A lot of the time, bands rely too heavily on their
instrumentals and countermelody in order to push across their main message and
be appealing to the audience. In the case of R.E.M, the countermelody is just
that, a COUNTERmelody! It serves its purpose of backing up the main vocalist.
R.E.M perfected a great balance between the slow instrumentals and comforting
vocals. While the vocals are high-pitched at times and remind me a lot of Simon
and Garfunkel from the 60s, it blends well with the soft bass line and slow
guitar strums.
Another thing that I found appealing in their music that
seemed rather consistent throughout the album in its entirety was the way that
they were able to build up during their individual songs as well as maintain an
album story arc. By starting slow and calm in the beginning of their songs,
R.E.M provides themselves room for building in intensity. In some of their
slower songs at the beginning, they are able to develop a level of dynamics
later in the music. When bands use their instruments to play soft sound as
R.E.M does skillfully, I tend to forget the true power the instruments actually
have. When R.E.M builds in volume and intensity, their countermelodies become
more complex and I am quickly reminded of the power music can emit. I also
found it mildly humorous when we stopped listening to this album and listened
to the next band because the volume/intensity was night and day. But, R.E.M
makes a little calm niche for themselves in the relatively insane ecosystem of
music.
On a daily basis, I would say that I am a relatively passive
listener. When I analyze music, however, I definitely look for some substance
in the lyrics as well as having a strong audio skill. I want something that can
make me bob my head to the beat, sway to the melody, as well as leave the
listening experience impacted by the lyrics. One definite strength in R.E.M’s
album Automatic for the People is
that they have strong lyrics side by side with calm, down to earth
vocals/countermelodies. They remind me of many current bands centered around
indie-rock because they are reverting back to a down to earth vibe and
refocused on substantial lyrics. Without directly staring at a set of lyrics
for a song, I rarely can identify that the lyrics are strong and impactful. I
have learned over the years how to
analyzing poetry for meaning and symbolism and doing this with song
lyrics is very similar. However, it is definitely hard to consume the art while
also looking for lyrical depth. R.E.M’s album made it rather easy, though,
which I much appreciated. I could directly identify lyrics that came from the
heart and I connected with. I think part of this is lent to the fact that the
instruments didn’t overpower the calm, soft vocals and the slow tempo made it
more understandable.
R.E.M differed from a lot of what we’ve recently listened
and I felt that this was very refreshing. In the midst of wild rock bands like
Nirvana and other harder rock 90s bands that emerged at the beginning of the
decade along with the rise of hip hop as a genre, R.E.M makes a serene oasis
for themselves by putting a majority of their value on lyrics and calm vocals.
While hip hop and bands like Nirvana also have this reliance on quality lyrics,
it is more blatantly obvious for R.E.M because of the more down to earth nature
of their music.
Check out some of their songs. I personally liked their first two songs most. It’s rather calming.
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