To Beyonce or Not To Beyonce?

That’s the question on my mind this week as I ponder what life has in store for America’s most famous new Mom, Beyonce Knowles Carter. I wonder what kind of nanny she’s going to hire. A drag queen, as suggested by some pseudo-reality-celeb? A reformed thug aka Memphis Poppins, from mediatakeout.com?

It’s a crucial hiring decision – one of the most important she and Jay Z are likely to make this year. So, in the spirit of rockmom solidarity and experience, I’ve drafted a sample want ad. Bee, feel free to use this verbatim. I believe it conveys your Super Couple lifestyle needs and requirements while conveying the aspirational ethos you live by.

Tell me what you think:

I can also help with interviews. Call me!

Much has been written about the low sales figures of Beyonce’s latest album, 4. Some speculate that marriage and pregnancy have been a natural pull on her ambitions, and after fifteen years in the spotlight who can blame her? I’ve never felt that Beyonce was anything more than a professional, and I mean that in the sense that she doesn’t betray any desperate need to be loved (yo, Britney) or to spread the ‘Beyonce’ message a la Madonna or Lady Gaga. You get the feeling she would do a great job at anything she tried – business, politics, teaching – and that the Beyonce we see and hear is nothing more than her public persona, not a window in to a tortured (Je suis une artiste!) soul.

I’m not ragging on her by any means. I’d prefer that my daughters listen to a true vocal talent like Beyonce or Adele, rather than a cartoonish, cynical vamp like Katy Perry or Ke$ha. It’s funny how you can watch Beyonce’s videos, with their full-on displays of sexuality, and yet not be offended by them. To wit:

I wonder why this is so. Is it because she is so physically superior that we can accept her bodaciousness the way we marvel at and appreciate the talents of a great athlete? Maybe it’s related to the lack of scandal in her private life. She works hard. She sings for Obama. She’s a humanitarian in stripper heels! Again, I think the key word here is professionalism. Beyonce covers all the bases: a feminist with an all-girl backing band and girl-power anthems; a woman who honors her roots by sporting afros and playing Etta James in Cadillac Records; yet edgy enough to appear in a weird ol’ Lady Gaga video. Not much there to cause insult or injury. So while we might prefer our rock stars to speak to and for our inner selves – Radiohead seems to fill that role for me these days – we can also swim at the shallow end of the pool and enjoy a good beat and an amazing voice.

Just once I'd like to be this fabulous. Photo courtesy thirstyroots.com

Yet I still can’t answer the question: is Beyonce a good role model? Since my girls reached an age where pop culture is a part of their lives, I feel I have to consider these things, whether the girls understand the lyrics or not. Maybe I’m overestimating the power and influence of Sasha Fierce here. Who knows? My litmus test for tween music has always been: what’s the message and is it a good one? Is it harmless and fun like Camp Rock or spunky and friendly like Taylor Swift? If it’s subversive, is it rebellious in a healthy way (think Pink or Kelly Clarkson)? Are the women on equal footing with the men? Or are they being degraded, exploited or abused in the name of so-called sexual freedom? Rihanna, I’m talking to you! The funny thing with Beyonce is I’m still not sure. Back in the ’80s, Madonna grabbed her crotch, sang out ‘Express Yourself’ and we teens thought: right on! These days, Beyonce grabs her breasts and hollers, ‘Girls! We Run This Mother!’ and I honestly don’t know what to think beyond: well, I can’t put this on our Beyonce playlist because she’s basically saying ‘mofo’ in the chorus.

There was a rock critic named Ellen Willis; she wrote for The New Yorker from 1968-75, covering the heydey of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Sex Pistols, Lou Reed, etc. I’ve been reading a collection of her writing called Out of The Vinyl Deeps and have been struck by so many of her insights in to rock stars, especially one of her favorite performers, Janis Joplin.

