R.E.M - ...And I Feel Fine: The Best of the IRS Years 1982-1987
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Music CD Cover
Artist: R.E.MEdition: Music CD
Format: Collector's Edition, Extra tracks
CD Release Date: 2006-09-12
Music Label: Capitol/I.R.S.
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Begin The Begin
- Radio Free Europe
- Pretty Persuasion
- Talk About The Passion
- (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
- Sitting Still
- Gardening At Night
- 7 Chinese Bros.
- So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
- Driver 8
- Can't Get There From Here
- Finest Worksong
- Feeling Gravity's Pull
- I Believe
- Life And How To Live It
- Cuyahoga
- The One I Love
- Welcome To The Occupation
- Fall On Me
- Perfect Circle
- It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
- Pilgrimage (Mike's pick)
- These Days (Bill's pick)
- Gardening at Night(slower electric demo; previously unreleased)
- Radio Free Europe (Hib-tone version)
- Sitting Still (Hib-tone version)
- Life and How to Live It (Live at the Muzik Centrum, Utrecht, Holland 9/14/87; previously unreleased)
- Ages of You (Live at the Paradise, Boston 7/13/83; previously unreleased)
- We Walk (Live at the Paradise, Boston 7/13/83; previously unreleased)
- 1,000,000 (Live at the Paradise, Boston 7/13/83; previously unreleased)
- Finest Worksong (other mix)
- Hyena (demo) (previously unreleased)
- Theme from Two Steps Onward (previously unreleased)
- Superman
- All the Right Friends (previously unreleased; later version released on Vanilla Sky soundtrack)
- Mystery to Me (demo; previously unreleased)
- Just A Touch (live in-studio version; previously unreleased)
- Bad Day (session outtake; previously unreleased)
- King of Birds (last song cut from the best of?)
- Swan Swan H (live, acoustic from ?Athens, GA-Inside Out?)
- Disturbance At The Heron House (Peter's pick)
- Time After Time (annElise)(Michael's pick)
Free Music Notes for ...And I Feel Fine: The Best of the IRS Years 1982-1987
Free Music Review: And, oh, do I feel fine listening to this collection....
Hit: 5 Stars
I'm not going to lie to you - I like the idea of "Best-Of" & "Greatest Hits" albums in general. This medium allows for bands to gaze backwards through the annals of history so that they might view & review their work, in hopes of gathering together their best songs from a given time period. All of this is done in the hope of providing a means for which their fans (whether old, new, or as-yet-discovered) can listen to those songs in a fairly simple format. With "Greatest Hits" albums, you don't have to carry around all of the albums from your favorite bands just to hear the songs that you like the best. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved - a band gets to make a few more bucks by repackaging old material and a fan of the band only has to carry around one or two albums as opposed to 4, 5, 9, or 10 of them to get their fill of the band's music.
However, there is a dark side from whence a music listener can view a "Best-Of" album, since the whole concept of creating an album or two that will attempt to gather together a band's preeminent songs is one that has been used and disastrously abused for decades now. There are legions of rock snobs out there who disdain (quite rightly) the fact that many of these records only collect a band's singles and/or the songs that receive the widest levels of popularity & notoriety. Record companies too often get involved in the decision-making process, forcing the band to include songs just so that more records will be sold on the basis of that one song (i.e., how record companies have been pushing record sales for years, getting the dumbed-down public to buy an often crappy album for the one poppy, radio-friendly tune). "Best-Of" albums too frequently have been turned into "What-Sells-Best" albums, sacrificing content for sales.
I say all of that to say this - R.E.M.'s prior "Greatest Hits" release, In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003, was plagued by such issues, especially in terms of leaving often strong, fan-favorite songs in favor of ones that were more easily recognized by the average music-buying public. Case in point - while Automatic For The People is one of R.E.M.'s best records, it's also the fan favorite and received 4 nominations on In Time, while the critically-acclaimed New Adventures in Hi-Fi only had two songs included. Yes, an alternate track of "Leave" did make it to Disc Two, but you had to pay extra for it (even though it is an excellent remix). The band was in the thralls of a world tour in 2003 and this compendium of their years on Warner Brothers left much to the imagination. I mean, "Country Feedback" only made it on as a live track to close out Disc Two - as wonderful as the song is and as well-recorded as the live cut is, it's a travesty of justice for this song not to have been on the Disc One.
