R.E.M.
Murmur

Recorded in January 1983, Murmur is the album that sets the guideline for the entire subsequent production of the Athens group. Awarded as album of the year by "Rolling Stone" magazine, it becomes the symbol CD of the college rock of the 80s.

Characterized by the precise integration of the fundamental Buck on guitar, the versatile Mills on bass, the perfect Berry on percussion, and Stipe's distinctive voice, which "murmurs" into the microphone impressionist lyrics of sought-after accuracy, the record opens with "Radio Free Europe," the single that drives the album and highlights its characteristic traits. It continues with Mills' bass prominently featured in "Pilgrimage," certainly one of the most beautiful and interpretatively challenging songs with regards to Stipe's lyrics, who sings of two-headed cows and arcane languages à la Talking Heads. The third track is the delightful "Laughing," which anticipates "Talk about the Passion": it is not a love song (Stipe would not use this word, according to him excessively analyzed by singers, for most of the 80s), but a particular reflection on suffering in the Christian sense of the term. Passing through the rhythmic "Moral Kiosk" one arrives at "Perfect Circle," another masterpiece of the album, born from a simple harmony on which Stipe sings with delicate precision. With "Catapult" and the subsequent "Sitting Still" and "9-9", the group, continuing to use lyrics of highly subjective interpretation, brings the engaging riffs back to the forefront. This is also exemplified in "Shaking Through," followed by the charming "We Walk," almost a nursery rhyme that revisits the previously addressed theme of childhood. Closing the album is "West of The Fields," full of references to the classical world that permeate the entire record.

An album I would recommend everyone to buy, for the historical importance it had for the group and for the American underground. It is also a fabulous CD from the musical point of view and explains the importance these four artists have in the international artistic scene.