Putting multiple rings on it. Photo courtesy musiqueray.org

She writes, “unlike most female performers whose act is intensely erotic, (Janis) never made me feel as if I were crashing an orgy that consisted of her and the men in the audience. When she got it on at a concert, she got it on with everybody.”

Willis wrote those words over thirty years ago. Now how many female performers can you name who are truly like that?

It’s a short list.

If I Break Up With My Child’s School, Can We Still Be Friends?

You like me, you really like me!

Dear Outstanding Institute of Secondary Learning,

Hey! I’ve been meaning to write you for a few weeks now. I hope I can speak freely and honestly here. First of all let me say that I absolutely do not want you to feel under-appreciated. I think you’re great! Really. And I know you cost a lot of money, which I do not resent at all and which I know is going toward awesome teachers, top class facilities – like a student café that serves pesto paninis – a multicultural environment and really fantastic opportunities that are going to inform my EO’s learning in more ways than I can even articulate at this point. She loooooves school, seriously, and we really love the fact that it’s so easy to get her out of bed in the morning.

But, to be honest, it’s only been a few months – in a relationship that I’m hoping will last many years – and I think things are moving way too fast. In fact, I think we need to take a little break from each other. I know, I know, please don’t be offended. It was really great being able to take that tour last Spring and chat with students and attend an assembly where the orchestra played like professionals and the choir sang ‘Ave Maria’ and a young girl received an award for placing in the top five in the entire world in a literacy exam. You were super impressive. I also liked the snacks.

But then came the request to attend the afternoon ‘Laptop Induction’ which I found to be not only an obsequious thank you for the big commitment of purchasing an expensive but required laptop for my EO but also some kind of cheesy justification for spending all this money in the first place. EO enjoyed it (don’t we all love Power Point after all?), but for me it was like being invited over for dinner after I’ve pulled a back muscle helping you move house. And finding out that in fact you’ve just ordered take-out and the wine isn’t great. I’d rather be home watching Game of Thrones and actually spending time with my children.

Then we had to go to ‘Curriculum’ night where we got to see our EO’s tutor but not officially talk to him/her, and we were told that things are going great with those laptops (your money’s not going to waste, they’re not spending their computer time on House of Anubis and Angry Birds, honestly!). We learned how our children are going to be assessed and found out that eventually we’ll be able to follow their progress online, almost in real time, like tracking a hurricane or Angelina Jolie’s whereabouts. We were given full-colour brochures and more snacks, but by the end of the evening I felt that if I had to hear the phrase ‘learning in context’ one more time I was going to scream.

It’s not you, really. It’s me.

Next on the calendar was the actual ‘Meet the Tutor’ night, in which we sat around enjoying more snacks, sidestepping the responsibility of being Parent Rep and trying to think of incisive questions to ask our child’s tutor. But seeing as the kids had only been in school for four weeks we were kind of stumped. My EO’s very organized and enthusiastic. Her only issue has been the fact that her bus gets her to school very early, which we’ve solved by packing extra snacks (yogurt drinks!) for a sort of second breakfast. I thought I should have mentioned this to her tutor as a shining example of our adaptability, resourcefulness and affinity for healthy snacks, but quickly realized: I’m reaching here!

I have plenty of friends who are teachers, and I’ve heard that, more often than not, the kids they teach are great. It’s the parents who are the bears to deal with. So I’m wondering, and please don’t take this personally or anything but: are you trying to make us helicopter parents?

We receive weekly bulletins plus additional emails on specific topics or invitations to interactive talks like ‘Approaches to Learning Global Humanities for Years 7, 8, 9’. We’re invited to check the school website daily for an up-to-date briefing (I’m waiting for that link to Jolie’s Louis Vuitton blog btw). We’re welcome at swim galas and cross country meets and netball games. And we’ve got upcoming teacher conferences and monthly parent forums and seminars, where no doubt we’ll discover even more ways to obsess about our child’s progress and to help them learn in context. Go ahead, ask me what I know about Computer Based Adaptive Online testing, I dare ya!

