[rating=8.00]
Recording in the studio for albums like Automatic for the People, R.E.M. pushed the boundaries of their readily identifiable style more (and arguably more successfully) than any of their peers. And the Georgia band’s only comparable contemporaries in that regard, Ireland’s U2, never stripped their instrumental lineup down to acoustic basics as presented on Unplugged 1991-2001.
Subtitled The Complete Sessions, this two-disc set contains all the performances (except for repeats of numbers for broadcast purposes) recorded for the MTV series at those two year junctures of REM’s career. The first CD captures the original quartet of Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe (augmented by Peter Holsapple), while the trio of the latter three (subsequent to the drummer’s departure in 1997), appear on the second disc aided and abetted by their touring partners of their later years.
Each performance includes a range of material from all R.E.M.’s recordings to that time, the second obviously allowing for greater selection from their discography, but the group makes their point equally emphatically during the course of each ‘set.’ Reaffirming its brilliance, original material such as “Low” and “Losing My Religion” accommodates reinvention, on the former, for acoustic guitars, congas and organ, while maintaining its natural introspection.
As with all their best work, R.E.M. makes this project work on multiple levels. In 1991, they’re greeted with great gusto when they take the stage (and after every number too which is more than a little annoying), and while Stipe’s introductions of the band and the selections are warmly forthright here (in contrast to the cryptic self-consciousness of the later repartee), “Half A World Away” sounds like a direct comment on the main audience of MTV, while its corresponding opener, “All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be a Star) comes across as a self-referential observation on the arc of their own career.
As cerebral as the quartet could be, the bond of their musicianship, particularly with Berry in tow, radiated the confident chemistry of the greatest rock and roll bands. The 2001 sessions aren’t much less arresting than those from a decade earlier, but a certain sad dignity permeates the playing there whether from R.E.M.’s latter day repertoire such as “Country Feedback” or pre-fame numbers such as “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry).” It’s almost as if, ten years prior to their formal retirement, R.E.M. began their swan song, knowing they were not really the group they once were, in all their glory, commercial success aside.
R.E.M. have released a fair amount of live content in the years since their formal disbandment, but Unplugged 1991/2001: the Complete Sessions may represent their idiosyncratic group persona, as well as their position as a rock culture bellwether, better than any of them. Equally importantly, it offers a unique perspective, in microcosm,the band in its original and latter-day configurations.
