All Music Guide
REM began their Warner contract in 1988 as the biggest band to emerge from the collegeradio fueled American underground. Fifteen years later, they released In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 19882003, the first overview of their long stint at Warner records. During that decade and a half, REM had a turbulent journey. At the outset, their legend and influence as one the key if not the key bands of the American underground was firmly in place, but their success kept growing, culiminating in a breakthrough to international stardom in 1991 thanks to "Losing My Religion" and Out of Time. For a few years there, they were one of the biggest bands in the world, standing as role models and godfathers for the altrock explosion of the '90s ; even as grunge ruled the US and UK, REM were having its biggest hits with the brooding Automatic for the People (1992) and the guitarheavy return to rock, Monster (1994). Then, midway through the decade, the road got a little bumpy. The Monster tour was plagued wi...th problems, most noteworthy being drummer Bill Berry's onstage aneurysm in 1995. He left the band the next year, not long after the band parted ways with Jefferson Holt, their longtime manager who was immortalized in their 1984 song, "Little America." Singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and Mike Mills struggled to find their footing as a trio, as they tackled more ambitious projects which found an ever more selective audience. Truth be told, this transition started on the final Berry album, 1996's New Adventures In HiFi, which found REM expanded their sonic template and to acclaim from critics and hardcore fans, even if they started to see the audience they won over the previous decade start to shrink. All this means is that the Warner era for REM doesn't represent one particular phase of their career during their time at Warner, they went through two phases, with the first half being the culmination of their rise and the second being their awkward return to cult status. This divide is clear and fairly easy to pinpoint. In his trackbytrack liner notes (neatly mirroring his notes for the 1987 rarities comp, Dead Letter Office), Buck claims that dividing line is pre and post"Losing My Religion," which is true at least as far as stardom goes, but it could be argued that the classic period ended with Automatic, since that followup to Out of Time that REM could not only live with the fame, but flourish within it. Everything that followed Automatic came from a different narrative and derived from a different starting point, one that was removed from the janglepop that lay at the heart of their first 10 years as recording artists. Related, yes, but quite different more selfconscious, heavily produced and deliberate, occasionally reaping great results but just as often sounding labored. It was a great contrast to early REM, where the music seemed to flow naturally and easily. Though it has no early IRS material, In Time paints this contrast effectively, not only through the Green and Automatic material, but even through more recent material the new song "Bad Day" and the 2001 revamp of "All The Right Friends" (contrary to Buck's claim in the liners that the band did cut this for IRS; it even appeared as a bonus track to a European reissue of Dead Letter Office). Both are built on a swirling, jangling folkrock guitar line, propulsive rhythms, intertwined vocal harmonies and urgent vocals from Stipe. In other words, they sound like classic REM, and they should they date from the '80s and bear cowriting credits with Berry. Unfortunately, they sound much fresher than the other new song, the overly fussy "Animal," which is the problem with In Time in a nutshell: the two phases of REM's career don't sit well together, but here, they're given close to equal space. REM the quartet does get more time than REM the trio, and the latter did produce some really nice tracks, which are chronicled here: "The Great Beyond" is a minor masterpiece, "All the Way to Reno" is the best of their fauxlounge phase, "Imitation of Life" and "Daysleeper" are good classicist REM. Still, the immaculate production of Pat McCarthy's work with Buck, Mills and Stipe has a denser, heavier, laborious feel than Scott Litt's work with Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe, and the two not only don't fit together, the oddity of the pairing points out that there are a number of missing singles a full seventeen, if international releases and radioonly hits are counted (and, given the nature of '90s rock, they do count). And these aren't minor songs, either, they're modernrock radio staples like "Pop Song 89," "Texarkana," "Drive," "Ignoreland," "Bang and Blame," "Strange Currencies," "Crush with Eyeliner," "Bittersweet Me" and "Shiny Happy People," the latter of which is roundly hated by the band, yet nevertheless should be on a hits compilation for the sake of completeness. Of course, not all the songs could fit on a mere 18track compilation and if they went for a doubledisc set, they'd be better off with a careerspanning set but the song selection leaves something to be desired, even if it does present a reasonably accurate portrait of REM the adultalternative pop band and it certainly does point out the inconsistencies of the band's Warner work. So, in that sense, In Time is an effective collection, but it also remains a little disappointing since it not only could have been done better, but by its very nature, this compilation can't help but point out the creative cul de sac REM found themselves in at the end of their Warner career. It's not the fate that anyone would have predicted in 1988.[In Time was also released as a doubledisc limited edition, encased in a seethrough plastic slipcase and containing a poster of the trio, plus an extended booklet containing Peter Buck's trackbytrack notes for the 15track collection of Bsides, compilation tracks, rarities and oddities.Longtime fans should not see this as Dead Letter Office, Vol. 2. For one thing, by Monster, REM had run out of interesting nonLP rarities and started releasing an endless series of live versions as Bsides. Before that, a lot of the Bsides were instrumentals, not fullfledged songs. Those fullfledged songs were saved for various artists compilation albums and, of those, there are two brilliant songs "Fretless" and "It's A Free World Baby," two Out of Time outtakes that Buck admits should have been on the album. Apart from that, there's only one more real nonLP song of note here, and that's the New Adventures outtake "Revolution," which is of an equal quality to the album. After these three songs, there are some good Bsides that are nevertheless aren't much more than Bsides the acoustic version of "Pop Song 89," the rushed spokenword lark "Chance (Dub)," William S. Burroughs singing "Star Me Kitten," a good alternate version of "Leave," worthy live versions of "Turn You Sinde Out" and "Country Feedback." Of course, it's hard not to notice that there are roughly 25 Bsides and compilation tracks that could have made the cut, and while none of them are consequential, longtime fans may wonder why such enjoyable instrumental throwaways like "Memphis Train Blues" were left behind, or why there's a seeming aversion to any of the good cover versions the band did during the '90s (including Syd Barrett's "Dark Globe," Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner," Iggy Pop's "Funtime" and Richard Thompson's "Wall of Death"). Cuts like these may be missed, but this bonus disc is still a worthy way to get most of the nonLP highlights REM released during the Warner years, particularly because "Fretless" and "It's a Free World Baby" are so good. Finally, Initial pressings of in Time carried a misprint on its spine that billed the collection as the best of 19982003, which could be seen as a revealing Freudian slip, in a way.] - Stephen Thomas Erlewine , All Music Guide Read more Less
