I first heard Murmur when I was about 17. I lived in Bury at the time and my best mates were John, Bob and Nick. The four of us were inseparable, and we used to spend all our time driving round in John's mum's car. It was a white Peugeot 309 that we used to call the Phantom 309 after the Tom Waits song. When we weren't squabbling or trying to score week, we'd drive around stoned listening to R.E.M.We had Green, Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, but it was Murmur that we bonded over. We had it on cassette and we used to plat it to death.
Like most R.E.M.records, it sounds upbeat and optimistic on the surface, but when you listen closely you realise the melodies are actually quite moody and melancholic. I have most of the albums R.E.M.have put out since, but there's an edginess and rawness to Murmur which is lacking on the others. It might not sound as slick or well produced as Up or Automatic For The People, but there's a hunger and sincerity running through it that makes it their best album.
I listened to it again last night and, bizarrely, I think it sounds better now (2005) than it did in the 80's. The drums sounds really tight and uptempo and the production is really raw and stripped down. I could talk about it for hours, but the thing I love most about Murmur is that it sounds like a bunch of old friends having fun. All the instruments are given space to breathe and, every now and then, old Stipey drops in one if his Elvis warbles. It's just magic.
(Source : not known)