For some fans,
R.E.M. ceased to exist when drummer
Bill Berry decided to retire from rock & roll in 1997. Unlike most bands,
R.E.M. operated as a democracy -- it was impossible to tell who contributed what to their albums, but hardcore followers did realize that
Berry was the driving force behind such classics as "Man on the Moon" and that without him, the band's sound would change drastically.
Peter Buck,
Mike Mills, and
Michael Stipe were aware of what
Berry brought to the band, and they wisely decided that his departure offered them an opportunity to reinvent what
R.E.M. was all about. They had already entertained the notion of working with drum machines and loops before
Berry left (indeed, portions of
New Adventures in Hi-Fi suggested as much), and his absence gave the remaining trio the confidence to explore new sonic territory. In a way, they had no other choice. They had long ago exhausted the original
R.E.M. sonic blueprint -- they had managed to find new textures within that sound on the pastoral
Out of Time and the brooding
Automatic for the People, but the flaccid arena rock of
Monster was a dead end, leaving only the tentative sonic explorations of
New Adventures as a starting point. And
New Adventures does function as the starting point for
Up, the group's first album without
Berry, and their first to truly repudiate the legacy of jangle pop.
Up is dominated by keyboards, muted percussion, buried guitars, and moody melodies -- only "Daysleeper" finds the group in familiar sonic territory. What's striking about the album is that it doesn't sound like a dramatic departure -- even without the ringing guitars, it sounds like
R.E.M. trying to be adventurous and hip. To a certain extent, that's a good thing, since it proves that the band has developed a signature sound that is more elastic than many would have predicted, and that they are skilled enough to figure out how to successfully take risks with their sound. Above all else,
Up is an accomplished and varied record, the work of smart record-makers. It is also the work of veteran musicians -- for the first time,
R.E.M. sound like they're playing catch-up, trying to keep their hip status intact. Occasionally, they pull it all together, as on the ominous opener "Airportman" and the darkly seductive "Suspicion," but they stretch their capacities nearly as often, as on the
Pet Sounds pastiche "At My Most Beautiful," which comes off as a
High Llamas homage. Most of
Up, however, falls in between those two extremes, winding up as moody, downtempo songs that fail to make an impression because they either don't take enough chances or they fail to speak directly -- they are simply well-crafted tracks that are easy to admire, but hard to love. Ultimately, that is what distinguishes this new incarnation of
R.E.M. from the first part of their career. [The 25th Anniversary Edition of
Up contains a remastered version of the original album and a second disc containing the entirety of
R.E.M.'s live-in-the-studio appearance on the Fox family drama Party of Five. In 1999, only one song made it to the air, yet the group decided to entertain the cast, crew, and a select group of members of the
R.E.M. fan club with a succinct set drawing equally from their catalog and
Up. Sounding looser and bolder than they do on the finished album,
R.E.M. seem to be settling into a life after
Bill Berry, creating a palpable sense of excitement that makes the bonus disc a good time.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
![Up [25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0888072532731_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg)
![Up [25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.11.4)
![Up [25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0888072532731_p0_v1_s600x595.jpg)
![Circuital [Deluxe Edition 2 CD]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0880882539825_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Circuital [Deluxe Edition 2 CD]")
