Tag Archives: REM

46. How 2B Confused

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Installment #46 of How 2B Confused aired in March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.

Whatever that means.

What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).

How 2B Confused #46 download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9), mixcloud stream.

A few highlights.

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1. the lion sleeps tonight

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“The #1 greatest record you probably haven’t already heard is Robert John‘s take on The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Which is immediately kind of a lie. All kinds of people heard it back in the day. It was the #21 biggest selling single of 1972 in the USA, #45 in Canada. Yet somehow or other the world seems to have mostly forgotten about it. It’s also not the greatest song you probably haven’t already heard. It just isn’t. But what is then? I don’t know. I’m just some guy sitting on a porch, making a list. What I do know is The Lion Sleeps Tonight isn’t just any song. Written in 1922 by a man named Solomon Linda, a South African of Zulu origin, finally released almost twenty years later under the title Mbube, a 78-rpm record that was mostly marketed to black audiences in South Africa.

But something clearly happened along the way, not all of it good. In fact the song’s back story includes one of the more notorious copyright crimes of all time. The upside of all that being the myriad cover versions that flooded forth– everybody from Miriam Makeba to Brian Eno to Chet Atkins to Roger Whittaker, Yma Sumac, The Weavers, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Sandra Bernhard, the Stylistics, even REM (sort of). But Robert John’s take is the one for me, and not just for nailing the yodeling, but also the doo-wop stylings, and there’s a tuba involved, some pedal steel as well. And so it captures the peace and joy and freedom from worry (if only for one night) that it’s all about. Because the lion is asleep. Which if you think about it, doesn’t really makes sense. If the lion’s asleep, isn’t a raucous party going to wake it up? Not if it’s been drugged. So whatever. It’s a party! We’re alive and we’re singing, and tomorrow and all of its troubles – that’s just a rumour. Tonight the Lion Sleeps.

310. talk about the passion

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“It’s hard to overstate how big a deal REM were in the cool world when they first hit, except maybe to say, everything about them was punk … except their sound. They did it their way, Michael Stipe resplendently inarticulate, the other guys jangling along with deceptive power, reminding us that there was way more to music than all the godawful corporate radio crap we hated and and/or punk’s necessary vomit. Which was the key, I guess. So much beautiful and mysterious stuff between those extremes that wanted exploring. All that passion. And yet, I don’t think REM ever really topped that first album, Murmur. They’d never be that essential again, even as their sound got sharper, tighter, and Mr. Stipe stooped to enunciating, even making sense eventually. Which wasn’t necessarily what anyone had been asking for.” (Philip Random)

REM-1983-live

320. gravity’s pull

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“Vancouver, 1984. REM finally made it to Vancouver and a sold out Commodore Ballroom was waiting for them, including at least one member from every at least half-cool band in town. They opened with Radio Free Europe as I recall, which killed, but equally notable was Michael Stipe’s hair. It was long, hippie long. Which just wasn’t done in cool culture those days. Punk had accomplished that much, hadn’t it? Guys with long hair and cool no longer belonged in the same sentence, or the same nightclub. Jump ahead a year to 1985 and REM were back, playing to yet another sold out Commodore, and now there were all manner of long haired guys in the audience. Except now Michael Stipe had his cut almost military short, and dyed blonde. People were confused, feeling out of sync. Until the band kicked into their first song, Gravity’s Pull from the new album Reconstruction Of The Fables – strong and dark, and heavy without being obvious about it. Everybody quickly forgot about the hair.” (Philip Random)

REM-1985-live

014. The Final Countdown*

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Installment #14. of The Final Countdown aired Saturday-June-30-2018 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

The Final Countdown* is Randophonic’s longest and, if we’re doing it right, most relevant countdown yet – the end of result of a rather convoluted process that’s still evolving such is the existential nature of the project question: the 1297 Greatest Records of All Time right now right here. Whatever that means. What it means is over a year of radio if all goes to plan, and when has that ever happened?

TFC-014

Installment #14 of The Final Countdown* went like this.

1031. Ennio Morricone – an Indian story
1030. Screaming Blue Messiahs – wild blue yonder
1029. Doors – soul kitchen
1028. REM – Cuyahoga
1027. Flatt + Scruggs – down in the flood
1026. Queen – someday one day
1025. Gordon Lightfoot – Don Quixote
1024. Flying Burrito Brothers – lazy day
1023. Alan Parsons Project – Dr Tarr + Professor Fether
1022. CloudDead – rifle eyes
1021. Pauline Easy – Billie Jean
1020. The Leisure Society – Cars
1019. Cookin’ with Kurt – soup du jour
1018. Holger Czukay – Dancing In Wide Circles
1017. Godley + Creme – Consequences [stampede + mobilization]
1016. Sun Ra – nuclear war
1015. Lovin’ Spoonful – day dream
1014. John Mayall – sitting in the rain
1013. Arthur Louis – knockin’ on heaven’s door
1012. Wall of Voodoo – on Interstate 15
1011. John Martyn – I’d rather be the devil
1010. Aphex Twin – analogue bubblebath
1009. Jenny Owen Youngs – Fuck Was I
1008. Sonic Youth – I’m Not There

Randophonic airs pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and/or download options usually available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

 

529. Cuyahoga

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“I gave up trying to figure out what Michael Stipe was on about very early on. The first few REM albums, he was mumbling, which made it easy. But then, come Life’s Rich Pageant, he was suddenly enunciating, you could now decipher words – they just weren’t adding up. Except maybe Cuyahoga. Because I’d read about the Cuyahoga as a little kid. The river that was so polluted with man made chemicals and whatever that it actually caught fire, Cleveland, Ohio, 1969. That’s the kind of fact that’s all too meaningful.” (Philip Random)

REM-1986-roadside