No Filler Music Podcast - Jangly, Murky, Mysterious: How R.E.M's Murmur Ushered In The Alt Rock Wave
Episode Date: March 7, 2022We chat about R.E.M's debut record, Murmur and try to imagine what it was like to hear this style of rock for the first time in 1983. Hearing it now, R.E.M's mix of jangly 60s pop and folk rock with g...arage rock attitude sounds so normal and common after the band's influence shaping the sound of countless rockers for nearly four decades. But at the time, critics knew it was special. So much so that Rolling Stone put it at its best album of the year, beating out Michael Jackson's Thriller, Police's Synchronicity, and U2's War, to name a few. The next iteration of rock was here, and R.E.M. was the flagbearer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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no filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gems that fill
space between the singles on our favorite records.
My name is Travis.
I got my brother Quentin with me.
And what you heard there in the intro was REM's very first single Radio Free Europe.
And Q, that was the song that you said, kind of you're most familiar with on this record, right?
Yeah, this is the only song that I remember.
It's the first track on the record, too, isn't it?
Yeah, that's right.
So, Q, Q, would you say that you wanted to begin at the begin?
Oh, my God.
That's a reference to a song off Life's Rich Pagent, which we covered.
That was the, yeah, this is not the first time that we have done an episode on R.M.
We talked about Life's Rich Pagent, but this is a band that we have mentioned and referenced
probably dozens and dozens of times throughout the history of this podcast, right?
And what's cool about RIM is, you know, like for instance today, we decided to jump back
to R&M because we've been kind of hanging out in that, you know, college radio, quote unquote,
alternative rock, new wave kind of stuff that was happening around this time.
You know, but I, you know, in another three months, we could be covering an entirely,
entirely different genre, entirely different decade.
And there would be an album of RIM that we could point to and play.
Yeah, well, to your point, like, in the 90s when we were kids,
that's when it hit like big mainstream success with some of those singles you talked about like losing my religion is kind of what like really blew them up right but they've sort of evolved like you said up until like the 2000s and then they kind of kind of went away for a little bit but like yeah since the beginning since 83 when this record came out and radio for europe actually came out as a single two years prior to that they had sort of like garnered some attention by critics and stuff like that
that. They didn't really get, you know, they didn't really chart very high on the billboard lists or
anything like that. They didn't sell that many records. But they had always had this sort of like,
this reputation and like this, like you said, college rock and stuff like that. They're kind of the
band that you think about when you think of college rock. And maybe we can talk about what exactly
that is, right? Because it, REM to me is what I think about when I think of college rock. But again,
It's like what the hell is it mean?
What does that mean?
We sort of mentioned how like, you know, we've covered, you know, pretty extensively in February,
the Miracle Legion, right?
That's the band that went on to become Polaris, you know, go back and listen to our last
two episodes.
Yeah, the last two non-what-you-heard episodes to hear us talk about that band pretty extensively.
But we touched briefly on like, yeah, Miracle Legion was another.
band that was getting, you know, airplay on college radios. But it was mostly bands like REM and like,
you know, the B-52s and the Smiths and stuff like that. But yeah, so like, let me read a quote here,
Q from an article I was reading on hotpress.com, which is like an older publication.
but this is kind of a kind of what it feels like how people sort of assessed R.E.M. when they first hit the scene. The writer couldn't put words on it then. So he's talking about the person who wrote the review of murmur when it first hit the scene. But in time, the quartet's significance would become clear here. This was the kind of band America hadn't produced for an age. A bunch of quirky,
Southern weirdos peddling songs that sounded almost ancient,
yet were obviously as much informed by the likes of television and wire as the band or the birds.
So they get a lot of comparison to the birds as far as like the jangly pop guitar sound, right?
And like it's that plus, you know, something else, right?
It's not, it's not like a 60s throwback sound, but it borrows elements from
bands like the birds, right?
That guitar sound.
Yeah.
And jangly pop, to me, I always go back to the 60s.
You know, like, that's the sound I think of when I hear jangly pop.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's different.