So, when I heard that And I Feel Fine was going to be released in Fall 2006 as a replacement for the nearly 2-decades-old Eponymous, released when R.E.M. left I.R.S. Records, I was filled with a mixture of excitement & trepidation. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, even with the promise of liner notes & comments left by all four members Yes, I will admit it - even the promise of long-retired drummer Bill Berry contributing to this collection did little to assuage my fears. As such, as highly- and fittingly-lauded as the band's early work is, there is much misunderstanding that revolves around the first five R.E.M. albums: there aren't any true singles until Document, the band seems overly indulgent in regards to experimentation & quirky lack of direction, and no one really knows what Michael Stipe is singing on any of those songs. I wasn't sure if the problems of over-reliance upon one album that afflicted In Time would burden down And I Feel Fine.
And I am so glad that my fears were dismissed (quite quickly at that). Each of the five albums from the I.R.S. Years (Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Life's Rich Pageant, & Document) is appropriately and evenly represented on the 21 songs on Disc One. Four songs were chosen from each of the five albums, plus "Gardening At Night" from the Chronic Town EP. Thus, besides personal favorites such as "Moral Kiosk" off Murmur, I don't think that there's one necessary song missing between the two discs. Name a song that might be missing - I dare you. "7 Chinese Brothers"? It's there. "Disturbance At The Heron House"? Present. "Cuyahoga"? Accounted for. And even more to the point, the tracks on Disc One are arranged in a non-chronological format, with precedence given to how the songs will sound when listened to as a complete album, from song 1 to song 21, as only a mixtape should be.
There are definite highlights that must be pointed out, and they're all from Disc Two (even though Disc One is a wonderful & complete collection). The first notable selection is the 3-song live set from Boston, MA, on 07/13/1983 - "Ages of You," "We Walk," & "1,000,000." The energy of these four boys from Atlanta, GA is never more apparent than on these tracks as they flow effortlessly and seamlessly through their set. In second place comes the at-half-speed, demo version of "Gardening At Night" - the song sounds more hushed & intimate than a great many other songs in the R.E.M. pantheon. "Hyena" (in a scratchy demo version) represents my third choice, complete with the band's revealing in the liner notes that, while the song was released on Life's Rich Pageant, it was originally recorded during the Fables of the Reconstruction sessions. I've always been a fan of hearing songs in their early, unfinished, not-quite-complete phase - it gives new life to how you hear the "finished" version that you've been used to all of these years.
Do I have any complaints? Not really. As I said, there aren't really any songs that have been left off this 2-disc, 42-song compilation. If you've never listened to R.E.M. before, I would suggest you go purchase the album as soon as you finish reading this review. And I Feel Fine is what a "Best Of" album should be - representative of how a band has grown & developed over a given period of time and beautifully illustrative of the contributions that the band has made to the greater picture of music history. But in case you need just one more reason to buy this album, take this into account - it's both poignant and hilarious to read in the liner notes for Disc Two and learn how Bill, Mike, & Peter haven't always understood what Michael Stipe is singing or what his lyrics even mean, but they're certain that they have meaning for someone (and on occasion, the boys even present their differing interpretations of certain songs). So, if the band doesn't know what's going on with Stipe's beautiful mumblings, then it's OK that us listeners have also been confused for almost 25 years now.
...And I Feel Fine: The Best of the IRS Years 1982-1987 Poster
R.E.M. Photos
 |  |  |
More from R.E.M.
 Lifes Rich Pageant |  Document |  Fables of the Reconstruction |
 Eponymous |  The Best of the I.R.S. Years |  The Best of the I.R.S. Years Video Collection |
The songs collected on And I Feel Fine... The Best of The I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 are just good enough to render the previous I.R.S. years collection, 1998's Eponymous, officially dead. The latter was likely the way the masses heard R.E.M.'s underground hits on CD the first time--after all, the band had just come off of their apocalyptic breakthrough single ("It's the end of the world...") and CD players were finally hitting below the $400 mark. It did the trick. We all got up to date and it paved the way for a more sonic R.E.M. to grow into the phenomena they've become. This new version is a welcome history re-write as it pulls more from Murmur and Reckoning days and does a far better job at telling the early story--owing a great deal to the photos and in-depth notes from Anthony DeCurtis.
For our money it's worth $2 to buy the "Collectors Edition" for the massive collection of rarities on disc 2. The DVD companion to this CD is a visual goldmine. --Peter Hilgendorf
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