FEATURE:
The One I Love
R.E.M.’s Document at Thirty-Five
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AN album that took R.E.M. to the mainstream…
IN THIS PHOTO: Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Bill Berry, and Michael Stipe in Athens, Georgia, on 8th April, 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Natkin/Getty Images
Document is less mainstream than many of their albums. As articles like this explain, R.E.M. were trying to reflect the reality of the world in 1987, rather than release an album that was radio-friendly or followed their past work. Released on 31st August, 1987, I wanted to mark the upcoming thirty-fifth anniversary of R.E.M.’s fifth studio album. In my mind, one of their very best works, Document is an album that did not necessarily win over all critics. Perhaps less celebrated than Automatic for the People (which is thirty in October), it is a remarkable album that features a few of their best songs. My standout is the single, It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine). Before coming to a couple of reviews for Document, there is a great article from Udiscovermusic.com from last year that revisits R.E.M.’s fifth studio album. The legends from Athens, Georgia were about to put College Rock to mainstream audiences:
“For R.E.M., 1986 had been a pivotal year. The band’s fourth album, the brash, yet highly accessible Lifes Rich Pageant had rewarded them with their first gold disc, while their extensive Pageantry tour of the US had garnered considerable critical acclaim. As 1987 rolled around, confidence was at a high within the R.E.M. camp. The Athens, Georgia, quartet had already worked up a clutch of promising new songs for what would become their fifth album, Document, and they had completed a successful initial studio session with new producer Scott Litt prior to Christmas ’86.
Litt had already assembled an impressive CV. He began his career as a studio engineer during the late 70s, working on recordings by artists as diverse as Carly Simon and Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter. He debuted as a producer in 1982 with The dB’s Repercussion album, a record R.E.M. was already familiar with, having shared stages with the band. In fact, the two groups’ histories would continue to intertwine when The dB’s co-frontman, Peter Holsapple, later joined R.E.M. as their fifth member on the Green tour and then played on Out Of Time.
R.E.M. and Litt began their fruitful, decade-long partnership with the successful recording of the quirky “Romance.” Though intended for the soundtrack of the film Made In Heaven, the song also later featured on the rarities compilation Eponymous. Litt reconvened with the band at their regular demo studio – John Keane in Athens – for an extensive demo session, before R.E.M. took a break and briefly embarked on extracurricular activities, including some studio contributions to Warren Zevon’s Sentimental Hygiene album.
The band was back in the harness with their new producer at the end of March, with all of April ’87 given over to the recording of Document at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Several of the songs had already been worked up onstage, and the band’s keen pre-production work paid dividends: for Document, R.E.M and Scott Litt captured the sound of a rock band at the absolute top of their game, capable of taking on all comers.
The accessibility that seeped from Lifes Rich Pageant’s every pore was again apparent, but this time around the band had taken things up a gear. Indeed, the R.E.M. of Document was a sinewy, muscular rock beast, primed and ready to dominate the airwaves. Peter Buck’s distinctive jangle and chime were still apparent on “Disturbance At The Heron House” and “Welcome To The Occupation,” but, for the most part, his guitar playing took on a sharp, steely quality. Accordingly, he turned in some of his most memorable recorded performances: launching “Finest Worksong” with urgent, metallic riffs; embroidering the swampy funk of “Lightnin’ Hopkins” with Andy Gill-esque tension and atonality; and punctuating the band’s supercharged cover of Wire’s “Strange” with a neat, Nuggets-style psych-pop solo.
Meanwhile, the newfound confidence and vocal clarity Michael Stipe proffered on Lifes Rich Pageant continued apace, and on Document he summoned up a clutch of startling performances: bending and twisting his voice like an old time preacher around “Lightnin’ Hopkins” and rattling off a rapid-fire alternate history of the 20th Century on the exhilarating “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
Lyrically, the socio-political concerns Stipe addressed on Lifes Rich Pageant again loomed large. Featuring barbed observations such as “Listen to the Congress where we propagate confusion/Primitive and wild, fire on the hemisphere below,” “Welcome To The Occupation” was widely reputed to be a commentary on American intervention in South America. The deceptively infectious “Exhuming McCarthy” also delved into political hypocrisy, drawing a parallel between the communist-baiting of the Joe McCarthy era of 50s American politics and the recent Iran-Contra affair during which senior politicians under President Ronald Reagan had secretly facilitated the sales of arms to Iran: a country which was then under an arms embargo.
Sonically, Document also afforded the band the chance to further broaden their palette. Special guest, Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, added his distinctive saxophone skills to “Fireplace,” while lap steel and dulcimer colored the hypnotic, raga-like “King Of Birds.” From their earliest days recording Murmur with Don Dixon and Mitch Easter, R.E.M. had always relished the opportunity to try out different sounds and textures – and experimental approach that would continue through Green and Out Of Time, wherein the band members often swapped instruments and fashioned new songs from riffs and melodies worked up on acoustic instruments such as mandolins and accordions”.