That clean guitar sound that you're going to hear throughout this record.
And I feel like that to me is what makes it a college radio song or band, you know,
compared to like the heavier rock and roll of the time.
Yeah, because like this is.
the previous decade.
81 is when Radio Free Europe came out as a single.
And so that's when, you know, that song would get radio play at college stations.
You know, critics would get a copy of it and review it.
And like in the same way that the 90s was sort of like, or grunge at least was like a response to the hair metal stuff of the 80s, you know, it feels like the way that REM was being accepted or whatever by some of these critics and stuff was like, this was a,
a response to the classic rock.
The 70s was all about that hard, harder rock, classic rock sound that we now think about
like Zeppelin and Boston and Van Halen or even The Who, stuff like that.
And this was like sort of a return to more, like they said, more that jangly pop guitar,
lighter guitar sound, more straightforward rock songs that didn't have any of that like
edge to it, right?
But then we had the cars too, right?
And the New Wave hit.
Yeah, exactly.
Just a couple years before that.
So Radio Free Europe, was that also their first single?
Yeah.
So, yeah, Radio Free Europe was the first, yeah, it was the first song that, and the funny
thing is the flip side, and we're going to play this song later, was sitting still.
So I don't know if that was the version that made it to murmur.
but sitting still is one of my favorite tracks on Murmur, and we're going to play that later.
Let me say, because this is piggybacks exactly like,
piggybacks off exactly what we were saying a second ago.
So here's a quote from Peter Buck, which was the guitar player.
He says, Murmur came out at a time where it was unusual.
Nothing else som did like it that year.
This is what he told the Chicago Tribune at the time.
He says, after the punk thing died down, everything went back to the same old synth pop.
We helped bring back the feeling of the local rock band, do it yourself sort of thing.
And that makes total sense.
And that's why this record even has the garage rock label on it, which is interesting to think about.
Because we associate garage rock with a very different thing when it comes to like the 2000s and early 2000.
The bands like the strokes and stuff.
But I think probably that label is drawn on them maybe because of the, like he's saying,
the do-it-yourself kind of thing, right?
It's funny him saying that everything went back to the same old synth.
I think he's probably talking about right after this, right?
Because it's not like 80, it's not like murmur came out and all the synth pop new wave
bands of the 80s stopped making that kind of music.
They're saying that amongst all of that murmur came out, and that's why it was so different
because it wasn't what all these other synth pop bands were doing at the time.
So they sort of like planted the flag, right?
They stuck out like a sore thumb.
Yeah, and then a lot of alt rock bands came out of that wave, you know, that college rock wave
and stuff like that.
All right, well, let's jump into our first song here.
So, yeah, we're talking about their first full-length record murmur.
Came out in 1983.
Let me read the roster to you again.
So Michael Seip, obviously, singer.
Peter Buck, guitar player.
He also plays the mandolin and the banjo.
So, yeah, everybody remembers the mandolin on losing my religion, right?
Oh, yeah.
Mike Mills on the bass guitar, backing vocals, and then Bill Berry on drums.
So that's the main, like, four members that sort of, like, were there all.
the way through like the mid-90s, right? And then those first three have been there the entire time,
right? But Bill Berry dropped off at some point around, you know, 97 or so. But anyway, this is REM
for basically their rise up into like superstardom, right? So anyway, let's jump into the first song
here. I'm going to actually go to the very next track on the record. And this song is called Pilgrimage.
Yeah, dude. So, like, this is a good example of, like, a lot of the things that make
REM so different. Like, his lyrics are always so cryptic, you know what I mean?
Extremely.
Was this the two-headed count? What is he talking about?
Who knows, dude? But, like, that's how he's always, I mean, this is some of their first stuff.
He's always been this way. And, like, even with Radio Free Europe, you know, some of the
words are like indecipherable at times.
And apparently that was kind of just the way he wrote music back then.
Like here's a quote from Stipe.
This is something he told Alternative America in 1983.
He said the earlier songs were incredibly fundamental, real simple songs that you could
write in five minutes.
