Although
bands like Radiohead and Coldplay dominate the category known as
“college rock” today, you could make an argument that R.E.M. was the
most popular group of this small but important subgenre of alternative
rock radio. To see where the trends in popular music are heading, you
need look no further than the campuses of American institutions of
higher education. For a span of well over 10 years, R.E.M. were
critical darlings and sat in the CD jukeboxes of sensitive Gen X’ers
alongside their Cure, Morrissey and Sonic Youth discs.
Now, several years past the band’s commercial and creative peak,
R.E.M.’s 1992 album Automatic for the People has been remixed
beautifully into surround by Elliot Scheiner and has been released as a
DVD-Audio disc by Warner Music Group and Rhino Entertainment Company.
I’ve never been firmly onboard the R.E.M. bandwagon, but I have
certainly appreciated the talented musicianship and songwriting that
this Georgia quartet possesses. This disc has a myriad of different
sound formats, including 48kHz/24-bit surround and stereo for DVD-Audio
players, as well as Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround for DVD-Video
players, although it lacks a MLP
(Meridian Lossless Packing) mix that many proponents of the DVD-Audio format prefer.
After several spins of this heavily acoustic pop rock disc, I found
that there weren’t as many big vocal hooks to sink my teeth into as I
am accustomed to on R.E.M albums, the most well known being Out of
Time. The biggest hit on Automatic for the People is the song “Man On
The Moon,” benefits greatly in surround with its chorus, “If you
believe they put a man on the moon/If you believe there’s nothing up
his sleeve, then nothing is cool.” It’s just plain infectious as the
backing vocal line “Maaann on the mooooon” radiates from behind your
head. These vocals are placed perfectly on the best track on the album.
Other hits on Automatic for the People that even the most casual R.E.M.
fan will recognize immediately are “Drive,” with its uneven, start and
stop lyrical lines and the song “Everybody Hurts” with its lullaby type
melody. On “Hurts,” the rear channels feature some of the most
prominent placement of backing vocals I have ever heard in a surround
recording since any of the tracks on Boys II Men’s II on DTS 5.1 CD. As
the song moves into its more rock-oriented middle section, the strings
take the place of the backing vocals and percussion, then switches back
to the original placements when the song resumes it soft verses.
Scheiner was not afraid to make heavy use of the rear channels
throughout the album, but not every song relies on them. The piano and
vocal-based tune “Nightswimming” rarely stirred the speakers to the
left and right behind my head, other than with a few strings and a
clarinet line that came primarily from the rear right channel. This
down-temp song would be right at home in an after-hours piano lounge.
Interestingly, a band that has historically advocated free speech and
many other civil rights issues had the title of their somber tune “F**k
Me Kitten” censored on the back of the disc’s packaging, with the track
being called “Star Me Kitten.” This short track features only finger
snaps and cymbals as percussion and a sparse guitar line that mirrors
the vocals in the rear channels. It’s kind of a throwaway song that has
a controversial title but doesn’t leave much of a mark otherwise.
One big miss on the album is the instrumental track “New Orleans
Instrumental No. 1” that sounds like nothing but electronic keyboard
noodling combined with guitar volume swells and a string bass. They
should leave the instrumentals up to progressive rock bands and keep
the focus on writing clever pop songs with deep lyrics.
As the disc plays, song lyrics are available for the listener if the
television or monitor is left on, but unlike many DVD-Audio discs I
have heard and seen, the lyrics do not automatically update as the song
moves on to the next page. It’s a tad annoying to follow along with the
words onscreen and be forced to press “next” if you want to see the
next page of lyrics. One might assume “next” means next track but this
is not the case, making the navigation confusing while listening to the
music. The disc’s main menus, on the other hand, are very easy to
navigate. Included with the disc is a promotional video clip that
features the band discussing how the album was made and where the
inspiration for the album’s title came from. After getting a little
insight into the songs from the band members, going back to listen to
the album becomes a little like a scavenger hunt, trying to hear some
of the interesting tidbits featured in the documentary.
The one resounding impression that I was left with after seeing the
documentary was that Michael Stipe thinks he’s too good to do an
interview. Everyone else in the band heaps praise on Stipe’s vocal
performances and lyric writing but we never hear from Stipe himself.
Fans of R.E.M. will surely need to have this new version of the disc.
There are enough familiar songs for even a casual listener to use and
the clean recording and mix by Elliot Scheiner also make the disc a
good demo for explaining how surround sound works to your friends who
do not understand it yet. I don’t fully understand the appeal of R.E.M.
as a band, but hearing them in this new aural format on DVD-Audio has
helped shed some more light on why those college kids used to love them
so much.
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