Whew! Sweetheart, I love you, my child loves you, but frankly, you’re exhausting and if I can say so, kind of needy, kind of Sally Field here. If we’re going to have any future with this relationship, we’re going to need a little space. You should know that I’m part of a generation borne to parents with a high divorce rate, who couldn’t commit to much more than Friday night football and the Spring talent show. Trust me when I say I’m not going to get offended if I don’t hear from you in a while.

I appreciate you letting me speak freely here. I feel like I’m being completely insensitive, when in fact I really trust you and I do want this to work out! But I think I should also come clean and admit that I’ve come under the influence of a New York Times op-ed called “Super Person” about the rise of the over-overachievers and how we’re all sacrificing our children’s souls and our own identities as moms for the sake of Harvard admission. After spending time with this article, I’ve started having visions of destroying my daughter’s laptop, moving us all to Maine and teaching my children carpentry.

That would certainly inform their learning.

*This blog and the contents therein do not constitute any endorsement or overt (or covert) support of Angelina Jolie, Louis Vuitton and/or Johnny Depp’s dubious haircut in The Tourist.

Old Boyfriends & New Loves

The LA Times profile promised a return to alternative goodness – not quite greatness and glory but something worthy of $11.99 on iTunes. Jane’s Addiction were back. Perry, Dave and Stephen joined by bass player, Chris Chaney, with some crucial help in the studio from Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio.

Perry talked of an urgency, of not wasting any more time in order to “define who we are, the music that we make, the show that we produce. If we do that, we’ll set ourselves up to be where we always belonged in the world of music.”

But it’s been eight years since the band’s lackluster album, Strays, and twenty years since their original ‘farewell’ tour. Plenty of alternative rockers have appeared on the scene: bluesy, grungy, political, glam, some channeling Johnny Rotten, some looking to Iggy Pop for inspiration. What could I expect from JA now? I enjoyed the big chorus of the first single, ‘Irresistible Force’ but how would the rest of the album hold out? Have I outgrown them? Perry’s a family man now, and Dave, well, his flirtations with The Red Hot Chili Peppers, porn stars and reality TV just seemed so tawdry, so Kardashian. Do I really need them anymore? And more importantly, how would these old boyfriends compare to my new loves, The Black Keys?

In the late 80s and early 90s, Jane’s Addiction claimed the angry, reckless parts of my heart. They were metal with an edge, best played loud and in the dark. The band members weren’t just posers but real damaged goods. They told of back`stories lurid and heartbreaking, and they made music that seethed with anger, beauty and power. Dave Navarro played some of the finest guitar of the last 25 years (I kid you not – check out ‘Ocean Size’ or ‘Mountain Song’) and Eric Avery’s bass was relentless.

Harder than we look. Photo courtesy of citypages.com

They appealed to us suburban college kids who couldn’t fathom sleeping rough in a park or hustling to buy some food. When a skinny, half-naked Perry Farrell danced in front of us on the Ritual de lo Habitual tour, we entered in to his trance and flirted with his drug-fueled, candlelit freak-out. He sang ‘Nothing’s Shocking’ but actually, for us, he and his world kinda were.

But now he sings that “we’re all hustlers” (on the first single, ‘Underground’), and I wonder if he’s saying he’s not so special anymore. I suppose in the age of 24-7 reality, threesomes and needle marks aren’t such a big deal, so yeah, he’s probably right. We’re all tainted. Nothing’s truly shocking…

Which I think renders Jane’s Addiction’s music that little bit less relevant, less potent than it used to be. The soaring choruses, thick drums and hard and beautiful guitar lines are still there, and I do enjoy the album. It’s smooth and well-crafted. It’s pretty, is what it is. It’s just not as powerful or as angry as I hoped it’d be. Yeah, kind of like meeting that old boyfriend who’s balding and a little paunchy now, but comfortable in a khaki’s-and-polo-shirt kind of way.

