Here I am, up late at night, and for the first time since my initial college days, trying to decipher Michael Stipe's lyrics. Many years ago, I'd given up that practice for a few reasons: 1). I was no longer in college, 2). I suspected that Stipe was being deliberately obtuse--he was an obscurant lyricist, the meaning of the words resting rather in the effect the sounds the words made rather than the words themselves, and 3).Stipe's style evolved--he bacame a more personal, more pointed lyricist. Whether this change in writing style was the cause or effect of massive monetary success, I'm not sure--maybe a bit of both.
In the late '90s, R.E.M.'s drummer Bill Berry left the group for health reasons, and eve since, R.E.M.'s career has taken a significant downward turn. Their album release have grown more sporadic, their albums spottier, their sound softer (with more techno-influenced beats to make for Berry's absences)--and sales have plummeted. Their singles are still sublime, though, as is the case with "Imitation of Life."
Built on a baroque bed of contemporary chamber pop and dressed in linens of Peter Buck's ringing and chiming guitar arpeggios, spacey synth sounds, minor-key piano chords, Beatles-esque string arrangements, and a mid-tempo beat laid down by a drum machine and a trippy tambourine, the music here is ear candy of the finest quality, buffeted by Stipe's commercial-catchy melody and coarse, soaring tenor. When the verses rise to the chorus, R.E.M. sneds us flying through the clouds of sugar cane, ciannamon, lemonade, and hyacinth. While we're floating up here--what about those lyrics I was trying to understand earlier? Well--let's not worry too much, shall we? Let's give in to the moment, to the music, for no one can see us cry. Who cares if the end of the world as we know it? I feel fine! You should, too! This is who we are, this imitation of life. Forget all our real troubles! Who needs 'em? Who needs the real thing when the copy's this good?
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