Imagine if the Doors, The Byrds or Love had, long after their late '60s heyday, reconvened to record a quartet of brilliant albums, the first a double LP of classic, even epic, proportions issued just months before punk broke.
Best known for their late-'60s hit "Only One Woman" and its identically arranged follow-up "The Walls Fall Down", the Marbles were driven by the sheet metal-bending larynx of Graham Bonnet and the prolific writing of the Gibb brothers, who are responsible for half of the tracks featured here.
Photos of morris dancers adorn this home of the English Folk Dance & Song Society, and the atmosphere is pin-drop reverent as the Prince's legions gather. Floorboards creak, glasses clink, and someone actually tiptoes. No wonder Will Oldham's first act is to wince, then hurl us into his world of gore, spunk, death and cunnilingus.
The mountain man who tore up British stages last time round has been replaced tonight by a straight-backed loner in the smart-casual dress of the conscientious worker.
Sequenced in reverse chronological order, these videos show Stipe in his element and Buck very much not in his, counting the seconds till he gets to go home. Still, thanks to Stipe, R.E.M. were always enhanced by video. The collection begins with "Bad Day", before Stipe's face de-wrinkles as we regress into the starkly exuberant "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" and arresting "Everybody Hurts". Then Stipe regains his hair for "Losing My Religion".
Set fire to anything. Set fire to the air," urged John Cale at the beginning of Music For A New Society. That 1982 masterpiece was the evisceration of a man whose fractured psyche was mirrored perfectly by songs arranged in jagged, improvisatory style; a knife held at the throat of sweetness. Now he reappears with his first album of songs for seven years, and his finest album in any genre for over two decades.