What’s ironic is that The Black Keys look like khaki and polo shirt wearing guys but make music that sweats Robert Plant’s sex appeal and drives you on to the dance floor with the super force of guitars and drums. Outside the roadhouse, Otis Redding met Frank Black and when they jammed, El Camino was born.

I know it’s clichéd but The Black Keys sound both retro and brand new. El Camino only came out earlier this month but it’s quickly showed up on plenty of Best of 2011 lists. It really is a great, driving rock record. All guitars, all heartbreak, all the time. When the opening notes of ‘Gold On The Ceiling’ roll out and then the drums, bass and handclaps kick in, you feel yourself churning and spinning in a blender of five decades of Detroit rock and soul (though The Black Keys are really from Akron, OH). My YO sings along in the car while EO complains about our weird taste in music. (For a great live version of ‘Gold…’ go to their recent appearance on Colbert Nation.

With the help of producer, de facto third band member and all-around 2011 MVP, Danger Mouse, The Black Keys push their sound in to some surprising territory. ‘Little Black Submarines’ begins with an acoustic guitar and Dan Auerbach’s vocals but then explodes in to a mushroom cloud of Patrick Carney’s drums and an electric guitar solo that would make Rik Emmett proud. It’s a taste of heavy metal with mo’ groove, no spandex.

So how do I compare the two? The once wild and woolly Jane’s Addiction sounds slightly neutered now, while the mild-mannered Black Keys attract me with their explosive, gutsy rock. I think I could grow old with these guys…

Take it to 11!

Did you know that today – 11/11/11 – is Nigel Tufnel Day? What? Who? He has nothing to do with Remembrance (poppy) Day. Nigel’s the guitarist in Spinal Tap who had special amplifiers that go up to 11:

In honor of this unofficial holiday, NPR music put together a list of the songs they enjoy cranking up to 11. It’s a mix of punk and alternative (Smiths, LCD Soundsystem, Ramones), funk (Outkast), some surprising pop (Kelly Clarkson) and of course heavy metal (Led Zep).

So of course that gave me a great excuse to compile my own Best Heard Loud list. I’ve gone back to some ’80s metal and ’90s grunge favorites as well as a few alternative and funk choices. Who knew Stevie Wonder would sound so good after Tesla? And I put Sleater-Kinney right before Scorpions, because I can! Soundgarden and Wolfmother are our de facto Led Zeps, and the Pearl Jam tune is not classic PJ from something awesome from the last five years. The closing Radiohead tune is included because the chorus, when played loud, lifts you right up in to Pink Floyd land. It’s huge and it’s gorgeous.

Here’s the list, to be played in order. I welcome any and all comments and contributions, the heavier the better!

1. Powderfinger, “Waiting for the Sun”
2. Jane’s Addiction, “Had A Dad”
3. Wolfmother, “New Moon Rising”
4. The White Stripes, “Fell In Love With A Girl”
5. Van Halen, “Unchained”
6. Tesla, “Modern Day Cowboy”
7. Stevie Wonder, “I Was Made To Love Her”
8. Sleater-Kinney, “Rollercoaster”
9. Scorpions, “No One Like You”
10. Pearl Jam, “World Wide Suicide”
11. Gnarls Barkley, “Run (I’m A Natural Disaster)”
12. The Pretenders, “Precious”
13. Queensryche, “Walk In The Shadows”
14. Soundgarden, “Hands All Over”
15. Radiohead, “Lucky”

I leave you with Wolfmother’s “New Moon Rising” – crank it to 11:

The Naked and (Should Be) Famous

Their debut album is called "Passive Me Aggressive You"

I wanted to go with a sports theme this week at therockmom, and link baseball’s World Series with a discussion of some of my favorite Dallas-area bands past and present (Old ‘97s, The Buck Pets, Erykah Badu, Kelly Clarkson). But since the Texas Rangers blew it big time, and since I don’t know any decent bands from St. Louis (anyone, anyone?), I’ll turn my attention to those other current World Champions – the New Zealand All Blacks, who recently won the Rugby World Cup.

