The first time I recall being conscious of this 'new' band from Athens, Georgia was sat in the bedroom of Mr Hughes and, having seen 'Orange Crush' on Top of the Pops, we were trying to work out what the spoken bridge bit was going on about. After seemingly hours of debate (minutes probably) Mr H declared;
"It appears to be instructions about how to change a car tyre"
It was a revelation. Not only could these mechanical instructions prove useful in the future but I was relieved to find out that this great single wasn't a release from They Might Be Giants. Oh god how I hated their oh-so-clever nasal intoned brand of guitar-indie-pop. You see up to this point I wondered how many R.E.M. singles I'd discounted in error. Could I really have confused these two bands. I rather suspect that I had, for at least a year anyway, had the two totally mixed up and thought they were the same. Oops and oops again! But at least we had solved the mystery of that wordy bit.
So that moment, at the time inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, was a pivotal point. A turning point. Never again would I mistake the two and ...AND... I'd found a new band to champion. I simply had to find out more. Little did I know that here was a band that I would champion for the rest of my life. Is that going too far? Maybe. Maybe not. Vinyl, CDs, books, videos, DVDs, posters, T-shirts, badges and concert tickets would soon start flowing into my collection.
It's fitting that the release of 'Orange Crush' was a pivotal moment for me as the release of 'Green', the album from which it came, was even more so for Buck, Berry, Mills and Stipe; their first on a major label, the start of a truly great run of albums and the start of world recognition.
There isn't a single duff moment on this album. Not one. It's pop. It's rock. It's folk. It's glorious. It's 'Pop Song '89', 'Turn You Inside Out', 'You Are The Everything', 'Get Up', 'Stand' and of course 'Orange Crush'. Chiming guitars, great vocals, wonderful rhythm, lush harmonies and the best songwriting since...well since their previous album.
I could've ended this blog with any number of their releases; each worthy of occupying the closing entry. Should it be their final album 'Collapse Into Now'? How about their hugely undervalued 'flop' (tssk how could anyone have applied this word to them?) 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi'. Equally, I could have easily included every album of theirs during the past year. But that would've been too easy, lazy. Obvious even.
But actually the final blog, just like the first, was reserved before I even typed the first character into my computer. There was no other. Yes the final entry, on my 42nd birthday, had to be the album that turned me inside out, awoke me to their presence and I've never looked back, never been disappointed, always been excited, thrilled and surprised. And isn't that what music is supposed to be all about?
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