As I’ve probably said before (and will most certainly say again), there’s nothing like music to bring you back to a specific time and place. Look at your collection and you will find albums, and songs that, when you listen to them again, will transport you to the time when they meant the most to you, and the situations in your life that they’re tied up in.
Alligator, and Boxer by The National will always remind me of my early twenties when I thought my life was still a movie which these New Yorkers would be the perfect soundtrack for. Faith by The Cure, Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division, and Love is Hell by Ryan Adams was my fondly remembered trilogy of misery when I was 16, making the emo craze of the time look toothless, and propel me to the pretentious (twat) scamp that I am today.
That’s the good stuff: symbols packed full the meaning that help you chart your life through your music collection to see how you have progressed, or regressed as I’m starting to warm to pop music a little as I get older, for shame!
Yet we all have that one album that does the exact opposite, an album that doesn’t fill our mind with thoughts and feelings, but clears it instead. My album is R.E.M’s debut Murmur. Bought in a haze of eighties obsession, and the fact that I had recently read an interview with gloom rock band Editors (it was 2005 when people where still excited by the band), where they proclaimed Murmur to be the best debut of all time.
They weren’t far off in my estimation but in the 11 years since I first listened to it I still couldn’t tell you exactly why I like it so much. Sure it’s the sound of a fledgling young band, with no conception of the world conquerors they would become, sounding completely bonkers in the most traditional way. They sound, on masterpieces like Radio Free Europe, Moral Kiosk, and Catapult (Caaaatapult), like four young men who don’t give a shit about being liked. The album is an acoustic masterpiece, many songs didn’t feel the need for electric guitar, and Michael Stipes lyrics are cryptic verging on gibberish, but my goodness was it melodic. All of which make Murmur the album I put on when I want to relax, when I want to think about nothing much at all and just be entertained. It transcends definition, it transcends times, places, and moods, and it’s the reason why everything they’ve done since then feels too bloody accessible.