I won’t say much about the All Blacks as such (my Australian husband wouldn’t take too kindly to any gushing), other than I missed watching Dan (sigh) Carter play once he got injured. What I will do is chat a bit about my current favorite Kiwi band – The Naked and Famous.

Most of the time when you hear ‘New Zealand’ and ‘pop music’ you can’t think of much beyond Crowded House and that guy who sang “How Bizarre”. That’s why The Naked and Famous are so refreshing; they don’t wear their Kiwi-ness on their sleeves. I love, love, love Neil Finn but with him you know you’re always going to get sturdy pop, nature images and the odd Maori phrases in the mix. Like a Peter Jackson musical but taller and without the pointy ears.

The other All Blacks

The Naked and Famous are hard to categorize – pop with an alternative streak, hard at times, somewhat dance-able and pretty darn cool. Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith, who met at an Auckland music school, lead the quintet. They cite Massive Attack, Bjork, PJ Harvey and Tricky as influences, and you can feel a shiver of that techno tension on tracks like “Frayed” and “The Ends”. They’ve been compared to MGMT, but I hear a lot more of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in their sound. On punky songs like “Punching in a Dream” and “Young Blood” – both released as singles – Ms Xayalith sounds eerily like Karen O’s southern hemisphere cousin.

“The Sun” certainly ranks in my top five singles of 2011 so far. To get the full effect of this mesmerizing song, start with the previous track – a solo piano piece called “The Source” – which segues in to the insidious, hypnotic beat of “The Sun”. The layers of beats and vocals build and swirl as Ms Xayalith breathes a litany of regret, memory loss and bad behaviour. It’s a perfect late-night, neon-lit, head-spinning track. You can check out the video here, but be warned that, like the band’s name, it does contain nudity. For gratuitous Kiwi boobies, press play.

They’re a young band and sometimes it shows in their ‘moody girl writes bad poetry’ lyrics – “Jilted Lovers” is a particularly ponderous example. I’m hoping the combination of travel and more exposure will infuse their writing with a bit more depth and courage. They’re on tour in Europe right now, making some inroads in the States, but completely under the radar here in Asia.

Fortunately, for those of us living in pop music backwaters, we have plenty of ways to explore new music. Start with The Naked and Famous official website, where you can watch/listen to not one, not two but SEVEN of their music videos plus a short ‘in the studio’ vid. They’re also a BBC Sound of 2011 Artist – find that here.

Happy Listening!

I’m now rooting for the Houston Texans to make the Super Bowl.

Putting the ‘corporate’ in corporate rock

A week or so ago, my kids and I were invited to a press event for a new series of animated shorts designed to teach kids about money. YO and I went along mostly for the free food, and because we were curious – we don’t usually get invited to these kinds of things. But now of course I kind of feel obligated to write about the program, I mean YO and I did get decent cheeseburgers on the day. So here’s my two cents about ‘Cha-Ching’:

The show is for an English-speaking Asian audience, aged 7-12, and airs in three-minute bursts on Cartoon Network Asia. Each episode is built around a song about say, how to be an entrepreneur or where money comes from. The kicker here is that it was created and produced by Prudential Corporation Asia after the company surveyed parents around Asia about their children’s perceived ‘money management skills’ (from the official website). Prudential found parents were quite concerned about how little their kids knew about managing money (surprise, surprise!) and decided they’d bring in an educational expert to create a platform for teaching money smarts i.e. ‘financial literacy’ in corporate-speak. Here’s a sample:

So right away you know that this show is really for parents, not kids, which is a huge strike against it from the get-go. You can see it in the show’s earnestness, complexity and utter lack of zaniness and a good groove. Makes me want to ask if any insurance folk have ever heard of Phineas and Ferb and The Backyard Beach. Profit and loss for seven-year-olds? What’s next: dealing with small-business regulations? I also wonder if Prudential’s survey uncovered what expenses our children are actually responsible for? YO earns a bit of pocket money each month and we do encourage her to divide it in to three sections: savings, spending and charity. But all she needs to worry about is donating money on school dress casual days and saving for books or sweets. In that respect, the Family Budget Manager, which I downloaded, is just too complex – a waste of time quite honestly – for children in this age group. EO is in her first year of secondary school and she’s just now learning how to manage a small budget we give her each week for school lunches, public transport and the occasional frozen yogurt.