Most of them didn't have any words.
I just got up and howled and hollered a lot.
A few years later, he described Radio Free Europe as complete babbling.
And that's the thing that we actually, I remember there was a quote, what made Miracle Legion different from R.M.
Because they got a lot of comparisons, right?
Was that with Michael Stipe, the way he wrote lyrics, it was always, yeah, this kind of like cryptic, mysterious kind of stuff.
And Mark Mockelhard would always write really straightforward songs about like nostalgia and youth and stuff like that.
And, you know, you didn't have to, like, try to figure out what the hell a two-headed cow is referencing and something like that.
That's funny.
I just, this just reminded me.
I revisited our interview with David Brown.
And he says the same thing about, you know, the music, like that's kind of second wave of rock that was hitting around this time.
And he, I remember him mentioning Michael Stipe, you know, an R.M being, you know, one of those kind of weird sounding bands that cropped up.
where you're like, you don't really understand what he's saying half the time.
Yeah.
And yeah, that's, yeah, definitely it with R.M.
So did, I'm wondering if, you know, a lot of songwriters will,
if they've got a melody in mind first, they will just kind of have these placeholder sounds, you know.
Yeah.
They'll get to the lyrics later.
Yeah.
I wonder if that was part of it, you know, where it just turned into the, all that bad.
just stayed stuck with it.
And it didn't really matter what the words were, you know.
Yeah.
I mean, I know when you, you know, there's, have you ever seen some of the
song Exploder episodes on Netflix?
No, I haven't, I haven't watched you yet.
I mean, I used to listen to the podcast all the time.
Well, they had an episode on losing my religion.
And, you know, they were talking about all the different ways that people
interpret the song, you know, and it's not exactly about what, on like,
face value, what you think it'd be about, right?
So you'd have to go watch the episode to get the full gist of it.
But the interview stip and he kind of talks about, this is what it's actually about, you know.
But a lot of people connected to it in the 90s, you know, for different reasons.
But I can see why.
Yeah, so like, you know, the lyrics on this song that we just played pilgrimage, you know, it says, I'm going to, here's the course.
Right.
No, I'm going to read the first verse.
they called the clip a two-headed cow your hate clipped and distant your luck with pilgrimage
what what what is that even a magazine clip you're talking about a gun here what are we what are we
talking about yeah it could be who knows two-headed cow i mean that's probably i'm sure that's a
reference to something yeah i'm not smart enough to understand right but anyway let's go to the
next song here, Q. So we're going to jump down a few tracks, I believe. So let me mention this
because we'd like to talk about the singles here. So Radio Free Europe, obviously. But talk about
the passion was another single. So that was the two singles on this record. Talk about the
passion is another good one. But yeah, we're not going to play that cue because we don't play
singles here. We don't play singles here, dude. Yeah. No filler.
All right, we're going to jump down to Moral Kiosk.
This is track number five.
It's kind of hard to appreciate this stuff hearing it this many years later
with all the bands that came after this sound, right,
and that kind of copied it and evolved it.
But it's also still pretty amazing to hear,
because, like, there are so many bands even to this day
that sounds so much like this.
Yeah, well, that's a good, it's interesting you said that because here's a quote from
the pitchfork article that came out.
And this was sort of a review of the deluxe edition when it was released back in 2008.
There was a deluxe edition that came out.
And this is exactly what you're talking about, Q.
There's a historical component to murmur that often gets lost.
In 1983, R.E.M. sounded unique. No bands were combining these particular influences in this particular way, which made this debut sound not only new, but even subversive, a sharp reimagining of rock tropes.
25 years and 14 albums later, our familiarity with REM means that Murm has lost some of what made it revolutionary upon release.
this is exactly what you're talking about.
So like, it's hard to
to appreciate
just how different this sound was
because you and I weren't even alive
yet. And by the time we were
listening and paying attention to rock music,
you know,
they were
they were REM. By that point, they were
the iconic legendary band
that they still are, right?
