Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chronic Town (1982) + outtakes, b-sides, etc!, April 24, 2000
This album is essential for all but the newest REM fans. It is where you can find REM's one and only EP -- Chronic Town, which was released a year before their landmark debut, Murmur. It is also where you can find many cover songs, B-sides, and alternate versions of songs. I highly recommend the import version of this album (although I realize Peter Buck wasn't all that happy about the re-release with 2 extra tracks). Track 21, Gardening At Night (acoustic) is beautiful, although a little tenative. Track 22, All The Right Friends, is a Murmur outtake, but almost sounds like it belongs on Chronic Town. Another great song out of the 1,000s REM has done already. Maybe most people don't take this album seriously, but for me, it holds a dear place in my heart. Like that professional reviewer above mentioned, REM does a fine job of any cover song they record. This is a very enjoyable album. A 7-year cross section of early REM work.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
PROMISING EARLY WORK, September 23, 2003
As a compilation of rare B-sides and the first EP, this album provides an enjoyable listening experience although it may not be up there with the best of this brilliant band. With its 22 tracks, it offers good value for money anyway.My favorites include the three Velvet Underground covers: There She Goes Again, Pale Blue Eyes and Femme Fatale. I also love the spiritual song Voice Of Harold with its gripping melody, churning guitars and whistling towards the end. Other tracks of note are the instrumental White Tornado with its powerful guitars, the speedy and energetic Toys In The Attic, Wolves Lower with its nervous rhythm, Gardening At Night with its lovely winding melody and All The Right Friends. Their sound appears a bit thin in places in this early phase of their career but it's rather charming to listen to the beginnings of this amazing band that later give us masterpieces like Document, Out Of Time and Automatic For The People.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Delivered from the Recycle Bin, May 4, 2007
In the liner notes, Peter Buck says that this collection is like entering a junk shop. True, except there are some real finds to be made here. R.E.M. always had a disdain for labeling "sides" to their music. Sometimes the Beatles had double-A sides for singles. During their early years, R.E.M. called their albums' sides different names. On 'Fables of the Reconstruction' it was "A Side" and "Another Side". For 'Green' it was "Air" and "Metal" sides. For 'Automatic for the People' it was "Drive" and "Ride" sides to accentuate their theme of our control on life and life's control on us, especially developed on their single "Drive".
Anyway, 'Dead Letter Office' accentuates the arbitrariness of labels while keeping in mind Peter Buck's commentary. To sort through this collection is mostly a fun-filled adventure. Despite other's commentaries, I believe their renditions of Velvet Underground sounds aren't extraneous, but good interpretations that show their musical finesse. Other able moments abound, like their version of "Toys in the Attic," "Ages of You," and the heartwarming "Bandwagon". The best song of the group is, in my humble estimation, one of their ten best. "Windout" is a progressive number with expert guitar work by Peter Buck and a spirited performance all around. "Voice of Herald" is a remake of "Seven Chinese Brothers" done identically to the 'Reckoning' musically, but with different words. Here Michael Stipe leads a diatribe at someone of pompous self-importance, probably in the gospel music industry. "Crazy," which starts the album, gives us able folk-rock with both an urgent and caressing delivery by Stipe. Some instrumentals are also present. The compilation flows well, and the only stinker is their rendition of Mitch Miller's "King of the Road," but, even this song is interesting. It gives us the impression that, as perfectionistic as the band is, they probably arrived in the studio after a few beers and recorded this song off-the-cuff. Their debut 'Chronic Town' follows the original album. It is a dark piece of folk-rock, New Wave music and a fine debut. Since it was only an E.P. originally with only five songs, 'Dead Letter Office' makes a nice C.D. home for a brilliant debut. Even R.E.M's trashcan brings us treasure.
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