While it's true that much music we all listened to in our formative years creates some kind of neurological connection to particular memories, this is no more true in my life than with REM's fifth studio release, Document. As I've noted earlier, I became a fan of the guys in 1986 - between Pageant and Document (thus the so far haphazard order of the commentary in this blog). Therefore, Document was the first REM album I remember anticipating, reading the buzz on it before the release, hearing the first single ("The One I Love") some weeks before the album came out, wondering what harbinger of mysterious new tunes it preceded.
In the fall of 1987, I was a freshman in college. Document became the sonic landscape of that time - "Finest Worksong" reminds me of my roommate who hated my music and REM posters, "Lightnin' Hopkins" reminds me of studying on a Saturday, and "The One I Love" reminds me of my high school girlfriend on the other end of the state. These unremarkable single experiences of an eighteen-year-old form the remarkable whole of what it was like to be away from home for the first time, leaning into adulthood.
For the band it was likewise a transition. Document marks the first time REM was embraced by the mainstream (first Top 10, first platinum). It was also their first partnership with producer Scott Litt, a relationship that would be carried through six albums and ten years. And, though we didn't know it at the time, it was their last album with IRS. To some fans these things mark the beginning of the end, but I feel that to be an unfair assessment. Document shows both teeth and affable maturity. What other band's novelty song has as much staying power as "It's the End of the World As We Know It"? Where else can one find a political song as poppy and fun as "Exhuming McCarthy"?
Document is probably not REM's best album or most important album, but for this fan, it's their most evocative.
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Document was that hook that pulled me in, not quite as alt and raw (and perhaps obscure) as their prior albums, and not quite as commercial and overproduced as their later. It was a perfect landmark. I started at Document and worked backward, immersing myself in Pagent, Fables, Reckoning, Murmur, and of course Chronic Town. I could then consider myself an REM fan enough to sneer at their "cowardly surrender" into commercial pop soon after ("Pop Song 89" comes to mind).
Document's style fit perfectly for a high school kid still forming his identity. With just enough "rock-pop" feel to hear occasionally on the radio when driving with friends ("that's MY band"), but also enough "alt" sound to feel ironic a cool to be associated with it ("yeah, it's cool, but you should hear their early stuff").
REM in the Document era filled a void between MTV-friendly New Wave pop bands with catchy synthesized rhythms and femmy makeup, hard driving spandex-and-hair rock bands that became cliches of themselves, and arena-friendly breakout bands that just about everybody could like (and therefore were not as cool).
Document showcases Michael and the boys in an era when they were still young, smart, artsy, political, brave, and just bursting into the mainstream. Finding REM in 1987 was like vacationing at an historic Italian pensione just before Starbucks moves in.
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