Tuesday, 12 March 2019

Revisiting Out of Time - R.E.M. (1991)- Revised and Updated

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Out of Time - R.E.M.
Warner Bros
Produced by Scott Litt and R.E.M.
Released 12th March 1991
US Chart #1 *
UK Chart #1 **


#1 also in Canada, Italy, Austria, Holland and France
*Spent 109 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Album Chart and had two spells at the Top of the Charts
**Spent 183 weeks on the UK Album Chart and was on Top of the Chart for one week only



Limited Edition Free 7" 
  

Personnel
R.E.M.
Michael Stipe - lead vocals, bass melodica and arrangement on "Endgame", backing vocals on "Near Wild Heaven" and Texarkana"
    Peter Buck - electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin on "Losing My Religion" and "Half a World Away"     


Mike Mills - bass guitar; backing vocals; organ on "Radio Song", "Low", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Country Feedback"; piano on "Belong"; harpsichord on "Half a World Away"; percussion on "Half a World Away"; lead vocals on "Near Wild Heaven" and "Texarkana"; keyboards and arrangement on "Losing My Religion" and "Texarkana"
    Bill Berry - drum, percussion, congas on "low", bass guitar on "Half a World Away" and "Country Feedback", piano on "Near Wild Heaven", backing vocals on Near Wild Heaven", "Belong"
 
  Additional musicians
    David Arenz – violin on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Ellie Arenz – violin on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Mark Bingham – string arrangements on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    David Braitberg – violin on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Andrew Cox – cello on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Reid Harris – viola on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Peter Holsapple – bass guitar on "Radio Song" and "Low"; acoustic guitar on "Losing My Religion", "Shiny Happy People", and "Texarkana"; electric guitar on "Belong"
    Ralph Jones – double bass on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Kidd Jordan – baritone saxophone on "Radio Song" and "Near Wild Heaven", tenor saxophone on "Radio Song" and "Endgame", alto saxophone on "Radio Song", bass clarinet on "Low" and "Endgame"
    John Keane – pedal steel guitar on "Texarkana" and "Country Feedback"
    Dave Kempers – violin on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    KRS-One – rapping on "Radio Song"
    Scott Litt – echo-loop feed on "Radio Song"
    Elizabeth Murphy – cello on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Paul Murphy – lead viola on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Kate Pierson – vocals on "Near Wild Heaven", and duet on "Shiny Happy People", "Me in Honey"
    Jay Weigel – orchestral liaison on "Radio Song", "Low", "Near Wild Heaven", "Endgame", "Shiny Happy People", "Half a World Away", and "Texarkana"
    Cecil Welch – flugelhorn on "Endgame"
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I know I only did this a couple of years ago but there were a number of dead links etc and so in deciding to update them I thought I would fully revise the piece written back in 2017.

"The world is collapsing around our ears, I turned up the radio, but I can't hear it" - now that's an epic way to open an album! The world was doing exactly just that in 1991 with the collapse of the old Soviet Union. Gorbachov was ousted and Yeltsin became the new man at the helm. Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania and Latvia announced Independence from Russia. Operation Desert Storm would begin as the US Army marched into Kuwait to rid Iraqi invaders. Yugoslavia would crumble to pieces as Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia seceded. Refugees were fleeing Albania and this forced the Government to adopt widespread changes to its policies. Bank of Credit and Commerce International was closed as Banking regulators from 69 countries shut down the BCCI claiming it laundered money, dealt in illegal arms, and was responsible for smuggling, fraud, extortion and bribery. billion was claimed to have disappeared within it's walls. BCCI was responsible for Iran-Contra transfers, providing nuclear weapons technology to Iraq, and secretly buying three American banks. The World Wide Web was launched with great fanfare connecting worlds via technology.

Fast forward 28 years and the "world" is still "collapsing". There's lots of trouble with Russia whether it be their invading other parts of their former land, or their meddling in the affairs of other countries through spying, hacking, trying to influence the outcome of elections in other nations and killing off former spies with poison on the streets of foreign lands! 


The Middle East is still a chaotic mess and the fight this time around is to get rid of Isalmic Extremist groups like ISIS. In Syria you have a government backed by Russia (yep, them again) trouncing the opposition (supported by the US and other Countries). People are still dying in Iraq via Car Bombs and ISIS led raids on towns. Refugees are everywhere, flowing from lands across the world seeking shelter and a new life in Europe, America and beyond. 

