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review: New Adventures In Hi-Fi [reissue]

New Adventures Reissued and Reviewed

REMisON.com were given an opportunity to listen to four of the Warners reissues. Below, you will find our second review, this time concerning NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI. NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI (1996) 1996 was the year I discovered R.E.M.’s music. It started – unsurprisingly – with hearing Losing My Religion on the radio. Soon after that I bought Out Of Time cassette, which had LMR as well as Shiny Happy People, and that was cool for a teenager like I was those days. But, a deeper affection and dedication had yet to come. Few months later, the first listen to R.E.M.’s new album called New Adventures In Hi-fi made me realize I became an R.E.M. fan. Nine years on, Hi-fi remains my favorite album. There were times, though, when I was thinking it shouldn’t be. It is not considered a cornerstone in rock history. It spawned no major worldwide hit. It sold much less than Monster and marked the beginning of a commercial decline for R.E.M. For worse, Bill Berry left only a year after its release. These are the facts associated with Hi-fi by the so-called ‘casual listener’. So what? Am I one of them? Nope. I’m a fan. And despite my personal ‘relationship’ with Hi-fi, I am not the only one to rate it so highly, and it’s by no means underappreciated by R.E.M. followers. Hardcore fans at murmurs.com often put up polls and ‘survivor games’ for favorite songs/ albums. It turns out that New Adventures In Hi-fi is the actual favorite album of most board users, ahead of Automatic and IRS era LPs. Maybe I wasn’t wrong after all? What is really unique and special about NAIHF as far as R.E.M. albums are concerned, is its perfectly coherent eclectism. Recorded in a fairly atypical way, on soundchecks and partially from live shows, only with a few last tracks and some polish added in the studio, it manages to encompass most of the directions and styles R.E.M. have followed during their long career, as well as succeeds in capturing the spontaneity and energy present in almost every R.E.M. show, and absent from many studio albums, Monster serving as an example. NAIHF saw R.E.M. move beyond the trauma of Monster and its tour, and while not changing the overall rocking direction of that album, Hi-fi broadened its horizons, harked back to the band’s past and foretold its future. New Test Leper, instrumental surf Zither and the closing Electrolite were gentle folk-rock numbers that could have fitted on Automatic; The Wake-Up Bomb, Undertow and Binky The Doormat were hard-rockers which continued the vein of Monster. IRS era fans could enjoy the jangle of catchy Bittersweet Me, as well as the more lightweight LRP/Document/Green style rockers Departure and So Fast So Numb. Heavy southern blues-rock dominated Low Desert, while the power ballad Be Mine still remains one of their finest love songs, both lyrically and musically-wise. The opener, How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us and the longest-to-date, 7:17-lasting Leave were signs of R.E.M’s musical evolution and upcoming experimental direction, the former being a piano-based jazz groove, and the latter, driven by the sound of Arp Odyssey siren, standing as one of R.E.M. best tracks ever, with incredible load of sadness and anger, and an excellent case of songwriting as well. The central point of the album and the place where past, present and future met, was the first single called E-Bow The Letter. Haunting, feedback-driven, dark, with Stipe’s machinegun lyrics and vocals and past idol Patti Smith on the back vocals, it was a dirge only R.E.M. could have written, but yet still unusual and surprising, as was its choice for the first single. It charted very high (#4) in UK, but most of radio stations dropped it very quickly due to its uncommercial character. Despite that, E-Bow is considered a masterpiece and one of the trademark R.E.M. tunes by the fans and music critics. The new DVD-Audio edition enhances NAIHF’s values even more. Apart from bonuses, such as lyrics included (some surprises here, really!) and an unreleased documentary with excerpts of interviews and studio and live performances, it offers the original 14 tracks in new surround 5.1 sound. The depth added to some of the songs is considerable. The original’s rawness and energy is saved, which is an advantage; however, there are some extra sounds and licks or layers not very present in the original mix and quite audible now. These are not major alterations, though, so the DVD-A edition is certainly not a revolution or a must-have for everyone. For casual listener, it is recommended to start with a single CD of NAIHF, while the DVD-A reissue will make a great gift for any R.E.M. fan, whose original NAIHF CD starts to wear off  due to frequent playing. I am well aware of my bias, but New Adventures In Hi-fi is the best R.E.M. album ever. It still does not get the recognition it deserves – all the “top ten of all time lists” prefer to mention Automatic or Murmur. On the other hand, it remains the fans’ gem, which we proudly present to the newcomers. And I do believe that is the way to start your adventure with R.E.M. * Courtesy of www.REMISON.com