I was having a miserable day for reasons unknown even to me.  25 minutes later things were looking up considerably, and while this can’t entirely be explained away with the my offhand decision to play Reckoning in iTunes, it does reaffirm the mysterious allure of R.E.M.’s early work.

If I start to talk about more recent R.E.M. albums I’ll lapse back into depression.  Besides, with a new recording expected to land in little over a month’s time (their 14th studio album will be called Accelerate) warmed-over feelings of indignation may once more rise up against the Athens trio, though I hope and secretly suspect it will be better than anything they’ve put out in the last decade.  Really, what could be worse than Around the Sun?

Maybe it’s the rainswept guitar on “Harborcoat” and “Pretty Persuasion” or the gentle but terse pulse behind Mike Mills’ melodic bass on “So. Central Rain,” or Michael Stipe’s nimble voice, doing so many things with so little effort.  Or all of the above.  There’s nothing obviously remarkable about Reckoning, but it’s one of those instances where the sum of the parts conspire to produce an inexplicable surge of emotion.  The latest Babyshambles’ release, Shotter’s Nation, delivers almost the same kind of kick, and I hear R.E.M. just as prominently on that album as I hear the Kinks.

I don’t profess to know anything more than has already been said about Reckoning or Murmur for that matter.  I do know, however, that R.E.M. is a vastly underrated band, even if it might not seem that way.  Their decent into mediocrity may have a rubbed a little tarnish onto their reputation, but even before the Around the Sun debacle, praise for R.E.M. has always seemed qualified with a hint of condescension.  They’re known as band the band that came into genuine superstardom “on their own terms,” establishing a well-recognized brand of music for themselves before flirting with “selling out.”  But their success is usually qualified in a vacuum, as though outside of the buzz of their immediate musical moment they really only impacted themselves.  Any music they are directly responsible for inspiring is usually shameful:  They’re not praised as much as blamed for the lamentable stew of 90s alternative like Third-Eye-Blind and Spin Doctors that followed in their wake, just as we might blame Nirvana for Bush.

Ask yourself this: How often in contemporary “indie” pop/rock do you hear a critic describe a melodic new act in terms of R.E.M.?  Why should the Smiths and the Cure get all the credit for inspiring legions of excellence?  Whenever one of those cursory lists of “greatest guitarists” is compiled, figures like Johnny Marr and John Squire usually turn up, while Peter Buck toils in obscurity despite the fact that R.E.M. is handily the most commercially successful of those bands.  What about Peter Buck???  If you listen to his work on Reckoning it seems clear he is at least Marr’s melodic equal in head-swaying college-rock arpeggios. 

Part of the problem is America’s contentious relationship with heritage.  The British are not shy about acknowledging their heroes.  You might even say they are enslaved to them.  In America we try to forget about music scenes and “periods” as quickly as possible, always on the hunt for what’s new until we realize that it’s in fact quite old and then we grow indignant and try to leave it behind.  When you consider that America sprinted through boy bands, Creed, garage rock, disco-punk, and new new wave in the same period of time that England experienced Britpop and . . . Britpop mach II, it’s not surprising that R.E.M. should be forgotten as an absolutely seminal guitar band.   Even those who confess their indebtedness to R.E.M. are British, Radiohead being the most prominent example.  Conversely, American indie acts take the Cure and run with it more than British bands do. 

These are not the embittered ravings of an overprotective, defensive fan.  I wouldn’t even describe myself as an R.E.M fan, I can’t really get into Green or Out of Time, the records you’re supposed to like.  Fact is, I never bought an R.E.M. record that cost me over five bucks, including Reckoning.  But man oh man, what a steal . . . .