Document

8.0/10

  Document is the 5th album from R.E.M. as the cover proudly proclaims.  Somewhere on there it says something about "file under fire" which makes sense as there are a lot of mentions of fire on this album.  This was the last record they released as an independent band.  After this it was major label all the way, baby.

  For some reason I've always felt like this album has a pretty steep dropoff in its second half.  But truthfully I really like King of Birds a lot.  I think it's a bit of an underrated gem in their catalog.  It almost has an Eastern vibe to it or something.  Fireplace also features probably the only usage of saxophone in their entire discography and it's a pretty cool song in its own right.  I think the two tracks that drag it down a little bit for me are Lightnin Hopkins and Oddfellows Local 151.  Neither one is a terrible song, but Lightnin Hopkins in particular is kind of weird and kind of ugly.  Oddfellows, on the other hand in plenty atmospheric and has a kind of cool guitar line.  It goes on a little too long for my tastes though, and when he starts singing about Pee Wee I somehow always picture Pee Wee Herman and it's kind of a weird image.

   The rest of the album is pretty uniformly strong.  The most famous songs are The One I Love and It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine.)  It's pretty much common knowledge that the former song is really kind of a burn instead of a sweet love song, so I won't spend a long time discussing it.  I believe it was also their first top ten hit mostly due to people not understanding it.  It's nice to know the public has always been super intelligent when it comes to pop culture.  It's the End of the World is one of the funnest songs ever to sing along to, even if I can't understand all the lyrics.  It's still fun to make up your own.

  I'd also like to give a quick shout out to some of the other songs that don't seem to be mentioned as much  So good job Welcome to the Occupation, Exhuming McCarthy, and Disturbance at the Heron House.  You're all good songs.  There's even a pretty cool cover of Wire's Strange to round things out.
  Overall R.E.M. is rocking a bit harder on this one than in their earlier days and the sound suits them well.  It's not quite as jangly as they're known for at his stage of their career, but Document is a solid album.