(Disclaimer: Those looking for a brief description of the album will find what their looking for in the "Album Overview" section. The section titled "Detailed Track Discussion" is meant only for those who want to read detailed descriptions of the songs, and they do not constitute the essence of this review. Lastly and most importantly, this review is not necessarily written by the point of view of an R.E.M. fan. )

Introductory Narrative

One of the most popular rock bands ever to come out of the underground/alternative realm into the mainstream, R.E.M. proved to have quite a devoted following! Released in 1983, Murmur is considered by a lot of people to be one of the greatest albums of the 80s.

The general purpose of Murmur is to sound moody, but they pull off the melodies strongly enough to keep that aspect completely interesting as well. They're living in the post-punk realm, and that fact is obvious. But their combination of post-punk and art-rock formed into their own (alluring) signature sound finalizes R.E.M. as one of the most durable bands in rock history.

Track Reviews

BEST SONG: Really hard to choose. It could be anyone of these. My two top picks: "Talk About the Passion" or "Shaking Through"

Radio Free Europe A
Pilgrimage A-
Laughing A
Talk About the Passion A+
Moral Kiosk A-
Perfect Circle B+
Catapult A
Sitting Still A-
9-9 A
Shaking Through A+
We Walk A-
West of the Fields A

OVERALL SCORE: 5/5

Album Overview

R.E.M.'s freshman album (if you discount their Chronic Town EP) and what a piece of work this is! It's such an incredibly solid and even album. If you're not paying close enough attention to it, you'll probably end up thinking that all of these songs sound alike (except for the relatively more instrumentally intense "Moral Kiosk," which was the first song that stuck out at me when I first listened to this album). At any rate, when you listen to them more closely, you'll notice that actually all of these songs are starkly different.

This is one of those rare albums that if you talk to 10 people and ask them what song they like the best, they'll likely give you 10 completely different answers. I must give you two answers! "Talk About the Passion" and "Shaking Through." In my view, these songs are among the album's most emotionally resonant, which doesn't happen extremely often in R.E.M.'s camp considering the lead singer Michael Stipe's ever-smooth voice isn't totally equipped for the whole emotion thing. Almost no matter what he does, his voice sounds laid back and timid. That's not a bad thing at all, though. His voice is aesthetically perfect; it's a great voice to listen to. Nevertheless, with the merits of the instrumentation, melody, and a general strain he does manage to come across as emotional in many of these songs.

Overall this is one incredibly excellent debut. It's highly even from start to finish (with the minor exception of "Perfect Circle," which I feel is the album's weakest entry) and, on a more personal note, this is one of the most frequent albums that I listen to.

Detailed Track Discussion

"Radio Free Europe" begins the album very much on the right foot. You can immediately denote the punk influence on R.E.M., but they have their own distinctive take on things! Stipe's laid back vocals are soothing and the instrumentation is quite solid. The drums are mixed loudly, but it's the 80s and that's okay, and it's not bad anyway. The best thing about this song is the melody, easy! Highly and immediately catchy, and you'll never get sick of it. This is a solid song in every definition of that word.

"Pilgrimage" doesn't lose the moment, even though it's less of a smoothly oiled song as its track predecessor was. The melody, again, is full of subtle hooks and solid instrument playing. This isn't as affecting, to me, as "Radio Free Europe," but it's very good. The light thumps of the drums and the sparser instrument playing still sound very nice here.

A happier sounding song, but you know, "Laughing," essentially sounds the same as the last song! And the last song essentially sounds the same as "Radio Free Europe." But yet these songs sound different enough to not make this album seem tedious! Stipe's vocals is mixed kind of quietly with the instrumentals. Considering how smoothly laid back they are, you don't notice a difference. The melody is catchy and the instrumentals keep the song toe tapping. What else can you want?

Even better, "Talk About the Passion" has an incredibly catchy melody. The instrumentals are soothing and so is Stipe's voice. They really have some nice acoustic guitar sequences written here! The overall feel of this is smooth, but it's kept edgy enough to keep it from becoming boring. This is good guitar-oriented rock! Thank goodness R.E.M. was influential to stuff!

"Moral Kiosk" used to be my favorite song on this album, because I liked those electric guitar licks in here. Well, I still think these are some great electric guitar licks! This is one of the most upbeat songs of the album (and it can be immediately deemed a highlight because of that). The melody, again, is excellent, but it's not quite as affecting as the other songs in here.

"Perfect Circle" is one of the slower songs of the album. The guitars are kept properly jangly. The melody clearly isn't one of the album's strongest, but (seriously) this is better than your average melody! This song doesn't totally break out of the "boring" that slow songs have the tendency of being.

"Catapult" is another low-key song, but it's not a slow one. The guitars are very jangly, and the solid instrumentation is very appealing in general! The melody is another good one (and the chorus consisting primarily of "Catapult" will stick with you). This is yet another incredibly strong song.

Love the guitars on "Sitting Still" as always! Through much of this song Stipe sings something and then the guitars go crazy, and it goes in a cycle! The melody is another pretty good one (though, in my view, not one of the album's best). Stipe tries to get passionate by the end of this, which is almost easy to miss!

"9-9" features some more active guitars this time (and they're more electric-sounding). The song is one of the least laid back of the album--the whole feel of this one is more conflicted and insane. The melody is pretty good, but there's not really any hooks in this. This song works on more of the emotional level.

Oh, clearly "Shaking Through" is one of the album's strongest tracks. Well, the melody is among the album's catchiest, and the overall feel of the song is incredibly emotional (which is weird considering that Stipe's voice isn't really equipped to sound emotional). Anyway, catchy melody + emotion in the voice = fantastic R.E.M. song!

Not quite as memorable this time, "We Walk" features a good but weaker melody and much less emotion, but the song overall makes a good listen. I like the jangly guitars always and Stipe's voice, and the thunder sounds through the song gives this one a more unique character.

"West of Fields" is a great song to close the album with and my vote as the third best song of the album! The melody is great and very catchy, the instrumentation is super-polished without sounding commercial or corny to the slightest, and Stipe's ever-smooth vocals pull off that emotional thing fairly well. Great music.

Concluding Remarks: R.E.M.'s debut album happens to be one of their best. It's one of their most consistent albums (and, no, that's not actually because all of these sound alike)! This also has strong repeated-listenings potential, and is one of the most frequently-listened-to albums in my collection. Gracias.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: At Work