Watch Stephen Sondheim (RIP) Teach a Kid How to Sing “Send In the Clowns”

in Music, Theatre | March 12th, 2014

Stephen Son­deim’s  “Send in the Clowns,” like the much man­gled “Mem­o­ry” from the much maligned musi­cal CATS, has weath­ered any num­ber of ill-advised inter­pre­ta­tions.

The show-stop­ping solo from 1973’s A Lit­tle Night Music’s ref­er­ence to clowns is not meant to be lit­er­al, but that did­n’t stop the Mup­pet Show from send­ing a trio of them in to back Judy Collins. Frank Sina­tra peeked around on every cho­rus, as if he’d yet to come to grips with the fact that Bozo would­n’t be pop­ping up on cue.

It’s mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions like these that set com­posers spin­ning in their graves, but Sond­heim is still very much in the game. His approach to musi­cal the­ater con­tin­ues to be exact­ing, no doubt nerve wrack­ing, though the Guild­hall School of Music and Dra­ma stu­dent he’s fine-tun­ing in the video above bears up brave­ly.

She’s a cou­ple of decades too young to play Desiree, whose unsuc­cess­ful attempt to woo an old lover away from his teenage bride occa­sions the song, but no mat­ter. Her adjust­ments show the div­i­dends a close read­ing of the text can pay.

See what you can do with Sond­heim’s advice next time you’re singing in the show­er, the only place pri­vate enough for me to believe I’m doing cred­it to his oeu­vre. Those of us who can’t sing can take heart know­ing that the orig­i­nal Desiree, Gly­nis Johns, could­n’t either, at least by the mas­ter’s usu­al stan­dards. The song’s unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly short phras­ing allowed her to shine as an actress, and deflect­ed from any vocal short­com­ings.

Here are the lyrics. If you need fur­ther inspi­ra­tion, watch Ing­mar Bergman’s Smiles of a Sum­mer Night, on which A Lit­tle Night Music is based.

Those who are more direc­tor than diva may pre­fer to eval­u­ate the per­for­mances below. In my opin­ion, at least one of them mer­its a firm rap on the knuck­les from Mae­stro Sond­heim for exces­sive wal­low­ing. (Hint for those whose time is short: we’ve saved the best for last.)

Judi Dench, Desiree in the 1995 Roy­al Nation­al The­atre revival, per­form­ing at the BBC Proms 2010, in hon­or of Sond­heim’s 80th birth­day.

Glenn Close, anoth­er Night Music vet at Carnegie Hall.

Car­ol Bur­nett stuck close to the spir­it of the orig­i­nal in a non-com­ic sketch for her 1970’s vari­ety show, costar­ring the late Har­vey Kor­man.

Bernadette Peters, the 2010 Broad­way revival’s Desiree, at South­ern Methodist Uni­ver­si­ty. Her accom­pa­nist seems pret­ty hap­py with this per­for­mance. 

Dame Judi again, show­ing us how it’s done, in cos­tume on the edge of a giant red bed, with Lau­rence Gui­t­tard as Fred­erik. Have a han­kie ready at the 3:10 mark.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Tay­lor Teach­es You to Play “Car­oli­na in My Mind,” “Fire and Rain” & Oth­er Clas­sics on the Gui­tar

David Lynch Teach­es Louis C.K. How to Host The David Let­ter­man Show

What Books, Movies, Songs & Paint­ings Could Have Entered the Pub­lic Domain on Jan­u­ary 1, 2014?

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the musi­cal­ly ungift­ed Bride of Urine­town. Fol­low her  @AyunHalliday

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The Last Time Lennon & McCartney Played Together Captured in A Toot And a Snore in ’74

in Music | March 6th, 2014

The num­ber of Bea­t­les bootlegs—in every pos­si­ble medi­um and state of quality—must approach infin­i­ty. A per­son could spend a life­time acquir­ing, cat­a­logu­ing, scru­ti­niz­ing, and dis­cussing the rel­a­tive mer­its of var­i­ous out­takes, live record­ings, demos, and stu­dio goof-offs from the band and its indi­vid­ual mem­bers. It should go with­out say­ing that a great many of these arti­facts have more his­tor­i­cal than musi­cal inter­est, giv­en their frag­men­tary and unse­ri­ous nature—and the sim­ple bar­ri­ers posed by bad record­ing. But while I imag­ine some angry anti­quar­i­an or zeal­ous devo­tee inter­ject­ing here to tell me that absolute­ly every­thing the fab four touched turned direct­ly to gold, I remain unsold on this arti­cle of faith.

