Volume 28, Track 14

Posted on | January 27, 2012 | No Comments

“Stumble” by R.E.M. (1982)

“Stumble” is the track that ends the Chronic Town EP and of the five tracks on the EP it is the most indicative of a band’s first recording, as its inconsistencies are both mildly maddening and weirdly charming. The track starts off with Michael Stipe laughing and what sounds like a zipper being unzipped followed by a drum and guitar intro. What follows after that is a solid melody that, when listened to chronologically, does lend itself to being a pretty great bridge to Murmur. But then there’s the zoo-like(?) vocalizations and effects at around the 3:45 mark that just seem out of place, and then once that’s done it thankfully goes back to the original melody that’s propelled by Mike Mills’ galloping bass. Don’t get me wrong: “Stumble” is a very good song; it just has some missteps in it. Luckily, the missteps don’t take away from the whole track. This song is a good litmus test because it probably does the best job of separating the casual R.E.M. fan and the diehard R.E.M. fan. If you like this song you probably will like an overwhelming majority of R.E.M.’s catalog up until New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Category: Volume 28
Tags: Focus on R.E.M. > R.E.M.

Comments

Recently Written

The Grigr Network

About

A series of 14-track (and sometimes 29-track) volumes that consist of songs that either time forgot about or are overshadowed by the artists' other work. Some of these volumes are artist-specific while others are simply eclectic; either way, they would make for good mixed tapes.