There has been a rising again of the Right across Europe with their facist hatred for anyone who appears different to them, and of course still in the seat of power in the USA is a President that has got there by hook and by crook, funded by the Alt-Right (who are basically well dressed Nazis!) and have their minions surrounding one of the most powerful offices in the world! On a almost a daily basis he lies about pretty much everything and a number of people connected to him have been charged with various crimes and hauled off to jail (whilst the President smears them as disgruntled employees who are only seeking his downfall).

The banking system is still an utter mess as well throughout the world! And the World Wide Web whilst offering many good things has become a place where one can learn how to become a terrorist as well as learn how to make a great apple pie!....Somethings just don't ever change do they?

Into that collapsing world came Out Of Time, the seventh studio album from R.E.M. It was the first #1 album in the US and the UK for the band. It has sold absolutely bucket loads across the globe since its release in 1991 (despite a rest from touring by the group) and whilst unloved by some due to its commercial success it's an album I still find a lot of joy listening to 28 years on.

What the band had begun when they signed to Warner Bros with the excellent Green album they continued with Out Of Time as they went from a Cult Band to an International Success across the globe!


David Fricke, writing for the Melody Maker said of the album, "Out Of Time is the kind of whisper that, with time, makes you want to scream with joy...A stunning baroque beauty fashioned from dark, frank lyric testimony...It's the album REM tried to make in 1985 with Fables of Reconstruction. The 'fun' quotient is higher here as well" (March 9th 1991).  Meanwhile Terry Staunton of the NME said in the March 16th 1991 issue that "Out Of Time is easily their most eclectic and wildly inspired album yet...The greatest rock 'n' roll band tag may have been uncomfortable in the past, but this album will not make it any easier to shift"

It all kicked off with the release of Losing My Religion as a single. Mike Mills said years later, "Without 'Losing My Religion', Out of Time would have sold two or three million [copies], instead of the ten [million copies] or so it did. But the phenomenon that is a worldwide hit is an odd thing to behold. Basically that record was a hit in almost every civilised country in the world." 


David Cavanagh, writing for Uncut's Ultimate Music Guide: REM wrote, that the song "scored three watermelons on pop's international fruit machine, and Stipe and REM could never be cult figures again".

The success of Losing My Religion and Out of Time broadened R.E.M.'s audience beyond its original college radio-based fanbase. When asked at the time if he was worried that the song's success might alienate older fans, Peter Buck told Rolling Stone, "The people that changed their minds because of 'Losing My Religion' can just kiss my ass." Michael Stipe's vocal for the song was done in a single take!

According to Stipe, in an interview with Gavin Martin for the NME back in 1991, Losing My Religion was not actually about Religion at all. When asked "How do you lose your religion?" Stipe responded, "That's a term I've heard used all my life; I thought it was a common term but obviously outside of the South it's not. People have asked me over and over again 'Are you a Catholic? Are you a Quaker?' But this has nothing to do with religion in this song. If one loses one's religion it's the same as being at the end of your rope or reaching the final straw and snapping...It's used casually - a waitress will say, 'I almost lost my religion over that table, they were such jerks.' To make it more serious would be an event so dramatic that it could cause you to question your spiritual beliefs."

Kate Pierson of The B-52's featured on the next single (she actually appears on another two songs on the album as well - Near Wild Heaven and Me In Honey). Shiny Happy People is not a song that is loved by the band at all. Infact, it became "so unstoppably popular that REM diswoned it in horror (and refused to perform it until Sesame Street in 1999)" (David Cavanagh, Uncut's Ultimate Music Guide). Stipe said, "I Hate That Song!" But it was a massive hit! In 2006, the song received the #1 position on AOL Music's list of the "111 Wussiest Songs of All Time". Due to the band's dislike of the song, it was one of their few Warner-released singles not included on their 2003 greatest hits album In Time. They did a version of it in 1999 for Sesame Street called Furry Happy Monsters. "It’s a fruity pop song written for children. It just is what it is," Stipe told the BBC’s Andrew Marr in 2016. "If there was one song that was sent into outer space to represent R.E.M. for the rest of time, I would not want it to be Shiny Happy People." It's actually quite funny reading an interview in the NME from back in 1991 and seeing what Stipe said about the song when the album had just come out, "It's the happiest song we have ever put out...I meant it as a happy song...I told Peter for two months that I wasn't going to write a chorus because I didn't want to blow the guitar line by singing over it. But he insisted that I did and it worked and the video, God, the video, is just the happiest thing I've ever seen...".