So like, yeah, it's really hard,
you know, it's one of those things where it's like,
I wish I was there.
So I could really understand and appreciate what made it so different.
But yeah.
You know, you think about when we actually did start paying attention to Rock or like starting, you know,
2000s.
Yeah, early 2000s.
So that was 20 years after Murmur came out.
Right, exactly.
We lost all that like, you know, what makes it so great.
Yeah.
Well, and speaking of just another thing that made Stipe different.
as a vocalist at least.
You heard it's sort of in like toward the end of that clip,
he's almost like yodeling almost.
He would do strange things with his vocals like that.
And like what pitchwork was saying here,
no other rock band had taken all of these different influences
and merged them in this way.
Even things like that that appear out of left field, you know?
It all just like worked together somehow.
And yeah, something else that I'm going to talk about here,
which is interesting.
I just learned about this right now, Q.
This was from like, you know, basically in this deluxe edition of the CD, there were like quotes and stuff from the co-founder of IRS Records, which was the first label that signed them and put murmur out.
But apparently the way that the band, the way that they made music was almost like egalitarian and like a democracy almost.
So, like, each member was received equal songwriting credit on each track on each album.
And reportedly, each member not only had equal voice in decisions, but the band would do nothing unless everyone agreed unanimously.
So what the IRS records co-founder, Jay Bobberg, what he said was, it was a unique four-person democracy that in practice maximized the talents and insights of four.
people rather than just one leader calling the shots.
And I think that also speaks to just how strong each of them were, right?
Because if each of them as musicians had things to contribute in the songwriting process,
that just goes to show how, you know, REM is REM because of the strength of all four members,
right?
Dude, that reminds me so much, just like the way that he described that,
that was what David Byrne was having such a hard time with before Remainting Light came out, right?
He was talking hands, yeah.
Yeah, he started to feel like he was too much, like a dictator almost, you know?
Like, no one had any veto power over his decisions.
Yeah, well, that was a new wave, right?
Yeah.
Talking heads were kind of the ban where that term was almost coined to describe them.
But yeah, coming out of the 70s, like,
that was the era, the decade of like these rock gods, you know, like,
where like the front man or maybe even the front guitar player like Jimmy Page
were like elevated to like God status.
And like, yeah, I called the shots, like was the band.
And with a band like R.m, they weren't featured on the album covers, you know.
They weren't.
Right.
There weren't photos of them in the liner notes apparently.
Or they under sleeves and stuff like that.
Because it wasn't about them.
It was about the music, you know.
Yeah, I like that.
I like that.
Yeah, I think that's cool, right?
Little things like that, oddly, made them stand out.
But I think that kind of went on to be the norm, you know?
Not too many bands appear on the cover of their records anymore.
No.
It's just not a thing.
No.
You know?
All right.
Let's jump on down to the next pick here.
This song is called Catapult.
I can definitely see REM being an influence.
on
to bands that
like in the next wave
from like Sonic Youth
even into bands like
you know the grunge bands that happened
right after that with like the guitar tone
and maybe some of the chords are
a little bit on the grungy side
maybe the chord progressions but I mean
definitely not like the
the the distortion you know
there's no distortion at all
Maybe like Smashing Pumpkins-esque.
Yeah, I can see it.
Which was a little more shoegazy, grunge.
Yes, I could tell like a little bit.
Yeah.
But yeah, you know, this was the, you know,
REM sort of like carried rock into the 90s, right?
Like it was like the next maybe sound,
the next iteration of rock that brought us up to,
never mind, right?
If you want to put it that way.
And I know for a fact, this is well, well documented that Kurt Cobain was a huge REM fan.
Michael Stipe was like in talks with him leading up to his suicide, like, you know, saying he was, you know, hey, let's work together.
Like, you know, trying to keep him interested, right?
Can you imagine?
Michael Stipe and Kirk Cobain working together?
They would slate it to happen.
What would that have been like?
But yeah.
Talk about like a tort.
torch passing type moment, right?
Yeah.
If that would have happened.
But anyway, yeah, just another simple song.
