I first heard of R.E.M. when I heard “Stand” on the car radio during a snow day in eighth grade. When Out Of Time rolled around during my sophomore year in high school, the band became my favorite, and it hasn’t relinquished the title since. Many of their songs serve as the anchor points through which I can recall my life and how I lived it when I originally heard them. It’s no coincidence that this Best Of collection that covers the group’s time with Warner Bros. also parallels my awareness of their music – without the major-label push that got “Stand” and “Losing My Religion” on Top 40 radio, there’s no way this music would ever have reached my sheltered ears. I can only thank the heavens that it did.

This collection is not quite a greatest hits package, since “Shiny Happy People” isn’t included and few, if any, of the included post-Monster songs qualify as hits. It’s not quite a greatest-songs collection, either, since it limits itself to singles, a couple of soundtrack cuts, and two new songs. It is a solid, although not perfect, retrospective of the band’s last fifteen years.

The album many consider to be the band’s best, Automatic For The People, gets the lion’s share, with four out of the eighteen tracks. “Man On The Moon” and “Everybody Hurts” are included, of course, as are “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” and “Nightswimming”. The last of those is a bit of a surprise to me, since even in the summer of R.E.M. that song didn’t seem to get much airplay. But I’m grateful it’s there, since “Nightswimming” is probably my favorite song. Mike Mills’s piano is beautiful, the string arrangements are terrific, and Michael Stipe’s lyrics and delivery so perfectly capture a feeling of longing for the past that as soon as I heard it I just knew I’d knew I’d be listening to it a decade later.

Out Of Time, the band’s breakthrough, is represented only by the obvious “Losing My Religion”. I would have loved to see “Radio Song” on this disc, but I guess the band figured if “Shiny Happy People” wasn’t going to be there, nothing else from Out Of Time would. I can understand the sentiment, and “Shiny Happy People” was never one of my favorites. But the result is that a very important album feels under-represented. The only other album that doesn’t contribute two songs to the disc is Monster, which adds “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” Since Monster, despite its popularity at the time, is considered by many to be something of the odd bird in the R.E.M. discography, I can certainly see the sense of that decision.

I think that New Adventures In Hi-Fi, the last album Bill Berry contributed to, is on a par with Automatic, but many of its stronger songs never caught on as singles. While “E-Bow The Letter” has grown on me in the years since, I still think it was poorly chosen as the album’s first single, and may have contributed to the album’s somewhat-disappointing performance. “Electrolite” is another track with a solid Mills piano line, more fun and up-tempo than “Nightswimming” but still a fine song.

The post-Berry selections are rather interesting. Up and Reveal both contribute two singles, and they’re good songs that nonetheless reflect the band trying to find its way as a trio. My favorite song on the disc from this era is “The Great Beyond”, the single from the soundtrack to Man On The Moon. It combines the electronica-tinged moodiness of Up and Reveal with a solid song structure and energetic lyrics from Stipe. The band also reaches into the past for “All The Right Friends” (from the Vanilla Sky soundtrack) and the current single “Bad Day”, older songs that the band completed and re-recorded in the last few years. They certainly have a more ‘traditional’ R.E.M. sound, and I enjoy listening to them. Part of me wonders if the mining of the past isn’t part of the post-Berry learning process, as Mills, Stipe and Peter Buck reclaim and reinterpret some of their older material. The other new song, “Animal”, is fairly forgettable, but doesn’t detract from the collection.

In Time is also available as a 2-disc special edition. In addition to a liner notes booklet written by Buck, the second disc contains demos, live performances, and additional soundtrack cuts, such as “Fretless” from Until the End of the World, “It’s a Free World Baby” from Coneheads and Friends, and an alternate version of “Leave” from A Life Less Ordinary that I personally don’t think holds a candle to the original from New Adventures. The acoustic version of “The One I Love” is damned good, however. As for William S. Burroughs delivering a spoken-word rendition of “Star Me Kitten”…that one, you gotta hear to believe. I highly recommend both versions.