Maybe some R.E.M. fans have not heard Document. I would advise them to ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary in 1987. Before rounding off, I want to highlight a couple of positive reviews for an amazing album. Pitchfork reviewed Document back in 2012:
“Released in September 1987, R.E.M.'s fifth album, Document, contained something no one ever expected to hear from the Athens band. It wasn't the Wire cover or Steve Berlin's saxophone skronking through "Fireplace". It wasn't Michael Stipe singing what purported to be a love song, which he had sworn at one point never to do. The record packed an even bigger surprise: an actual radio hit. Before the year was over, "The One I Love" had peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard singles chart, and this was back when that meant something. It was R.E.M.'s first foray into a mainstream crowded with hair metal bands, mall-pop acts, and AOR interchangeables. Few of these acts would survive the decade, but this unlikely smash signaled only the start of the group's prolonged ascent.
How did this Southern rock band, who had more in common with Wire than with then-popular Peach Staters Georgia Satellites, find a spot in the public consciousness alongside U2, Guns N' Roses, and George Michael, who all more or less owned 1987? R.E.M. cultivated an air of mystery that extended from their music (the obscure lyrics, the refusal to lip sync in videos) to the packaging (mismatched tracklists, head-scratching instructions to "File Under Fire").
And "The One I Love" was an odd choice for a hit: Peter Buck's guitar possesses a rich, strange grain that charges the song with vague menace, especially when he unspools that psych-rock solo, and the mosaic hook itself is split between Stipe shouting "Fire!" in an empty theater and Mike Mills adding a descending countermelody. Lyrically, the song is one contradiction twisting into another: "This one goes out to the one I love/ A simple prop to occupy my time." Twenty-five years later, it remains nearly impossible to parse the implications of that particular couplet; on the other hand, 25 years later, it's still worth trying, as the latest in Capitol Records' reissue series proves.
If 1985's Fables of the Reconstruction was their most self-consciously Southern record to date and 1986's Lifes Rich Pageant their most overtly political, Document maintained both their regional self-definition as well as their indirect social engagement, even going so far as to sample Joseph Welch reprimanding Joseph McCarthy. ("At long last, have you left no sense of decency?") The album is a prolonged meditation on the idea of labor, opening with "Finest Worksong" before teasing out the implications on "Welcome to the Occupation". The defiantly chipper "Exhuming McCarthy" opens with the clack of Stipe's typewriter, connecting the work of the band with that of the journalist, and even "Fireplace" is less about the dance party than the preparations for it: "Hang up your chairs to better sweep, clear the floor to dance," Stipe sings, twisting his lines with each repetition until the entire building has been dismantled in an act of constructive destruction”.
I want to end with the BBC’s take on Document. Often ranked alongside R.E.M.’s best albums, I think that it sound relevant to this day. Reaching number ten on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, Document is one of the best albums of the 1980s. If they hit a peak in the early-1990s, I think that albums like Document are hugely important because of the firepower, melodies and incredible performances from Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe:
“Back in 1987 R.E.M. were the darlings of college radio and their quirky alternative act had not yet registered on the global stage.
Document was to change all that by being so bloody marvellous that even the mainstream listening audience took the Athens, Georgia-based four-piece to their hearts and propelled them on the road to international superstardom.
Containing their first top 10 hit in the States, The One I Love, and also providing the band with their first platinum album, Document showcases a band at the top of their game and hints at more stunning work still to come.
Featuring Michael Stipe’s increasingly political lyrics and distinctive vocals, combined with Peter Buck's elegantly twisted guitar lines and the superb rhythm section of Mike Mills and Bill Berry, Document doesn’t lose a trick and is a complete rock album from start to finish.
The second single off the album, It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine), cracks along at a scintillating pace and, whilst it didn’t make a big impression on the mainstream charts, is a firm favourite with fans at live shows.
R.E.M. display a wonderful versatility in their songwriting here, and are not content to pen tracks aimed simply for radio play. Other highlights include the wonderfully feedback laden intro to Oddfellows Local 151, the catchy Exhuming McCarthy and Finest Worksong which gives us the cue that this is definitely their finest hour”.
Thirty-five on 31st August, it is one of two R.E.M. albums – the other being Automatic for the People – that have big anniversaries this year. Document is a fantastic album with some of R.E.M.’s deepest and most important material. If you have not spun the record in a while, go and check out the wonderful Document. There is no denying that this phenomenal work is…
ONE of the very best.