This one's actually about childhood.
At least that's what the lyrics would make you think.
Yeah, I was getting some miracle lesion vibes.
Or like real estate.
Yeah, here's the lyrics.
When we were little boys, when we were little girls, it's 9 o'clock.
Don't try to turn it off.
Cowered in a hole.
Open your mouth a question.
Did we miss anything?
So it's 9 o'clock.
Don't try to turn it off.
I feel like that's maybe like don't turn off the lights.
Like, you know, 9 o'clock is like bedtime for most kids.
Maybe it's like, let me stay up a little bit.
I don't know.
That's just reading between the lines here.
But did we miss anything makes me feel like he's looking back at childhood and saying like,
what, you know, did I miss out on anything as a kid?
you know i know for this is what everybody experiences this typically if you have a a relatively
normal quote unquote childhood you know you always look back on on it with with um longing to
go back to childhood right so yeah absolutely anyway not exactly sure what catapult is referring to
in this song but this is a this is a really straightforward song there's no you know
pretty pretty straightforward lyrics but um yeah no no no no
No symbolism here that we know of.
Yeah.
I mean, catapult, who knows what that's referring to.
But yeah, it's talking about being little boys and girls.
A mother is referenced in verse two.
We in step in hand.
Your mother remembers this.
Hear the howl of the rope.
A question.
It's starting to get pretty cryptic over here.
The porch could be darker.
The march could be darker.
Hmm. Hmm. Well, anyway, I don't have to look up any words in these lyrics. I think it was a moral kiosk. There was like a reference to like a Greek. I had to look at the, I had to look it up. But he references like, yeah, she was laughing like a horror, which is some Greek goddesses of the seasons. I mean, that to me. Sometimes I think that college rock is like.
referring to some of these lyrics that are a little bit more like, you know,
you might have to sit through some college courses to know what they're talking about, you know?
James Mercer of the Shins, he got that, he was called out for that all the time.
I mean, his lyrics are like very, like, scholarly.
Yeah, I mean, he just tells you Michael Stipe was a well-read, learned dude, you know.
And same with Sting, his lyrics and the police.
Like, man, I got to bust out an encyclopedia.
Yeah.
It's like, don't make me read an encyclopedia, dude.
I'm just trying to rock out.
All right.
Let's go to the last song here that I'm going to play for us.
This is probably my favorite track on the record.
I think this song is just so beautiful.
And harmonizing on this song is amazing.
And what I like about, this is actually something that happened in Pilgrimans,
the first track that we played.
it seems like what they did, at least in this early record, was like
Michael's type is singing almost by himself the first time through the chorus,
and then the backing vocals get added later,
and it's like this nice, like, it takes the chorus up a notch, right?
And suddenly it's like, oh, now I'm feeling the energy behind these words and stuff a little bit more,
because then they're putting emphasis on certain words and stuff.
Anyway, this is a good example of that on this song here.
So, again, this was a...
actually released as the B-side on the Radio Free Europe single. So this was one of the first
R-A-M songs that people heard if they got a hold of the single. This song is called Sitting Still.
It just draws me in every time. I love it. Yeah, and so you heard kind of what I was talking about.
First chorus is just him saying that line, I can hear you, I can hear you. Second chorus, you know,
here comes Mike Mills, right?
Maybe even Peter Buck.
I don't know if he ever did backup vocals, but it's sort of, I don't know,
it just elevates it a little bit.
It makes you pay attention to it.
And then at the very end, the way the song closes out, you know, the chorus is,
I can hear you, I can hear you.
The last thing that Michael Stipe says is, can you hear me?
So I don't know what these lyrics are about, man.
I was trying, dude.
Trying to figure it out.
But here's an example of how he does kind of these, like a turn of phrase almost.
There's this, the opening line of the chorus, up to par and Katie Barr, or Katie Bars.
So in 1991, he acknowledged that this line references an old Southern saying,
Katie Bar the door, which means trouble is coming.
So the saying is Katie Bar the door, as in bar up the door, because here comes trouble.