Disc one
1. Man on the Moon (5:14)
2. The Great Beyond (5:07)
3. Bad Day (4:07)
4. What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? (4:01)
5. All the Way to Reno (4:45)
6. Losing My Religion (4:29)
7. E-Bow the Letter (5:26)
8. Orange Crush (3:52)
9. Imitation of Life (3:58)
10. Daysleeper (3:40)
11. Animal (4:02)
12. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite (4:08)
13. Stand (3:12)
14. Electrolite (4:07)
15. All the Right Friends (2:48)
16. Everybody Hurts (5:18)
17. At My Most Beautiful (3:36)
18. Nightswimming (4:18)

Disc two (special edition only)
1. Pop Song 89 (Acoustic) (2:58)
2. Turn You Inside-Out (Live) (4:18)
3. Fretless (4:51)
4. Chance (Dub) (2:34)
5. It’s a Free World Baby (5:13)
6. Drive (Live) (3:31)
7. Star Me Kitten (Featuring William S. Burroughs) (3:31)
8. Revolution (3:05)
9. Leave (Alternate Version) (4:43)
10. Why Not Smile (Alternate Version) (3:02)
11. The Lifting (Demo) (5:21)
12. Beat a Drum (Demo) (4:28)
13. 2JN (3:27)
14. The One I Love (Live) (3:25)
15. Country Feedback (Live) (6:16)

Released by: Warner Bros.
Release date: 2003
Disc one total running time: 76:17
Disc one total running time: 61:22 (special edition only)

It’s been a long time since we heard anything out of Julee Cruise – too long. More like a decade, really. Okay, she’s done a few guest appearances, some soundtrack one-offs, and stuff like that, but ten years is a long time between solo projects – long enough for everyone except the most ardent fans to forget. Fortunately, Julee’s got plenty of those – her big exposure came along with a little show called Twin Peaks, something which it seems had nothing but ardent fans.

The Art Of Being A Girl owes less to the ethereal, dreamy style of Twin Peaks or her two previous solo albums than it does to that more recent work. Moby, Hybrid and numerous other acts have engaged Julee’s vocal services in recent years, and she’s become something of a known quantity in techno and especially lounge music circles. It’s that genre that she’s exploring in Art, and that genre from which she draws guests and producers of her own.

To be fair, it’s not the total culture shock that longtime Julee fans might expect. Despite being a bit funky, Art evokes the same smoky feel as Floating Into The Night, but in a slightly more modern sonic setting. It’s not as different as you might think. Truthfully, her Scream soundtrack selection (“If I Survive”) with Hybrid was more of a jarring change than this is.

And yet, there are some major shifts – the little monologues between songs are new (her ruminations on a superficial party crowd leading up to the opening strains of “You’re Staring At Me” are hilarious), and the kind of torchy jazz that made her a hit with Twin Peaks fans is now filtered through some decidedly modern influences – as the label on the shrinkwrap puts it, this CD falls into the categories of “lounge,” “chill-out” and “downtempo” all at the same time (quite a feat). Some of the new directions explored here include almost Siouxsie-ish vocals on “Falling In Love” amd “Three Jack Swing”, and giving any modern R&B diva you care to name a run for their money with the silky “The Fire In Me” (which, unannounced on the track list, also features a modernized take on “Falling”, Julee’s Twin Peaks theme song). At the heart of many of the songs, though, it’s still the sparing, alluring sound that dates back to her earlier works.

I highly recommend this one to Julee’s old fans, and to the listeners who may not have dug her earlier works – she might just reel you in with this one.

1. You’re Staring At Me (3:42)
2. The Orbiting Beatnik (4:28)
3. Falling In Love… (5:56)
4. The Art Of Being A Girl (4:57)
5. Everybody Knows (3:11)
6. 9th Ave. Limbo (5:05)
7. Slow Hot Wind (3:57)
8. Cha Cha In The Dark (4:15)
9. Shine (4:16)
10. Beachcomber Voodoo (4:49)
11. Three Jack Swing (3:53)
12. The Fire In Me + bonus track Falling (15:27)

Released by: Water Music
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 63:56

I’ve always been a casual fan of Chicago. When you’re growing up and both your mom and your older brother are taking turns cranking up the original Chicago Transit Authority double LP at every opportunity, you learn to like it, or you go nuts.

Okay, maybe I should ditch that intro before the inevitable smart-arse comments come rolling in. In any case, I’ve always been a fan of Chicago, but a fan of old Chicago – before Chicago suffered the same fate as Genesis in the 1980s, that of becoming not much more than a mere backing band for a lead vocalist more concerned with his solo career. The only 80s Chicago I ever owned was a cassette copy of Chicago 16, and that was just because I liked “Niagara Falls”. I felt like a lot of the stuff Chicago was turning out in the early to mid 80s was limp compared to their glorious past.

