R.E.M.’s Monster at 25

After conquering college radio and signing with a major label in the ‘80s, and asserting their dominance, both artistically and as songwriters in the early ‘90s, Athens, Georgia’s, R.E.M., returned with their loudest, hardest, and most-rocking album, Monster, in late 1994. Both unexpected yet perfectly fitting the time in which it was written and released, this was R.E.M.’s take on, and reflection of, the rise of grunge and alternative rock culture (something they arguably helped create) which celebrated its peak right around the same time. In addition to being the band’s most rock-based album, it is also one of its most experimental, combining elements from various genres, often running them through an early ‘90s rock-production filter, and in some cases, sounding like a different band from one song to the next (not to mention sounding anything but like themselves, compared to previous releases). Grunge and garage rock elements combined with occasional post-punk, early-electronic, and various ‘70s references throughout resulted in a sound the band really only ever captured (or pursued) on this album. Monster was R.E.M’s harder, dirtier compliment to the quieter, more introspective, and often sadder Automatic for the People and Out of Time, much in the same way that U2’s early ‘90s era (including Achtung Baby and Zooropa) was a complete reinvention following the pastoral tones of The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum in the late ‘80s. In many ways, R.E.M. is one of the closest equivalents to being an American U2 (or maybe U2 are more like an Irish R.E.M.).

The band’s 9^th LP is best-known for the guitar-driven singles, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”, “Bang and Blame”, and “Crush With Eyeliner”, but it also features memorable ballads such as “StrangeCurrencies”, the awkwardly comical, “Tongue”, and the haunting elegy, “Let Me In”, written for the late Kurt Cobain on one of his guitars that had been given to R.E.M. by Courtney Love, friend of the band and Cobain’s widow. The music videos created to promote these singles visually matched the songs and the sound of Monster quite well, from the color-drenched strobe nightmare of “Kenneth” to the Spike Jonze-directed video for “Eyeliner” which saw a Japanese rock band standing in for R.E.M. as they ran around the streets of Tokyo. The rarely-seen video for the promo single, “Star 69”, filmed on the same tour stop in Japan, captured a few moments of R.E.M.’s actual concert there. Television appearances on SNL, David Letterman, and the MTV VMAs also helped to promote the album and a large U.S. tour, the band’s first since 1989, delivered the accumulated early ‘90s songs live for the first time while also exposing their audience to opening act, Radiohead, still performing in support of their debut LP, Pablo Honey. Highlights from the tour were captured on the home video, Road Movie, recently remastered and included in a new 25^th anniversary super-deluxe Monster box, available in just a few weeks.

Aside from being the second to last R.E.M. album to feature founding member and drummer, Bill Berry, the band would never again be this guitar-driven, for better or worse, and in 1994, their decision to go this particular direction allowed their music to be featured right next to the grunge and post-grunge greats that were dominating rock and alternative radio simultaneously, even though some of those bands, and some of their fans, might not have even realized how big a role R.E.M. played in building the scene in which they were reveling. Even pop radio featured bits of Monster in the autumn of ’94 and spring of ’95, the last time the band would see widespread mainstream support. While they would continue to release new music for nearly 15 years after this album, much of it also interesting and experimental, the Monster era was the last to connect with listeners and longtime fans on the grander level in which it did. Michael Stipe’s unique and often poetic lyrics seem to stand out even more in retrospect, compared to both his peers and next-gen successors. Bassist, Mike Mills, and guitarist, Peter Buck, continue to contribute their talents to small side projects, but their legacy will always  be rooted to their work with R.E.M., owed in large part to the band’s peak, early ‘90s output, including Monster. While they developed the tone and approach of these songs into 1996’s less-accessible follow up, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Monster was certainly the beginning of the end of R.E.M.’s classic line-up and original partnership, and today it stands out as one of their very best releases and one of the best, overall, of 1994.

Also celebrating 25 years:
Live-Throwing Copper
Freedy Johnston-This Perfect World
Hootie and The Blowfish-Cracked Rear View
Sponge-Rotting Pinata

Metallica’s S&M2 (concert film review)

Metallica recently revisited one of the more interesting concepts and experiments they ever attempted, performing live with a full symphony accompanying them. Their first such endeavor, with Michael Kamen and The San Francisco Symphony, in 1999 yielded a live album and home video as successful as the collaboration itself, S&M. When their hometown was ready to open a newly constructed venue, The Chase Center, coincidentally 20 years after their initial collaboration, Metallica was approached to perform with the orchestra again. Portions of two back-to-back nights just a few weeks ago (Sept. 6^th  and 8^th) have now been edited into a new concert film, simply titled, S&M2. The film premiered last week in movie theaters nation-wide and as a preview of the Blu-ray, DVD, and CD packages which will be out next month (just in time for Black Friday, as if Metallica should release things on any other day…), and as with most of their albums and concert videos, it is a lot to take in.