And he just shortens it to Katie Bar.
Yeah.
Up to Par and Katie Bar.
That's, you know, I was, so I've watched this one British series that I got into pretty hardcore for a while.
I got through the whole series, but they do that in Britain too, like with really popular sayings.
They'll only say like half of it.
I know what you mean, yeah.
And over time, you just know what it means.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That is kind of what he's doing, right?
But, like, as a lyricist, if you start out writing your songs by just howling or whatever,
like they were saying, like, he didn't necessarily have words yet.
You would just have melodies that he would sing.
Yeah, well, sometimes Katie Bar the door is going to have to become Katie Bar.
Because, you know what?
I'm trying to fit it into this lyric here.
So I think that's cool, man.
Like, you know, you should have that.
that's always to me a good like the a sign of a good lyricist right yeah i don't think i could
my my brain doesn't work that way dude i'm too i don't think i could do it yeah i would just toss
it too literal think of same same here dude because i would i would already be stuck in the formula that
i created yeah and i'd think katy bar the door's not going to fit there got to find something
nice just i'll find another phrase here yeah because no one's going to know what i'm what i mean if all
i say is katy bar michael's type's like they'll figure it out
But that's the, yeah, and I guess that's the point.
So he actually went on to say, you know, because this is kind of like I was saying earlier,
about his reference to like, I would just get up and howl and holler, right?
In 2011, an interview with The Guardian, Stipe says that he eventually came to understand
that this was his own distinct way of communicating, that he'd found an intuitive new form.
He says, I do have something to offer, but it's just in a different dialect, a different link.
language. Yeah, I would say Michael Stipe definitely speaks a different language, dude, as proven
here by these lyrics. But yeah, it took him until 2011 to realize that he had something to offer,
you know. That's fun.
Classic, right? And I was reading, I think it was Peter Buck was talking about how like, you know,
and this is exactly, we've, we've heard this sentiment out of rock stars quite a bit, like,
through all, you know, throughout the many different bands and albums that we've covered on this
podcast, he was saying, yeah, you know, I thought we'd put out a couple records, you know, I'd make
some money, and then I'd go back and work at a record store.
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the lead singer of presidents of the United States of America
said.
Yeah.
Or no, no, no, I'm sorry, it was the Toadies guy.
Oh, that's right.
It was Toadies.
Yeah, yeah.
And so the funny thing is of the Toadies members, you know, they actually were working at a record
store where they all met.
same story here apparently
Peter Buck was working at a record store
and that's where he met Michael's type
so hey you know what if you're a musician
go work at a record store
that's where you're going to find your next
Michael's type your next lead singer
definitely going to find some more musicians
way more likely to find him there
you would think so
yeah so here's another lyric here
this is again from Mike Mills
so it seems like drummer never got any
he never got invited
to the interviews because I'm always reading stuff from all three members except for Barry,
the drummer.
But he says, if you grew up in New York or L.A., it would change your viewpoint on just about
everything.
There's no time to sit back and think about things.
Our music is closer to everyday life.
Things that happen to you during the week, things that are real, it's great just to bring
out an emotion.
Better to make someone feel nostalgic or wistful or excited.
or sad.
Amen.
Anyway, so, you know, the thing about this band and this record in particular is, like I was saying,
it didn't really get much widespread acclaim, but the music critics at the time
saw it for what it was, right?
And this is huge, if you think about it.
Rolling Stone picked this record as its best album of 1983.
beating out Michael Jackson's thriller, the police's synchronicity, and U2's war.
Holy, holy.
And this is their debut record.
Yeah, I had no idea.
I mean, think about that.
That's insane if you think about it, right?
And here we go, dude.
Buck noted in 2002, the IRS was mind-boggled by the album's positive reviews, especially
in the British press, British press, hold on, especially in the British, fuck me.
especially in the British press since REM had not yet toward that country.
So it was even getting popular over in countries that they really had no business knowing about it yet, you know.
You know, it's always nice when your record label believes in you.
Well, why would they even?
I mean, they didn't even think it was.
