R.E.M. 'Document' reissue news

R.E.M. has set Sept. 25 for the release of an expanded 25th Anniversary Edition of the band’s 1987 album, Document. The new edition on Capitol/I.R.S. Records features the digitally remastered original album, plus a previously unreleased 1987 concert from R.E.M.’s “Work” tour.

The commemorative release also adds new liner notes, with the 2CD package presented in a lift-top box with four postcards. On the same date, the remastered original album will be reissued by Mobile Fidelity on 180-gram vinyl in faithfully replicated LP packaging.

 

R.E.M.’s fifth studio album, Document was recorded by vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry at Nashville’s Sound Emporium. The first of several R.E.M. albums to be co-produced by the band and Scott Litt, Document was also the band’s first to go platinum and includes the singles “Finest Worksong,” “Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” and “The One I Love,” R.E.M.’s first Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album peaked at Number 10 in the U.S., spending 33 weeks on Billboard’s Top 200.

 

Document launches with a call-to-action, as Stipe sings, “The time to rise / Has been engaged” in “Finest Worksong,” bearing witness to history-repeating-itself tactics employed by the country’s elected leaders, evidenced by the Iran-contra hearings, Star Wars missile defense saber-rattling, and a hyper-moralized Congress bent on restricting and regulating controversial language in the arts. 

 

“All you have to do is turn on the TV,” said Peter Buck at the time, “And you’re inundated with complete lies from people who are supposed to be running the country.”

 

Mike Mills says in the new edition’s liner notes, “We always felt that if we had a hit, it would be despite us, not because of us.”

 

Document’s 25^th Anniversary Edition follows the special edition releases of R.E.M.’s four other I.R.S. albums, including Murmur and Reckoning, released by UMe/I.R.S., and Fables of the Reconstruction and Lifes Rich Pageant, released by Capitol/I.R.S.

Audio and video anthologies of the legendary band’s 1980s I.R.S. Records output, And I Feel Fine... The Best Of The I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 and When The Light Is Mine… The Best Of The I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 Video Collection, respectively, were released by Capitol/I.R.S. in 2006.

 

R.E.M.:  Document (25th Anniversary Edition) [2CD, digital]

CD 1 (digitally remastered original album)

1. Finest Worksong    

2. Welcome To The Occupation  

3. Exhuming McCarthy  

4. Disturbance At The Heron House 

5. Strange  

6. Its The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)   

7. The One I Love   

8. Fireplace   

9. Lightnin' Hopkins   

10. King Of Birds

11. Oddfellows Local 151

CD 2 (previously unreleased “Work” tour concert, recorded live in Utrecht, Holland – September 14, 1987)

1. Finest Worksong (4.20)
2. These Days (3.36)
3. Lightnin’ Hopkins (3.43)
4. Welcome To The Occupation (2.52)
5. Driver 8 (4.15)
6. Feeling Gravitys Pull (5.00)
7. I Believe (4.28)
8. The One I Love (4.38)
9. Exhuming McCarthy (3.23)
10. Wolves, Lower (4.23)
11. Fall On Me (3.05)
12. Just A Touch (3.12)
13. Oddfellows Local 151 (5.34)
14. Little America (2.50)
15. Its the End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (4.01)
16. Begin The Begin (4.32)
17. Disturbance At The Heron House (3.42)
18. Moral Kiosk (3.02)
19. Life And How To Live It (4.59)
20. So. Central Rain (5.35)