RIP R.E.M: A repost, in tribute
w/ covers from Amber Rubarth, Cry Cry Cry, Rosie Thomas, Redbird & more!
September 22nd, 2011 — 11:53 am
The blogs are buzzing with yesterday’s announcement, via a terse yet sincere statement on their website, that Athens, GA hometown heroes R.E.M. are calling it quits after three decades on the road, the radio, and the cultural consciousness. We first covered the genre-defining band back in 2009, so rather than rehash their path from college radio to iconic mainstream success, we’re taking the opportunity to revisit that older post today in memoriam – with a couple of bonus covers of Losing My Religion, from more recent CLD faves Amber Rubarth and Joshua James, to bulk up our original set.
I enjoy a good challenge. So when a recent and otherwise well-written treatise on the socio-economic function of cover songs past and present declared the R.E.M. catalog “too cryptic to survive being covered”, I set out to amass a collection of songs which would prove the author wrong.
My dubious pursuit was confounded a bit by a long-time personal apathy for R.E.M.’s particularly angsty, often melodramatic performance style, as filtered through frontman Michael Stipe’s voice and phrasing, which just aren’t to taste. Sure, there’s a few songs I wouldn’t change the station for — the driving guitar of Fall On Me, for example, or the deceptively cheerful pop surface of Man on the Moon. But these are predominantly band-driven songs, where so many others of the canon are singer showcases.
It’s a personal choice: I don’t like listening to Dylan either. But as with Dylan, and so many of the popular artists whose songbooks comprise our Covered in Folk features, there’s a recognizable genius under there, couched in a palatable form. It is no accident that R.E.M. is well established and well respected; love ‘em or hate ‘em, their influence, particularly in the emergence of college alternative radio, is legion and undeniable, and their reputation deserved.
The combination of cultural cache and strong songwriting has produced a world of broad and eminently listenable covers. It’s telling that when Stereogum decided to solicit current indie darlings for their second cover tribute, it was seminal R.E.M. album Automatic for the People which they ended up reconstructing track-for-track. And, as with so many previous features, that many of my favorite cover artists have taken on the R.E.M. songbook speaks volumes to its appeal and its potential among folk musicians and fans of a certain generational outlook.
My top ten list of covers consistently includes Grant-Lee Phillips‘ incredible version of So. Central Rain; I’ve posted it twice here before, and each time it has elicited comments from the readership. There’s more familiar covers here, too, from Rosie Thomas‘ lovely version of The One I Love, which pays tribute to Sufjan’s popular bootlegs of the same tune, to well-played cuts from folk supergroups Redbird and Cry Cry Cry.
Tori Amos and The Corrs come from that same AAA and college rock region of the genre map R.E.M. helped establish. Great Big Sea trend towards the sea chanty made modern, but most folkies will know the name. Stereogum’s coverage is predominantly indie rock, but the names are recognizable to those who come via the indiefolk music blogs. In the end, there’s nothing rare here, except perhaps the live cover of REM obscurity Hairshirt from Glen Hansard‘s recent appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
But surely that familiarity proves the point. After all, if folk is in the ownership and the interpretation of song, then cryptic becomes a relative term, and coverage itself proves palatability. For in the end, is there greater foundation for love than the recognition of the soul, the spark of something sensible to the self, and the subsequent struggle to own it? And is it not this love, in the hands of the talented and thoughtful, which makes coverage great, and tributes worthy? Listen, and judge for yourself.
- Cry Cry Cry: Fall On Me
(from Cry Cry Cry; their in-studio cover from The River Music Hall is also good)
- Glen Hansard: Hairshirt
(live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 3/12/09)
- Frida Hyvonen: Everybody Hurts
- Ferraby Lionheart: Man on the Moon
(from Drive XV: A Tribute to Automatic for the People)
- REPOST BONUS, 2011: Amber Rubarth: Losing My Religion
(from Dream Chamber Songs, 2010)
- REPOST BONUS, 2011: Joshua James: Losing My Religion
(live at Daytrotter, 2009)
Today’s bonus coverfolk tracks give R.E.M. the chance to take on a few core folksingers, from Hall of Famer Leonard Cohen to the man whose original version of Gentle On My Mind won a Grammy for Best Folk Performance the same year Glen Campbell made it famous. After all, as the banner says, we do covers of folksong here, too:
- R.E.M.: Wall of Death (orig. Richard Thompson)
- R.E.M.: Gentle On My Mind (orig. John Hartford)
- R.E.M.: First We Take Manhattan (orig. Leonard Cohen)