R.E.M. - Harborcoat (video)

Look Back In Anger: With all the recent hubub circulating about releases from a few 80s and 90s monolithic stalwarts, its time we took a look at some golden oldies from another major 80s/90s stalwart, REM. As with many people I'm more of fan of REM's early works. I'm talking Murmur - Life's Rich Pagent, ya dig? There's nothing wrong with mid - later career REM, they're a group that continued to demonstrate an actual interest in the songwriting process and the challenge of thinking about new forms in Pop music; it's just that I prefer that early sound. Early REM have a purely American twang, tinged with the tintinnabulation of 1980s cult College Rock-n-Roll. What the heck does that even sounds like? It sounds like ramshackle guitar music lacquered in anxiety and youthful dissatisfaction. Like the American Smiths. Like David Byrne's more effeminate younger brother who went away to college in Atlanta and started his own fucking band. REM rule, and always will. Take a trip back with me and bury your face deep in the opening track off Reckoning. It's Harborcoat by REM from 1984:

Echo & The Bunnymen - Market Town

Here is the newest of the new new jams from Echo and the B-men. On display is their typically advanced riffmanship, as well as Ian McCulloch's unmistakable wailing. In many ways this song fits comfortably among the lengthy list of catchy E&TB tunes. There is a very modern sheen of production here, lacquered across the track that makes it not difficult to discern from something released in say, 1984. Yet, the production does not deflate Echo's songwriting, like it has with other New Romantic compatriots, who still feel the need to keep rattling on. Instead, there is a better sense of clarity among the comforting sounds of chorus laden strumming, machine-like drumming, and haunted vocalizations. Truly a refreshing whiff of Post-Punk from the original masters themselves...After all, who else could possibly be chanting about "no survivors," in a market town?