The next drawback to the whole premise is that the cast of characters are in a band called ‘Cha-Ching’ (get it?) and, I quote again from the official website: “Originally friends from music class at their school, the group’s passion for music sees the band growing in popularity, quickly attracting a loyal fan-base around town.”

Let’s be honest here, we don’t need another kids’ show about being in a band! This whole notion of striving for celebrity – whether it be on Victorious or Big Time Rush or JONAS – is just toxic and tiresome. Maybe I’m getting off base a little here, but judging from the name and the quality of the tunes, I’d say Cha-Ching’s passion lies with making money not, in the immortal words of Jack Black, ‘sticking it to the man’. Because in reality, if Cha-Ching were an actual tween band in a ‘medium-sized town in Asia’, they’d have to be completely subversive. At that age, and with the expectations facing today’s kids, you’d better believe it. What do you mean you’re performing in a show instead of going to Kumon class! You rebel!

I just don’t know if the band concept works in Asia that’s all. So why not make them regular kids who deal with regular things, like wants v. needs, and who want to learn about how they can make more money or how much a new pair of Crocs cost or why their friend gets more money than they do when the tooth fairy visits.

Some final comments:
1. THANK YOU for not rapping.
2. YO thought the episodes were boring but did enjoy the games (which is probably where the future of Cha-Ching lies).
3. The official website is surprisingly slow, videos are much easier to watch on YouTube.
4. I’m sorry but Zul cannot sing. “It’s Got To Be Earned” is more like “It’s Got To Be Excruciating”.

In all things educational and musical, I must now defer to the gold standard of kids’ music. For quality, melody and pure catchiness you can’t get any better than Schoolhouse Rock. From the early ’70s all the way to 2009, musical director and jazz musician Bob Dorough led a Schoolhouse team that crafted some of the best, most informative songs for kids, ever. I played some for YO and EO last night and already had YO going off to bed singing, ‘Lolly, lolly, lolly’.

So check out Cha-Ching and let me know what you think, but have a look at Schoolhouse Rock for the real deal.

R.E.M. RIP

Bill Berry always looked good in a vest. All photos on this post are from the official R.E.M. website.

We are young despite the years
We are concerned
We are hope despite the times

We define parts of ourselves – we build our selves – with the bricks and mortar of music, movies, labels and gadgets. They shade our personality and accessorize our history, like grade school ornaments on a Christmas tree. The first time I used a tiny-screened boxy Apple was in a friend’s dorm room. What was the movie you-popped-in-to-the-VCR-with-microwave-popcorn-after-a-late-night-out? I had two: Valley Girl and The Sure Thing. “Something light!” Which band have you seen in concert the most?

That would be R.E.M.

If ever there was a band that wove itself in to the fabric of my life, it was R.E.M. Still is. And not just in a nostalgic, wasn’t-it-great-to-be-young kind of way (I leave that to Duran Duran and Depeche Mode), but in a living, breathing infusing-my-life-with-deeper-meaning kind of way.

Now, as a group, the boys from Athens are no more.

Jefferson I think we’re lost!

My oldest brother, on holiday from university, brought home Reckoning when I was seventeen. I put the album on my Magnavox stereo, which I’d inherited from my other brother, and tried to make sense of a sound I’d never heard before. So different, so new, so absolutely, completely different from anything out there. Then I went off to college and my sister and I, now roommates, listened over and over to the earthy dreams of Fables of the Reconstruction. We went back to discover Murmur and Chronic Town and marveled at a band that used words like ‘Moral Kiosk’ and made music as shy and beautiful as ‘Perfect Circle’.

