MONSTER, my all-time #16 album, is by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., coming out in the summer of 1994. R.E.M. is comprised of lead singer/lyricist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist/keyboardist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry...the music for their songs is a full collaboration among the band's members. After the group's two previous albums had received much widespread popularity and critical acclaim, I was eagerly looking forward to more of the same type of sophisticated music and lyrics. Instead, Monster is an in-your-face, sometimes angry and musically harsh record, sounding more hard rock...even heavy metal in places...than anything the band had done before, or ever would do. I've heard that legendary recording producer Phil Spector would employ something called a "wall of sound" involving a lush orchestral instrumental background permeating his artists' tracks...listen to the Beatles' Across the Universe, The Long and Winding Road and George Harrison's What is Life to get what I'm talking about. Here on Monster, although Spektor wasn't involved with it, there seems to be a wall of sound as well, with the often-harsh electric guitar reverberating on most of the songs...the opening one, What's the Frequency, Kenneth? takes it to extremes. Monster has two lyrical themes as I can discern them: grief and sexuality. The grief over lead singer and lyricist Michael Stipe's friend Kurt Cobain committing suicide earlier in '94 is the reason for what I consider Monster's best song, Let Me In and seems to dictate the mood of the rest of the album. Other songs express in veiled phrases Stipe's take on sexuality, especially with Crush with Eyeliner, King of Comedy, I Don't Sleep I Dream, Star 69, Strange Currencies, Tongue, Bang and Blame, You and Circus Envy. Yeah, the subject seems to dominate the album although, by today's general standards of popular music, I don't think it's anywhere nearly as flagrant as what's being played now, especially within the hip-hop genre. By the way, that last-mentioned tune, Circus Envy, should have been titled Monster after the album since its use of the word was significant: had it been released as a single with that name I think it would have gone far in the charts. What's the Frequency, Kenneth? derives its title from the incoherent words of a disturbed man while he had recently physically attacked journalist Dan Rather, an R.E.M. fan. And I Took Your Name is a brilliant, nightmarish piece, the definitive work on identify theft. Finally, here are my own personal rankings of the songs on this great album:
1 Let Me In
2 What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
3 I Took Your Name
4 Circus Envy
5 King of Comedy
6 I Don't Sleep I Dream
7 Star 69
8 Crush with Eyeliner
9 Bang and Blame
10 Strange Currencies
11 You
12 Tongue
Next week: album #15...
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