21 for 21: #15: R.E.M., "New Adventures in Hi-Fi"

Their last great album

My #15 pick in my CD collection is one of the more obscure offerings from R.E.M.'s later career, "New Adventures in Hi-Fi." Released in 1996, it was also the band's last album with original drummer Bill Berry, who soon after left the band, in part due to a brain aneurism he suffered on tour in 1995. They really were never the same band after that, so I consider this disc their swan song.

It's not really that much of a stretch to call an R.E.M. album "experimental," since their entire career was a mixture of radio-friendly pop songs interspersed with unusual, innovative, and bizarre sonic experiments. Even so, this album has an experimental feel throughout, with the band embracing many of the alternative music qualities of mid-nineties innovators like Radiohead.

Many of the tracks are sparse and introspective, with lead singer Michael Stipe's nasal, cracked lyrics interposed upon isolated guitar chords, slow percussion, or electronic beeps. The louder tracks have an urgent, sometimes furious intensity, and the emphasis is on instrumental distortion and feedback. It's a moody, brooding, sometimes dark album, and the fact that it both sounds like R.E.M. and doesn't sound like R.E.M. at the same time is part of it's appeal.

As usual with this list, it's one of my favorite CDs to write with while it's playing in the background. It's continued unfamiliarity is part of it's appeal, and it's certainly the last great R.E.M. album of their storied career. Here's the video for one of my favorite songs from the album, "Bittersweet Me."