Song of the day: R.E.M. - Catapult

It's an immense wonder why I haven't featured R.E.M. in any of the previous installments of 'Song of the Day'. The band is both an immense influential source for much of my music since the very early '08 days and is an absolute presence in my favorite bands of all time list.

With that said, R.E.M. is a band of various 'eras' due to their immense catalog, and with such comes the never ending 'best album/best song/best anything' debate among fans with themselves and others. It's all a fun slippery slope once you create your own definitive favorites from their fifteen (!) albums and whatever else you may find.

'Catapult', coming from their 1983 debut album Murmur (considered by many to be their best early period work), is an excellent testament to the unique formula of the band's early songwriting; melodic bassline, jangly guitars mixed with acoustic guitars, harmonizing backing vocals from Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe's mumbling nervous yet soaring vocals.

Perhaps to the newcomer it's not as impressive with the huge onset of bands that would pretty much copy and paste this style throughout the late 80's and much of the 90's. But when you listen to any material dating from their first EP to their two subsequent albums you discover the genuine excitement and timeless youthful energy of a band creating their own path, and you realize you just can't top the pioneers.

Song of the Day: R.E.M. - Parakeet

R.E.M. is a very special band to me, their song crafting was an incredible influence on me when I first started writing and recording songs with a Rock Band microphone and would have a lasting effect to me even later on. But a lot of people, for good reasons, tend to ignore much of the later material that the band released because of how varying in quality it was.

The song 'Parakeet' comes from their 1998 album Up, and to me was the last great album R.E.M. put out right at the end of their superb and varied 90's reinventions. Devoid of any jangle-y guitars and obscured lyrics by this point in their career and having recently lost Bill Berry as their drummer, R.E.M. turned to more electronic, subdued, and lush sounds as a result.

'Parakeet' is one of the lush cuts from the album and is rightfully so with it's sleigh bells, use of Leslie treated keyboard, pipe organ, and Michael Stipe's drawling vocals. The lyrics are bittersweet and brilliantly describe the modern difficulties of living in broken aspirations, which brilliantly contrast with the music until the very end. One of the strongest tracks in the entirety of R.E.M.'s post-Bill Berry era and, in my opinion, one of their best songs in their entire discography, 'Parakeet' is a song for all the naysayers of late era R.E.M. to hear.

(Couldn't find the studio version, so enjoy this live version)