Nobody thought that it was kind of catch on because it was so different.
And they didn't, you know, like I was saying, Peter Buck didn't even want, they didn't want this.
success necessarily. They just wanted to put out some records, do their own thing. Yeah.
Yeah, Michael Stipe, there was a quote from him saying he wasn't necessarily ready for the success
that they got later. He was saying that had a murmur or the album that came out after that
reckoning sold five million copies or whatever actually did well. He said he wouldn't be here
to talk about it, almost claiming that he would have either killed himself or quit the band,
you know, because he wouldn't have been ready for the success. And we know that has happened.
You know, we've lost people because of that kind of thing.
Oh, yeah. Too many.
So much success comes on at you, you know, when you're not prepared for it.
One more quote here, Q, to close us out.
This is, again, from the hotpress.com article that was talking about,
the record, decades later.
They said,
For the seeming minority who still adhere to possibilities of guitar, bass, drum, and voice,
the Georgia quartet were the second coming, perhaps only to the Smiths.
The trifids, the bad seeds, and the waterboys offered as valuable in an alternative to permafrosted synth combos and dullered dinosaurs hogging the charts.
at that time more than any sense
rock and roll needed a band to believe in
and REM were it
so there you go
nice I like that quote about like
permafrosted synth combos and duller dinosaurs
meaning like the charts at the time
were those synth pop bands
or the old carryovers from the 70s
they were still putting out music you know
the old dinosaurs dude and what's funny to me
when you think about the landscape
of rock, Metallica's Killamol came out the same year.
That kind of stuff always blows my mind to remember.
So like, you know, Metallica was kind of, I think thrash metal at least, was sort of the next iteration of metal, if you will.
And so like, you know, this was just kind of the 80s were like a time of like, hey man, let's take a look at this rock and see what we can do with it, you know.
It is cool that it was happening alongside REM and college radio alongside.
Yep.
The metal, the next wave of metal.
All right, Q.
Well, that's it.
That's our look at REM's murmur.
I would do another episode on Reckoning if we wanted to keep it going.
But I think we had talked about doing a certain record.
actually kind of excited about this. So I think I think we could we could do it Q. Because I had
played this band as of what you heard and was obsessed with the song that I heard from them.
And I think this would be a good, an interesting, interesting album to cover after Murmur.
Catherine Wheels Chrome, they're like a shoegaze mixed with like a new wave sound. And
I hadn't heard of them until like last year and they blew me away.
Blew me away too, man.
The two songs that you played from them.
Yeah, Chrome came out in 93.
So a decade after Murmur.
And, you know, this is kind of not more of the same, but like sort of almost, you know,
it's an under the mega umbrella of alt rock.
Like this is another band that's under there.
So I think that'd be a good place to go.
So next week we're going to talk about Catherine Wheel.
And we're going to talk about their 1993 album Chrome.
Totally down to dive deeper into some Catherine Wheel for sure.
Yeah.
And this record is amazing, man.
There's a song on here that pumps me up, dude, every time I hear it.
So we're going to have to play that.
That, like, gets me emotional when I hear it, dude.
I don't want to say goosebumps, Q.
But, oh, I know what you mean.
Smiles for miles.
Yeah.
Smiles for miles, yeah.
All right.
So that'll be next week.
But yeah, where can you find us, Q?
Well, our home is the Pantheon Podcasts Network,
which is the podcast network for music lovers.
You can find us on Pantheon Podcasts.com along with dozens of other fantastic music-heavy podcasts.
You can also follow us on Instagram at No Filler Podcasts.
You can reach out to us there.
send us a message on Instagram.
We'll get back to you.
You can also email us at No Filler Podcast at gmail.com.
Let us know what you've been heard in lately.
And maybe we'll play one of your favorites for our next outro song
with our monthly What You Heard episode.
And as always, thank you to AKG for supporting the network.
And yeah, next week we'll cover some Catherine Weill.
Until then, thank you as always for listening.
My name is Quentin.
My name is Travis.
You all take care.
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