So where are we aver­age fans to place A Toot and a Snore in ’74, the boot­leg album (above) record­ed at Bur­bank Stu­dios and fea­tur­ing musi­cal con­tri­bu­tions from Ste­vie Won­der, Har­ry Nils­son, Jesse Ed Davis, and Bob­by Keys? Well, its his­tor­i­cal val­ue is beyond ques­tion, since it rep­re­sents the only known record of John Lennon and Paul McCart­ney play­ing togeth­er after the Bea­t­les’ breakup. Though their mutu­al dis­like at this time was well-estab­lished and they hadn’t seen each oth­er in three years, the tapes doc­u­ment a very laid-back ses­sion with the two legends—John on lead vocal and gui­tar, Paul singing har­monies and play­ing Ringo’s drumkit—letting go of the past and hav­ing some fun again. Lennon first men­tioned the record­ing while dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reunion in the 1975 inter­view below (he’s sur­pris­ing­ly warm to the idea). At 1:45, he says, “I jammed with Paul. We did a lot of stuff in LA. There was 50 oth­er peo­ple play­ing, but they were all just watch­ing me and Paul.”

How does McCart­ney remem­ber the ses­sion? “Hazy,” he said in a 1997 inter­view, “for a num­ber of rea­sons.” The drugs were sure­ly one of them. The title refers to Lennon offer­ing Ste­vie Won­der coke in the open­ing track: “do you want a snort Steve? A toot? It’s going round….” The impromp­tu gath­er­ing con­vened on March 28 dur­ing the record­ing of Har­ry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats, which Lennon was pro­duc­ing. This was dur­ing Lennon’s so-called “lost week­end,” the year and a half dur­ing which he sep­a­rat­ed from Yoko, lived with their assis­tant May Pang, and did some seri­ous drink­ing and drugs (as well as record­ing three albums).

Pang, who was present and plays tam­bourine, recalls it as a night of “joy­ous music” in her 1983 book Lov­ing John, but you prob­a­bly had to be there to ful­ly appre­ci­ate it. As Richard Met­zger at Dan­ger­ous Minds notes, “it’s basi­cal­ly just a drunk, coked-up jam ses­sion.” But, he adds, “a drunk, coked-up jam ses­sion of great his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance.” And for that rea­son alone, it’s worth a lis­ten. Or, if you like, you can read a tran­script of the ram­ble and ban­ter over at Boot­leg Zone. Con­sist­ing of lots of stu­dio crosstalk, noodling improv, and a few attempt­ed cov­ers, the ses­sion was released by Ger­many’s Mis­tral Music in 1992, cred­it­ed sim­ply to “John and Paul.”

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

Hear the 1962 Bea­t­les Demo that Dec­ca Reject­ed: “Gui­tar Groups are on Their Way Out, Mr. Epstein”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Listen to Tree Rings Getting Played on a Turntable and Turned into Music

in Art, Music | March 6th, 2014

There’s some­thing odd­ly sooth­ing about lis­ten­ing to music on vinyl. Regard­less of what dig­i­tal music lovers say, and irre­spec­tive of the fact that the same sound may be pro­duced dig­i­tal­ly, die-hard vinyl fans will tell you that noth­ing com­pares to the warm scratch­i­ness of a nee­dle on a record. I don’t have a horse in the race, but hav­ing grown up with a record play­er in my bed­room, I can’t help but slip into a brief rever­ie when­ev­er I hear an old Satch­mo record spin­ning on a turntable.