Then I got this CD dirt cheap, and was reminded – upon hearing “Look Away” – that sometimes I can be a bit harshly judgemental. The truth is, I didn’t know when I was well off with “Hard To Say I’m Sorry / Get Away” and the other early 80s stuff before Chicago suffered yet another paradigm shift into “power ballad” territory.

There are a couple of gems on this Greatest Hits disc spanning Chicago’s dismal chain of radio-friendly hits of the 80s, and sadly “Niagara Falls” isn’t among them. If the strains of “Hard Habit To Break”, “I Don’t Wanna Live Without Your Love” and the post-Peter Cetera “What Kind Of Man Would I Be?” sound vaguely similar, it’s no coincidence: by that time in Chicago’s career, a sameness had set in where songwriting, performance and production were concerned. Gone were any traces of what Chicago once was.

At least in punchier, well-arranged numbers like “Love Me Tomorrow”, “Stay The Night”, and “If She Would Have Been Faithful…”, as sappy and sugary as they may be, there’s at least some vestige of real Chicago in there. Bits of this collection are okay as stand-alone songs, but don’t listen to it right after the pre-80s Chicago hits compilations – the contrast will drive you nuts.

1. Hard To Say I’m Sorry / Get Away (5:08)
2. Look Away (4:03)
3. Stay The Night (3:49)
4. Will You Still Love Me? (5:43)
5. Love Me Tomorrow (5:01)
6. What Kind Of Man Would I Be (4:14)
7. You’re The Inspiration (3:50)
8. I Don’t Wanna Live Without Your Love (3:53)
9. Hard Habit To Break (4:44)
10. Along Comes A Woman (4:16)
11. If She Would Have Been Faithful… (3:53)
12. We Can Last Forever (3:44)

Released by: Reprise
Release date: 1989
Total running time: 52:18

Y’know, when she started out in the mid-1990s, I used to defend Jewel against the popular “Hippie Spice” insult that was often hurled her way, as I really liked that first album of hers, and even liked the second. A couple of years ago, I was a bit more ambivalent about her third album. And now?

Well…uh…I still really like her first album. 0304, on the other hand, spins her off in a completely different direction into a different style of music, and I’m not really sure it suits her …but hey, it’s her career. 0304 opens with “Stand”, sort of a middle-ground between her old, faux-folky lyrical style and her new musical style, as if this is supposed to ease us into the transition. (Hint: it does not.) What follows is basically an album of club rhythms over which Jewel sings some decidedly light-headed lyrics (i.e. “you plus me equals l-o-v-e”), abandoning her previous style of thoughtful and heartfelt lyrics (even if they weren’t necessarily comprehensible in a literal sense). Now she’s singing about a club where the music’s pumpin’ and the bodies are jumpin’…oooookay.

Not all of the songs grate on my nerves – “Run 2 U” reminded me rather pleasantly of the Moody Blues’ drum-machine-driven “English Summer” – but what really bugs me with 0304 is not the change in style, but the radical change in personality. According to all of the press material surrounding this album, Jewel came to her club music epiphany of her own free will, but something about 0304 fairly reeks of corporate interference. “Jewel wants to do another album? Well, that’s great, but can she go from mild acoustic/electric folk-rock to some sexy club music instead? That’d be great. And let’s get to sing through the exact same effects filter as Britney Spears, I love that sound! Great. Let’s do lunch sometime.” (And no, I’m not kidding about the filtered vocals – note to producer: if I wanted to listen to Britney Spears, I’d listen to bleedin’ Britney Spears.)

I have no problem with artists reinventing themselves – hell, Madonna started working with William Orbit and came up with my favorite stuff from her in years – but something’s rotten in the state of Denmark here. I really hope Jewel’s “club music epiphany” is short-lived. Not that I don’t like that style of music, but there are people out there doing it so much better than she is.

1. Stand (3:15)
2. Run 2 U (3:39)
3. Intuition (3:54)
4. Leave The Lights On (3:23)
5. 2 Find U (3:16)
6. Fragile Heart (3:33)
7. Doin’ Fine (3:14)
8. 2 Become 1 (4:40)
9. Haunted (4:53)
10. Sweet Temptation (4:09)
11. Yes U Can (4:01)
12. U & Me = LOVE (3:37)
13. America (3:43)
14. Becoming (4:22)

Released by: Atlantic
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 53:39