S&M2 is an interesting blend of many things. Visually, in part because of its staging in the round, the film looks and feels a bit more like Metallica’s late ‘90s concert video, Cunning Stunts than it does the original S&M, or at least a blend of the two. It is a 20^th anniversary celebration while also being very current, and it takes on unexpected weight being that it documents the last two performances the band gave prior to singer/guitarist James Hetfield’s much-publicized return to rehabilitation treatment. Between the high-level audio and video production and the performance itself, Hetfield’s work throughout the concert is on par with everyone else’s, most notably on an emotional rendition of “The Outlaw Torn” and “The Unforgiven 3” accompanied only by the orchestra. The musicianship here continues to be top-notch throughout, and whether you are familiar with all, some, or hardly any of Metallica’s music, there are things here to impress almost anyone, especially musicians, in general. Drummer, Lars Ulrich, continues to lead the band through fast, tight arrangements, sometimes at a tempo outpacing the studio recordings of the same songs, and even with most of the band in their 50s, the songs seem to speed up rather than to slow down, itself notable and impressive. Guitarist, Kirk Hammett, continues to wow with his leads, solos and skilled work with both the wah-wah pedal and the whammy bar throughout. Bassist, Robert Trujillo, who was not in the band during the first S&M shows, adjusts his powerful attack to match the tone of each song as the concert unfolds but shows controlled restraint in key moments that help the songs work well even in a different context such as this.

To compare the original 1999 concerts to their 2019 counterparts, all of the shows featured two sets of 10 songs each with a half-time intermission, but while the performances 20 years ago felt more like two halves of a basketball game, the new S&M2 movie feels like it could be viewed in four quarters, like a football game. The band opens with a direct re-creation of the first 10 minutes of the original 1999 concerts, featuring both a symphonic presentation of “The Ecstasy of Gold”, their traditional walk-on music, and a flawless rendition of the 1984 instrumental, deep cut, “The Call of Ktulu”, followed by three fan-favorites to get the show up and running. “No Leaf Clover”, a song originally written specially for the original S&M shows, is also included near the end of the first half. The highlight of the first quarter, however, is an amazing, note-perfect rendition of 2008’s “The Day that Never Comes”, which seems to have been written to be performed with a symphony. That song didn’t exist when the 1999 concerts were performed, and the opportunity for the band to feature orchestral versions of songs from the last 20 years stand out as the most intriguing highlights while also drawing attention to the fact that Metallica have only released three LPs in the 20 years. The second half of the first set leans hard into the newer or more obscure material compared to the well-known songs closer to the opening of the show. Engaging performances of “Confusion”, “Moth into Flame”, and “Halo on Fire”, all from the band’s most recent album, 2016’s, Hardwired…to Self-Destruct, were a nice balance to the 11 repeat songs that appeared in the 1999 shows and again in the 2019 material. This is arguably the biggest misstep of returning to performing with a symphony for a second time. Metallica has a plethora of material that would pair well with orchestral arrangements, which they proved the first time around, so it feels like a wasted opportunity for half the new concert to include songs that already received that treatment instead of devoting that time to other songs, both old and new (and how you can do something like this twice and not include “Orion” at some point is far beyond my comprehension).

Following the intermission, the symphony returned to the stage without the band for a piece from Prokofiev which was introduced as a sort of proto-metal in that its narrative theme focused on an ancient tribe which shared elements of metal culture, followed by a creative take on a Mosolov piece, accompanied by the band, which sounds like an early form of something that laid the groundwork for what eventually became heavy metal, entitled “The Iron Foundry”. These songs are such a change of pace that the third quarter of the concert, easily the most untraditional and experimental portion, develops its own unique pace where tones and moods blend and transition from one song to the next differently than in the other segments of the night. A restrained, acoustic arrangement of “All Within My Hands”, the only featured track from 2002’s St. Anger, improves significantly on the original recording, featured additional vocals from Avi Vinocur, and was followed by the highlight of the second set, if not the whole show, a beautifully performed, emotionally-heavy tribute to Metallica bassist, Cliff Burton, featuring orchestra member (and Metallica superfan), Scott Pingel and Ulrich who jumped in for the end of a rocking “(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth”, primarily on a heavily distorted electric cello!

It’s hard to go anywhere from there once you’ve hit such an emotional high-point, so Metallica quickly switches back into “big hits and fan favorites” mode for the final quarter of the show, breaking out five songs in a row that are both predictable and were all performed with the 1999 symphony, though it’s hard to ever really get tired of hearing “One” and “Master of Puppets”, especially when everyone is on their game at each musical position. Overall, it would be fair for one to argue S&M2 can be seen as more of a vanity project than a necessary addition to Metallica’s already legendary catalog, especially after a slue of live dvds, albums, and official bootlegs that have been available for most shows since 2008, but special shows and releases of this nature allow long-lasting bands like Metallica and the other all-time greats of rock history to both continue to engage with their audience and to present their material in new and different ways, where songs can be viewed from different perspectives or presented in different tones that make them more than worth a fan’s time to see or hear. S&M2 might be a bit much to deal with for someone who isn’t already familiar with at least the band’s most-notable songs, but for casual or hard-core fans alike, there is plenty here that is either entirely new or is an interesting enough take on an old favorite to keep most entertained to the very end.

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Movie intro

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The Ecstasy of Gold (intro/symphony only) (Morricone)

The Call of Ktulu

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Day That Never Comes

The Memory Remains

Confusion

Moth into Flame

The Outlaw Torn

No Leaf Clover

Halo on Fire

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Scythian Suite, Op.20, Second Movement (symphony only) (Prokofiev)

The Iron Foundry (Mosolov)

The Unforgiven 3 (Hetfield and symphony only)

All Within My Hands (acoustic) (w/Avi Vinocur)

(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth (Scott Pingel & Ulrich only)

Wherever I May Roam

One

Master of Puppets

Nothing Else Matters

Enter Sandman/The Frayed Ends of Sanity (tag)

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