In an ele­gant twist on the digital/analog bat­tle, Ger­man-born Bartholomäus Traubeck has cre­at­ed Years, a “record play­er that plays slices of wood,” using a process that trans­lates the data from the tree’s year rings into music. This process is, how­ev­er, com­plete­ly dig­i­tal. Instead of using a nee­dle to pick up the sound from the record’s grooves, Traubeck used a tiny cam­era to cap­ture the image of the wood, and dig­i­tal­ly trans­formed this data into piano tones. More than mere­ly a clever con­trap­tion, how­ev­er, Years is also an intrigu­ing inter­ac­tion between the phys­i­cal and the tem­po­ral. As Traubeck notes,

 “On reg­u­lar vinyl, there is this groove that rep­re­sents how­ev­er long the track is. There’s a phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the length of the audio track that’s imprint­ed on the record. The year rings are very sim­i­lar because it takes a very long time to actu­al­ly grow this struc­ture because it depends on which record you put on of those I made. It’s usu­al­ly 30 to 60 or 70 years in that amount of space. It was real­ly inter­est­ing for me to have this visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of time and then trans­late it back into a song which it wouldn’t orig­i­nal­ly be.”

A lit­tle con­vo­lut­ed? Don’t wor­ry. Play the video above, and enjoy the eerie melody.

via Live­Science

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

How Vinyl Records Are Made: A Primer from 1956 (That’s Rel­e­vant in 2014)

A Song of Our Warm­ing Plan­et: Cel­list Turns 130 Years of Cli­mate Change Data into Music

Glob­al Warm­ing: A Free Course from UChica­go Explains Cli­mate Change

Har­vard Thinks Green: Big Ideas from 6 All-Star Envi­ron­ment Profs

How Cli­mate Change Is Threat­en­ing Your Dai­ly Cup of Cof­fee

 

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Louis Armstrong Plays Historic Cold War Concerts in East Berlin & Budapest (1965)

in History, Music | March 4th, 2014

In its effort to under­mine the Sovi­et Union’s claims to cul­tur­al suprema­cy dur­ing the Cold War, the CIA found­ed the Con­gress of Cul­tur­al Free­dom (CCF), which spon­sored lit­er­ary jour­nals, bal­let and mod­ernist musi­cal per­for­mances, and mod­ern art exhi­bi­tions. The CCF also sent jazz musi­cians like Ben­ny Good­man, Dizzy Gille­spie, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Elling­ton to Europe, Latin Amer­i­ca, and Africa. Fore­most among the “Good­will Jazz Ambas­sadors” was Louis Arm­strong.

From 1955 on, Arm­strong trav­eled the world, per­form­ing with his All Stars in sup­port of U.S. inter­ests abroad. Arm­strong and his All Stars began their tours in Europe, where he became known as “Ambas­sador Satch.” His pop­u­lar­i­ty among sol­diers and civil­ians on both sides of the Berlin wall was leg­endary: “No bound­ary was closed to Louis,” said bassist Arvell Shaw. In a 1955 inter­view, Arm­strong recalled that dur­ing a con­cert in West Berlin fans “slipped over the Iron Cur­tain” to hear him play.

Arm­strong and the All Stars returned to Berlin sev­er­al times in the fol­low­ing years. Ten years after their first Euro­pean tour, they appeared in East Berlin in March of 1965, play­ing two sets, includ­ing pop­u­lar tunes like “Hel­lo, Dol­ly,” “How High the Moon,” and “Mack the Knife.” Jazz his­to­ri­an Ricky Ric­car­di observes that this was “a his­toric tour as it marked the first—and only—time Louis cracked the Iron Cur­tain.” Ric­car­di also calls Armstrong’s ensem­ble “one of the finest edi­tions of Armstrong’s All Stars.” See the full East Berlin per­for­mance at the top of the post.

That same year, Arm­strong and band brought their jazz diplo­ma­cy to Budapest, con­tribut­ing to the long­stand­ing love of Amer­i­can jazz in the Hun­gar­i­an city, which now hosts a Louis Arm­strong Fes­ti­val in the near­by town of Vác (and once had its own “Satch­mo Jazz Café”). You can hear a record­ing of the Budapest con­cert in two parts, above and below.

