R.E.M. - Document (1987)

Dan:

Document was R.E.M.'s fifth album, released two years after Fables of the Reconstruction. It arrived in the midst of my R.E.M. frenzy about the time Steve was headed to college, where I expected his classmates were also in R.E.M. frenzies. After all, the band was from the college town of Athens, GA. But Steve rebelled and got caught up in the Canterbury prog scene, leaving his old dad alone to pick his way through popular rock bands of the day.

I was glad to discover Document, which continued a strong run of albums from Michael Stipe and company. Like Steely Dan before them, success led to more polished production and, in Document's case, a harder edge. It worked for me, especially the few songs that I tended to play over and over. 

The song I played the most was the album's closer, "Oddfellow's Local 151." Following a sustained twang from Peter Buck's guitar, a cool repeated riff sets the tone. Stipe's lyrics take the listener to a place behind the firehouse where a dude named Pee Wee holds court over the locals. I had created a clear mental image of this place and the characters involved. The song never details Pee Wee's agenda, which could have been anything, so I supplied my own. The song turns out to be far more mundane than I imagined; Pee Wee was one of a bunch of drunkards who slept in their cars near a bar called Oddfellows behind the firehouse near where the band members lived. And here I was thinking it was the Klu Klux Klan! Regardless, I still think it's one of R.E.M.'s best songs if only because of the riff.

Other excellent songs on Document include "Welcome to the Occupation," "Disturbance at the Heron House," and "Exhuming McCarthy." Although falling short of taking any discernible social or political stance, the songs are at least about something, in contrast to some of their earlier albums that included songs that made little lyrical sense. Songwriting seemed to be taken more seriously as the band matured. 

Steve:

R.E.M.'s commercial fortunes were definitely rising around the time I went to college and Document was released. I never owned a copy of my own until fairly recently, and I still don't know many of the songs that well, but re-listening to it for this review had me nonetheless impressed. They were still in their "indie" sounding phase, not yet the stadium rockers they would be in a few years' time, but their sound is muscular, well-organized, and full of interesting musical ideas. 

"The One I Love" is the first R.E.M. song I recall getting serious radio play. It's a well-constructed piece, with a ringing guitar hook introducing the song and punctuating the verses, some neat lyrical hooks, not to mention a clever subtext that most listeners might miss if they don't listen closely. But that song was nothing compared to "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)", which was played at nearly every party I attended while at college. None of us could follow the rapid-fire verses (except the "Leonard Bernstein!" part, of course), but when it came to the singalong chorus, we'd pipe in "It's the part of the song that we knowwww" and then congratulate ourselves for our edgy cleverness.

Document was indirectly responsible for my discovery of what became one of my favorite bands, Wire. The song "Strange" (from Wire's debut album Pink Flag) appears on Document, which planted the first seed of my interest. The following year I saw Wire's A Bell Is a Cup Until it Is Struck album in the racks with a hype sticker quoting Michael Stipe saying how influential Wire had been to him. It was my first Wire album, and I still regard their albums highly today.

While I never did quite regain the love that I had for R.E.M. after their first three albums, revisiting Document makes me think that I may be missing out. Each song held my interest and had a good riff, lyric, and/or musical idea. Many people consider Document to be the band's peak, and I can see why.