461: Public Image Ltd., "Metal Box"

Before: Nothing. A little intimidated by the album name.

After: I admit, I was going to begin this venture a couple weeks ago but chickened out because I was so intimidated. But not anymore! If I can withstand the Arctic Blast, than Public Image Ltd is no match, right? Right???

Ut oh. This sounds like R.E.M. falling into a metal pipe (there's a distant echo that's actually the lead singer). This first song, Albatross, is filled with such pitiful misery.
Really not feeling this...
I imagine a grey/blue/teal tornado made of lint on a very cold, dry day. Everyone who has a radio in their house hears it groaning and making fuzzy radio sounds. A couple convulse and crash to the ground. The angsty teenagers, for whom nothing makes sense anymore, hear this album and feel a zombielike urge to follow the music. They will find their equally confused and unhappy people at the end of this dystopian rainbow. The cute sea otters and blue jays flee to greener pastures. Worms and crows delight in their new atmosphere.

I admit that, 65% through the album now, I've surrendered to letting the music, which feels more like sounds, to just hit my ears so I'll be through with this soon. It's very unpleasant.

41 minutes in, I think I've reached the first song with a lead singer who's obeying a somewhat steady stream of vocalizations. He's loving the monotone and spitting out words with a nasaly drone reminiscent of when you'd sneer at your parents circa age 6.

HOLD ON: The last minute of the song, composed of synthesizer swells and an orchestra-like composition, is actually enjoyable! How considerate!

Research has enlightened me that this album was a huge, huge influence and groundbreaking piece of art that inspired groups like "Sonic Youth, Liars, Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, Shellac, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Elastica… basically next to every act that’s mattered since punk’s phenomenal rise in the mid-70s" (BBC Review). Ok, so this is another album that's an important thing to have listened to and understood where it fits in the whole history of music, but isn't necessarily likeable. That's ok! It's over!!! :)

462: R.E.M., "Document"

Before: I distinctly remember one of my sixth grade friends, Maria, wearing a shirt with R.E.M. emblazoned across it. She had an appreciation for grunge and classic music. I went to a little party of hers in middle school (not just a birthday party-- a party. That was a moderately big deal when recounting the transition from elementary innocence to preteen attitude.) Apparently, at that party, my sweet little high school boyfriend was present, beginning the three year countdown til our next encounter when we'd finally meet for the first time. But back to R.E.M... I respect them but don't know much besides "Losing My Religion" and "Nightswimming". Coming into this a little hesitant, but willing to begin!

After: There's so much to listen to! It's so complex! Each part of the song needs recognition: the metallic guitar, the steady drums, the harmonizing voice shadowing the wavering lead singer whose voice sounds like a string of beads.
"Exhuming McCarthy" begins with a typewriter! DELICIOUS.
I'm such a newbie to this fantastic band, who, in the timbre of their voices and variety of their lyrics, slightly suggests the Barenaked Ladies. Let me reproduce some wonderfully fun lyrics from "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)":

The other night I dreamt a nice continental drift divide
Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein
Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce, and Lester Bangs
Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right? Right

Yay!

Stipe's voice has an unmistakable attribute to it. It's so steady on the pitches he prolongs.

Less than 40 minutes long, this album flew by. I don't think I gave it enough effort or analysis, but jeez, it was so short!! Thankful we'll be covering it in my History of Rock and R&B class.