Despite the last­ing impres­sion Arm­strong left all over the world, his tours involved some con­tro­ver­sy. He faced crit­i­cism from African-Amer­i­can press at home when, dur­ing his 1965 East Berlin appear­ance, he “refused to be drawn into a dis­cus­sion of the race prob­lem in the Unit­ed States.” He is quot­ed as say­ing “I’ve got no griev­ances… I have been treat­ed fine in the South.” The cen­sure was per­haps a lit­tle unfair. Accord­ing to Ric­car­di, Arm­strong react­ed angri­ly to the vio­lent abuse of pro­test­ers in Sel­ma ear­li­er that month, mak­ing head­lines with the com­ment “They would beat Jesus if he was black and marched.” Nev­er­the­less, once on the oth­er side of the wall, Arm­strong stayed mum on racial con­flict in the Deep South.

Arm­strong also took a very point­ed stand for civ­il rights a few years ear­li­er. In 1957, furi­ous over Arkansas gov­er­nor Orval Faubus’ use of Nation­al Guard troops to block the inte­gra­tion of Cen­tral High School in Lit­tle Rock, Arm­strong famous­ly can­celed a tour to the Sovi­et Union and only resumed his ambas­sador tours after Eisen­how­er inter­vened. At first, learn­ing of events in Lit­tle Rock, Arm­strong told Lar­ry Lubenow, a 21-year-old jour­nal­ism stu­dent, “it’s get­ting almost so bad a col­ored man hasn’t got any coun­try.” Eisen­how­er, he said, was “two faced” and had “no guts.”

It was in part this protest—and the hyp­o­crit­i­cal U.S. deploy­ment of black per­form­ers abroad as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of rights they were denied at home—that inspired Dave Brubeck and his wife Iola to write a satir­i­cal jazz musi­cal called The Real Ambas­sadors, fea­tur­ing Louis Arm­strong as a per­former and main char­ac­ter of the dra­ma (hear an excerpt above). In the musi­cal “Pops,” Armstrong’s nick­name in the busi­ness, trav­els to a fic­tion­al African coun­try to spread the gospel of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, well aware of the irony of his sit­u­a­tion: “though he rep­re­sents the gov­ern­ment, the gov­ern­ment don’t rep­re­sent him.” Arm­strong saw the musical—which had only one live per­for­mance, at the Mon­terey Jazz Fes­ti­val in 1962—as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to address the com­plex racial issues sur­round­ing his role as an ambas­sador for a seg­re­gat­ed nation.

The set­ting of the Brubecks’ musical—where “Pops” the char­ac­ter is made “king or a day”—came from Armstrong’s tours in Africa, par­tic­u­lar­ly his 1956 trip to Ghana as a guest of Kwame Nkrumah. As you can see in the film above—shot by CBS and Edward R. Murrow—Armstrong was indeed treat­ed like a king on his arrival to the new­ly-inde­pen­dent West African coun­try. Audi­ences, includ­ing Prime Min­is­ter Nkrumah, to whom Arm­strong ded­i­cates “Black and Blue,” sit rapt as the All Stars per­form at the Opera House in Accra.

On his flight home after the tour, Arm­strong rubbed elbows with anoth­er world leader, then-vice pres­i­dent Richard Nixon. Nixon, writes KCRW’s Tom Schn­abel, “was a big fan, and chat­ted with Satch­mo through­out the flight back.” Oth­er ver­sions of the sto­ry have Nixon meet­ing Arm­strong at Dulles Air­port, and some say the two met in Paris. In each ver­sion, how­ev­er, Armstrong—who “loved mar­i­jua­na and smoked it everyday”—gets Nixon to unwit­ting­ly car­ry a trum­pet case full of “fine Ghana­ian weed” through cus­toms. The sto­ry may well be apoc­ryphal, but it speaks to Arm­strong’s can­ny, sub­ver­sive role as America’s fore­most “good­will jazz ambas­sador.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Louis Arm­strong Plays Trum­pet at the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids; Dizzy Gille­spie Charms a Snake in Pak­istan

Dizzy Gille­spie Runs for US Pres­i­dent, 1964. Promis­es to Make Miles Davis Head of the CIA

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Springsteen Plays Lorde’s “Royals” & AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” in Down Under Concerts

in Music | March 4th, 2014

Bruce Spring­steen played in Auck­land, New Zealand this past week­end and gave a big nod to Lorde, the coun­try’s 17-year-old star. Above you can watch him per­form a Spring­steen­ian ver­sion of her mega hit, Roy­als. Then, in a lit­tle bit of a con­trast, we have the Boss pay­ing trib­ute to anoth­er great local act, AC/DC and their rock anthem “High­way to Hell.” That was at a show in Perth, Aus­tralia. And, if you want a lit­tle more con­trast, don’t miss the Bris­bane per­for­mance of the Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive. No joke. Stay tuned for some Men at Work.…