Near Wild Heaven was the third single released from the album. Now, I always get a bit of a grump when bands/artists release too many singles from an album and whilst this is the case with this one as a single I have to say that I actually really do like the song itself. It was a surprise that Michael Stipe was not singing the lead vocal, but Mick Mills does a pretty fine job I reckon. It wasn't released in the USA as a single but here in the UK it did creep into the Top 30 (stalling at #27).

The fourth and final single from the album was Radio Song. Although I'm not a big fan of Remixes I actually quite liked the Tower of Luv Bug Remix that was issued in the US and Germany. The single featured KRS-One, the rapper from Boogie Down Productions. Cavanagh said, that the "rapping on Radio Song sounds incongruously shoddy now". It was another Top 30 hit in the UK (stalling at #28).

I was listening afresh to the album last night and this morning as I was putting the finishing touches to this piece and was thinking about what are my favourite tracks on the album. Surprisingly it is actually none of the singles (though as I said I do like Near Wild Heaven). Belong, Half A World Away, Texarkana and Me In Honey are probably the ones I'd name as the best ones on the album and 'Shiny Happy People', no matter how much the band hate it, still has the ability to put a smile on your face as you wake up in a world that is still "collapsing around our ears" and eyes!
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Singles On Out Of Time
Losing My Religion:
12"
Released 19th February 1991
US Chart #4
UK Chart #19
CD Single 
   1 Losing My Religion (Album Version)    
2 Fretless    
3 Losing My Religion (Live Acoustic Version / Rockline)    
4 Rotary Eleven
Limited Edition CD for UK and Europe
1 Losing My Religion    
2 Stand (Live)    
3 Turn You Inside-Out (Live)    
4 World Leader Pretend (Live)

Live tracks recorded on The Green World Tour 
Shiny Happy People:
12"

B-Side: Forty Second Song / Losing My Religion (Live Acoustic Version)
Released 16th May 1991
US Chart #10
UK Chart #6
 Limited Edition CD for UK and Europe

 1 Shiny Happy People   
2 I Remember California (Live)   
3 Get Up (Live)   
4 Pop Song '89 (Live)
Live tracks recorded on The Green World Tour

Near Wild Heaven:
 12"
Released 5th August 1991
UK Chart #27
 
Limited Edition CD for UK and Europe
 1 Near Wild Heaven    
2 Tom's Diner (Live)    
3 Low (Live)    
4 Endgame (Live)
Live tracks recorded at The Borderline, London 15th March 1991
 
 
 Radio Song:
12"
Released 4th November 1991
UK Chart #28 
 
 
 Limited Edition CD for UK and Europe

 1 Radio Song    
2 You Are The Everything (Live)    
3 Orange Crush (Live)    
4 Belong (Live)
Live tracks: 2 - on Tourfilm; 3-4 on This Film Is On
 
***************
Released as 3LP Vinyl Set
4 Disc Box Set
and 2CD Set:
CD1 Remastered Album
CD2 Out Of Time Demos

CD2-1     Losing My Religion 1 (Demo)     4:00
CD2-2     Near Wild Heaven 1 (Demo)     4:09
CD2-3     Shiny Happy People 1 (Demo) 3:14
CD2-4     Texarkana 1 (Demo)     3:50
CD2-5     Untitled Demo 2     3:33
CD2-6     Radio – Acoustic (Radio Song 1 Demo)     4:15
CD2-7     Near Wild Heaven 2 (Demo)     4:34
CD2-8     Shiny Happy People 2 (Demo)     3:55
CD2-9     Slow Sad Rocker (Endgame Demo)     4:34
CD2-10     Radio – Band (Radio Song 3 Demo)     4:22
CD2-11     Losing My Religion 2 (Demo)     4:36
CD2-12     Belong (Demo)     4:17
CD2-13     Blackbirds (Half A World Away Demo)     3:26
CD2-14     Texarkana (Demo)     4:06
CD2-15     Country Feedback (Demo)     4:03
CD2-16     Me On Keyboard (Me In Honey Demo)     3:42
CD2-17     Low (Demo)     4:54
CD2-18     40 Sec. (40 Second Song Demo)     1:22
CD2-19     Fretless 1 (Demo)     4:52

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