{"id":2898,"date":"2010-08-13T02:10:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T06:10:17","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-10T19:21:06","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T23:21:06","slug":"rem-neil-diamond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rem-neil-diamond\/","title":{"rendered":"REM = Neil Diamond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4Rz92JWtS50?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve always thought classic <strong>REM<\/strong> sounded like <strong>Neil Diamond<\/strong> in a minor key with added twinkly guitar bits. Until the other night, I had not heard more than a single REM song at a time in a good 15 years. One of the friends we&#8217;re renting a place with in New Mexico played a half dozen or more REM songs from his or her iPod, and my old thoughts about REM and Diamond were revived.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Stipe has similar phrasing and vocal tone to Diamond. He projects a similar &#8220;solitary manliness,&#8221; laying into the opening phrase of almost every line. The choruses of REM and Diamond have a lot in common too, sweeping upward and pouring on the solitary manliness established by the verses.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to almost any classic REM song and see if you can&#8217;t sing the lyrics and melody of one of Diamond&#8217;s big hits. You may have to pause between verses now and then to allow Peter Buck to play one of those twinkly parts, but it&#8217;s not that hard to hear the similarities in songwriting and structure.<\/p>\n<p>Like Diamond, Stipe and company abandoned their &#8220;forever in blue jeans&#8221; Look and gussied themselves up to project &#8220;larger than life.&#8221; For the last 20+ years Stipe has felt compelled to act out some larger drama for a loyal, aging audience. Diamond perfected this approach 20 years earlier.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not holding this comparison against REM; in fact, I&#8217;ve always had the slightest of soft spots for Neil Diamond. Thinking of REM in this way helps me like them more than when I think of more common comparisons, like how they used to be compared to <strong>The Byrds<\/strong> because of the twinkly guitar parts and folky vibe. I think that comparison has always sold the band short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve always thought classic REM sounded like Neil Diamond in a minor key with added twinkly guitar bits. Until the other night, I had not heard more than a single REM song at a time in a good 15 years. One of the friends we&#8217;re renting a place with in New Mexico played a half <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rem-neil-diamond\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[286,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}