It’s these little things they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and thunder

My first R.E.M. concert was on the Life’s Rich Pageant tour. Appropriately enough my oldest brother and sister were there too, all of us on that night right where we needed to be, dancing to the driving guitars and pounding hope of songs about man’s demands and burdens, desires and destiny. Even now, when I hear ‘These Days’, I have to stop and let its brilliance wash over me, Bill Berry’s drumming and Mike Mills’ harmony cutting right to the core of what it means to be alive.

Leo-nard Bern-stein!

A couple years later, R.E.M. returned to Austin, bigger now, supporting the Green album. We got floor seats with friends – my sister with me again – and spent two hours in ecstasy, turned on by ‘Orange Crush’ and a shirtless, long-haired Michael Stipe.

I want to figure you out

Flash forward to the Monster tour; I’d lived overseas and been back twice, felt proud of R.E.M.’s success with ‘Losing My Religion’ if a bit lukewarm about the album itself (not one I go back to much), traveled Europe with Automatic For The People as my soundtrack – an album of such depth and emotion that I challenge you to find a clunker on there – and now returned to school and life in the States.

I know it might sound strange
But I believe you’ll be coming back before too long

Here I found a tree with similar trimmings – a girl in grad school who wanted to go to the R.E.M. concert too. We swapped music stories and cemented a lifelong friendship while standing in line for tickets too early on a drizzly Saturday morning. We were in to stadium territory now, but the band thrilled us all the same, covering the old and the new and previewing songs from New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

New Adventures… was the last album I coveted. Years passed and R.E.M. released records that I’d hear about months after the fact. I bought them and listened a few times, and then tucked them away. It was an inevitable but sad separation, the friend you lose touch with save for a Christmas e-card.

Well, everybody is young forever
There’s so much to tell you, so little time

A few years ago, R.E.M. came to Hong Kong – the one and only time they’ve stopped by in all my years living here. I bought tickets straight away, and went along with my husband and my close friend, whose children played with my children. In my third decade of R.E.M. fandom, I was now a wife and mom, but dying to rush the stage and bounce my way through the entire show. I sang all the songs (except for some of the new ones ☺) and basked in the glow of their exceptional talent.

I believe in what you do
I believe in watching you

When YO has trouble falling asleep, she listens to a playlist of soft songs I compiled to help her relax and drift off. Between Eric Johnson and Dolly Parton is ‘Find The River’ – one of her favorites. The acoustic guitar, piano and a strange instrument called a melodica pair with Stipe’s dreamy lyrics to lull her to sleep like a lazy train rolling over afternoon hills and warm meadows. I hope that she’ll want to hear more as she grows up.

All of this is coming your way…

If you knew nothing about R.E.M., had never heard their music, and someone played ‘Finest Worksong’ or ‘I Am Superman’ or, better still, ‘Pilgrimage’, you’d be hard pressed to pin down a time and place for those songs. You could easily imagine them as part of today’s sound, somewhere between the shy intellectual pop of The Shins and the southern gothic rock of My Morning Jacket, yet R.E.M. have been around for 30 years. They reached out to us from deep inside the poorly-lit cinderblock structure of college radio, with their indecipherable lyrics, earnest longings and jangly-Byrds’ guitars. From the piney woods and deep red clay of Georgia, they called out to us: we believe in this music, please listen! From the past, present and future, they conquered us.

No one sounds quite like them. Still. Always.

Oh life...

In case you didn’t recognize them:
1. ‘These Days’ – Life’s Rich Pageant
2. ‘Little America’ – Reckoning
3. ‘Sweetness Follows’ – Automatic for the People
4. ‘It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ – Document
5. ‘Don’t Go Back to Rockville’ – Reckoning
6. ‘Departure’ – Murmur
7. ‘Turn You Inside-Out’ – Green
8. ‘Find the River’ – Automatic for the People
All lyrics © R.E.M.