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bruce Springsteen’s Per­son­al Jour­ney Through Rock ‘n’ Roll (Slight­ly NSFW But Sim­ply Great)

Watch Bruce Spring­steen Per­form “Growin’ Up” as an Open­ing Act for Dave Van Ronk (1972)

Heat Map­ping the Rise of Bruce Spring­steen: How the Boss Went Viral in a Pre-Inter­net Era

 

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The First Episode of The Johnny Cash Show, Featuring Bob Dylan & Joni Mitchell (1969)

in Music, Television | March 3rd, 2014

Whether you hate-watched, love-watched, or ignored last night’s Acad­e­my Awards, you may be tired today of Oscar talk. Take a break, unplug your­self from Face­book and Twit­ter, and trav­el with me back in TV time. It’s June 7th, 1969, and The John­ny Cash Show makes its debut on ABC, recorded—where else?—at the Grand Ole Opry (“I wouldn’t do it any­where but here”). Fea­tur­ing Cash ensem­ble reg­u­lars June Carter, the Carter fam­i­ly, Carl Perkins, the Statler Broth­ers, and the Ten­nessee Three, the musi­cal vari­ety show has a def­i­nite show­biz feel. Even the open­ing cred­its give this impres­sion, with a decid­ed­ly kitschy big band ren­di­tion of “Fol­som Prison Blues.” This seems a far cry from the defi­ant John­ny Cash who gave the world the fin­ger in a pho­to tak­en that same year dur­ing his San Quentin gig (where inmate Mer­le Hag­gard sat in atten­dance).

But show­biz John­ny Cash is still every inch the man in black, with his rough edges and refined musi­cal tastes (in fact, Cash debuted the song “Man in Black” on a lat­er episode). As daugh­ter Rosanne showed us, Cash was a musi­col­o­gist of essen­tial Amer­i­cana. His choice of musi­cal guests for his debut program—Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Cajun fid­dler Doug Ker­shaw—makes plain Cash’s love for folk songcraft. The appear­ance on the Cash show was Kershaw’s big break (two months lat­er his “Louisiana Man” became the first song broad­cast from the moon by the Apol­lo 12 astro­nauts). Mitchell, who plays “Both Sides Now” from her cel­e­brat­ed sec­ond album Clouds, was already a ris­ing star. And Dylan was, well, Dylan. Even if all you know of John­ny Cash comes from the 2005 film Walk the Line, you’ll know he was a huge Dylan admir­er. In the year The John­ny Cash Show debuted, the pair record­ed over a dozen songs togeth­er, one of which, “Girl from the North Coun­try,” appeared on Dylan’s coun­try album Nashville Sky­line. They play the song togeth­er, and Dylan plays that album’s “I Threw it All Away,” one of my all-time favorites.

Ini­tial­ly billed as “a live­ly new way to enjoy the sum­mer!” The John­ny Cash Show had a some­what rocky two-year run, occa­sion­al­ly run­ning afoul of ner­vous net­work exec­u­tives when, for exam­ple, Cash refused to cen­sor the word “stoned” from Kris Kristofferson’s “Sun­day Morn­ing Com­ing Down” and brought on Pete Seeger, despite the furor his anti-war views caused else­where. Ever the icon­o­clast, Cash was also ever the con­sum­mate enter­tain­er. After watch­ing the first episode of his show, you might agree that Cash and friends could have car­ried the hour even with­out his famous guests. Cash opens with a spir­it­ed “Ring of Fire” and also plays “Fol­som Prison Blues,” “The Wall,” and “Grey­stone Chapel.” And above, watch John­ny and June sing a sweet duet of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

John­ny Cash: Singer, Out­law, and, Briefly, Tele­vi­sion Host

John­ny Cash Sings “Man in Black” for the First Time, 1971

Two Prison Con­certs That Defined an Out­law Singer: John­ny Cash at San Quentin and Fol­som (1968–69)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Billy Corgan Performs an 8+ Hour Ambient Interpretation of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha

in Music | March 1st, 2014

Bil­ly Cor­gan, the front­man of The Smash­ing Pump­kins, made this announce­ment on his Face­book page last week:

On 2/28 I’ll be doing a show at Madame ZuZu’s Tea­house [in Chica­go]; start time noon, and due to nature of per­for­mance it’ll last 8–9 hours… As with all our events there is no charge. Per­for­mance will be cen­tered around an ambient/musical inter­pre­ta­tion of Her­mann Hes­se’s Sid­dhartha; built by mod­u­lar syn­the­sis, on the fly. Read­ings of the text to go hand in hand with what­ev­er is cre­at­ed; + the first @Hexistential poster, and event t‑shirts too. Hope to see you there.

One fan quick­ly respond­ed: “Film this, please. This sounds like a tru­ly spe­cial event, one that I’d be hum­bled to take in, even if a record­ing is the only way to do so.” Luck­i­ly, his wish was grant­ed.

Above and below, you can watch Cor­gan’s long ambi­ent inter­pre­ta­tion. And, in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions, you can find a copy of Her­man Hes­se’s exis­ten­tial nov­el from 1922. As you watch the video, you’ll encounter what SPIN describes as “a read­ing of the book itself, com­bined with mod­u­lar synth blips, bloops, and tex­tures.” Set­tle in and enjoy.

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R.E.M Plays “Radio Free Europe” on Their National Television Debut on The David Letterman Show (1983)

in Music, Television | March 1st, 2014

It’s hard for me to believe that we now live in a post‑R.E.M. world. Also a post-Son­ic Youth world, post-Pix­ies world (as far as I’m con­cerned), etc. The bands of my errant youth are no more; some­times it feels like all I can do is toss out the occa­sion­al, half-heart­ed “get off my lawn” or mum­ble bemus­ed­ly, “what’s a Lorde?” when con­tem­plat­ing the cur­rent state of music.

Yet all is not lost for “aging hipsters”—in the par­lance of the blog Rock Turtle­neck!. Though our pop cul­ture may seem to slip into an irrel­e­vant ice age, we can at least warm our­selves at the flick­er­ing screen, where Youtube caches troves of footage of our bygone heroes—like the video above of R.E.M. play­ing “Radio Free Europe” for their first appear­ance on TV in 1983.

Now, this was before the time of my fan­dom, which dates from the lat­er 80s. Still, it’s always a joy to see one of my all time favorites roar­ing in their lion­heart­ed youth.

The band appeared on Let­ter­man, pro­mot­ing their debut, Mur­mur. The venue is no sur­prise, giv­en Dave’s con­sis­tent cham­pi­oning of instant-clas­sic Amer­i­can artists. But after this appear­ance, they would not return to his show for anoth­er 12 years, this time to play “Crush With Eye­lin­er” in the midst of their 1995 Mon­ster tour (above). I loved R.E.M. no less then, but they were pros by that time, not the scrap­py, jan­g­ly South­ern alt-rock­ers bold­ly chal­leng­ing the ortho­doxy of bloat­ed sta­di­um rock.

I think Rock Turtle­neck! does not over­state its case in claim­ing that the band’s nation­al tele­vi­sion debut “was the col­lege rock equiv­a­lent of The Bea­t­les play­ing the Ed Sul­li­van Show in 1964.” Well, maybe just a lit­tle, but it’s still a piv­otal moment in the his­to­ry of alt-rock. Mur­mur appears as num­ber 1 on this list of the “best albums of 1983”—calculated from “over­all rank­ings in over 13,000 great­est album charts”—followed by oth­er new wave and alter­na­tive clas­sics like the Vio­lent Femmes’s epony­mous debut, The Police’s Syn­chronic­i­ty, U2’s War, Tom Wait’s Sword­fishtrom­bones, and New Order’s Pow­er, Cor­rup­tion and Lies. Sim­pler times, sim­pler times….

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Two Very Ear­ly Con­cert Films of R.E.M., Live in ‘81 and ‘82

R.E.M.’s Final Encore (and an Ear­ly Con­cert from Ger­many)

R.E.M.’s “Los­ing My Reli­gion” Reworked from Minor to Major Scale

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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