Perfect Circle: The Story of R.E.M. by Tony Fletcher

Author:Tony Fletcher [Fletcher, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-853-9
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Published: 2018-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

* Stipe’s was the haunting ‘I’ll Give You My Skin’ with The Indigo Girls; River’s was an Aleka’s Attic song.

* The recording of ‘Kenneth’, its slow-down almost imperceptible, was kept.

* Courtney Love began doing likewise around the same time; the two rock figureheads were influencing each other heavily. They were also demonstrating that you could do the red carpet thing on national TV and still be at one with your audience.

Eighteen

Short of a military operation, there is little in the world to rival the rock’n’roll juggernaut for effective long-term planning, day-to-day precision, expensive weaponry and sheer might of force. As with a military operation, the rock’n’roll juggernaut leaves casualties along the way, and as with a war, its goal is often difficult to define. It can be about conquest, vanquishment, defence, spoils, cultural or spiritual superiority – and sometimes, it breaks out from the simple need to prove something. In 1994, for the first time in their career, R.E.M. became that rock’n’roll juggernaut with something to prove. And it was quite a sight to behold.

R.E.M. reintroduced themselves to the global record-buying public in the last four months of 1994 with the single and video for ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?’, which would also be Monster’s opening cut. From its fuzzy opening guitar chords through its media-crazed lyrics, funky-assed bass, tight-fit harmonies, four-to-the-floor beat and soaring, backward-sounding guitar solo, it presented the band almost verbatim to their promise of an upbeat, loud and trashy return.

The video was even truer to type. Directed by Peter Care (‘Drive’, ‘Man On The Moon’), it introduced the members hesitantly, as if softening up the viewing audience for the shock of seeing them in a pure performance situation. Stipe was initially shown only from the neck down, in a T-shirt with single star (suggesting both fame and socialism); Mills likewise, in spangled flared trousers and then jacket to boot (suggesting rock’n’roll stardom). When finally seen up top, Stipe was bald and animated; Mills was sporting blown-out curls. Buck and Berry, reassuringly, seemed the same as they ever were, the former plugged into a Vox AC-30, the latter on a Pearl kit. It was a back to basics – but in vivid colours.

‘Kenneth’ pushed all the right buttons for audience approval, but nobody was heard to declare it the greatest single in the R.E.M. catalogue. Then again, neither had ‘Orange Crush’ been, nor ‘Drive’. The first cannonball fired from an R.E.M. album was often just a warning shot. Proof of what might follow along the Monster single sequencing line came the week of the single’s early September release when ‘Everybody Hurts’ walked off with five MTV Video Awards. The clip had been shot 18 months earlier, the song recorded over two years previously; R.E.M. singles were proving to survive way beyond the ephemeral fads of the pop marketplace. In the meantime, ‘Kenneth’ blasted straight into the UK top 10; in the States, it rose quickly up the Hot 100.

From September through to November, the R.E.M./Warner Brothers juggernaut gave a textbook lesson in how to handle the media.

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