R.E.M.
Murmur (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
(Universal/I.R.S., 2008)

When it comes to music, nostalgia seems silly. There’s never a lack of compelling music and there never will be, even if one has to look outside of mainstream media outlets to find it. Listening to R.E.M.’s 1983 debut LP, Murmur, however, it’s hard not to feel like you’re hearing something that, for various reasons, will never happen again.

No need to argue for its greatness—Murmur is, without question, one of the most vital, exciting  even if R.E.M. hypothetically never recorded another great album (they did, in fact, make several more terrific ones, and still crank out great singles today), it would be a forever name-dropped landmark LP anyway. Everything clicks: Michael Stipe’s enigmatic, poetic inflection, Peter Buck’s jangly guitar-playing, Mike Mill’s melodic bass and backing vocals, and Bill Berry’s drummerly knack for setting the perfect group dynamic with each song, whether excitedly leading the way alongside Mills’ bass guitar into “Laughing” or quietly tapping and brushing the group along through the haunting, piano-led “Perfect Circle.” It is also their best-ever set of songs—a trait acknowledged in the preparation of this 25th anniversary “deluxe edition” of the record, in that it presents the remastered original album on its own disc, frill-free as it ought to be.

The remaster sounds great, and alone makes this re-release a worthy endeavor—the peculiar sonic details pop out with a new clarity, re-affirming the brilliance of the record’s spooky, subterranean production. Murmur has aged much better than the group’s other ’80s and early ’90s recordings—in the fold-out liner notes, producer Mitch Easter writes that neither he nor co-producer Don Dixon were “concerned with Today’s Hot Sounds, and neither was the band. Which proved to be a useful stance; Murmur is distinctively free of early 1980s audio kitsch!” Easter’s essay, along with the others collected in the package (written by Easter, Dixon, cover artist Don Grasso, Michael Plen from I.R.S. Records, etc.), give a better picture of what it was like to be there—whether in the studio or at a college radio station—when Murmur emerged. Fun fact gleaned from these notes: Apparently the thunder-crash sound on “We Walk” is the slowed-down sound of pool balls colliding!

It is, however, the bonus material that fans and existing album owners will naturally wonder about. The set comes with one bonus disc, featuring an entire live show the band played in Toronto in July 1983, three months after the record was originally released. The set is a fascinating counterpoint to the record: The album’s most rousing pop cuts (“Catapult”, “Sitting Still”, “Radio Free Europe”) are delivered with a bright cheer that contrasts a great deal with the record’s smoky, mysterious aesthetic. One example of the gig’s surprising immediacy is a moment where an audience member cries, “There she goes!” Only a second-and-a-half passes before Stipe replies, “We’ll do it right now” and their cover of the Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again” kicks in. Also fascinating are the early appearances of tunes that would later appear on 1984’s Reckoning (“7 Chinese Bros.” and “Harborcoat”), as well as “Just a Touch”, which wouldn’t be released on record until 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant. The group instrumentally fumbles a bit during “Radio Free Europe” and “Pilgrimage”, but the minor errors don’t detract at all—it’s actually a nice reminder that this band is and was, indeed, human, despite the unbelieveable songwriting abilities they showed right outta the gate.

If you’ve never dug into R.E.M.’s early to mid-’80s output, this re-issue set would be a great way to “begin the begin,” and if you already own Murmur, you’d do well to pick this up for the enhanced sound and the stunning live disc—this is nostalgia you can feel good about.

Watch: “Radio Free Europe” live on David Letterman, 1983 [at youtube.com]

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