Thirty years ago today, R.E.M. released New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
I’ve listened to it twice today. I love this album so much. The songs are great, and I loved many of them at the time. I’ll vouch for Bittersweet Me any day of the week and twice on Sunday. One of many songs where Mike Mills conveys so much in a background vocal without saying a word.
But at this point in my life the album is a time machine, and its power comes in part from its ability to connect me to my 21-year-old self, to close my eyes and be back in my dorm room.
I can feel that terrifying and exhilarating combination of knowing my place in the world, and knowing that it would all go away in a couple of months. That the future was wide open, but I didn’t have the faintest clue what to do with it. (The number of career possibilities I cycled through that year must have exhausted everyone around me.)
No wonder I listened to Leave so many times.
1996 was the year Pattie and I got together. Our first official date as a couple was to go out for dinner, 30 years ago tonight, and stop by a record store to pick up New Adventures before returning to campus. I’ve told that story before, but heck, even that post was 15 years ago.
God, the band retired 15 years ago this month. So much time. So many memories. Isn’t amazing how music keeps the memories alive, and allows time to give them even more depth and meaning and perspective?
1996 isn’t in the running for the best year of my life. But it’s probably the winner in the “Years Before I Became a Dad” category. And when I mind-meld with that college senior sitting in the Bronx, I cry and I laugh because he has no idea – he’s barely brave enough to hope – that thirty years down the line, he’s going to have a daughter who trades R.E.M. references with him.
Such a long road since 1996. So many bumps and twists and turns and disappointments and triumphs. I doubt R.E.M. had any idea what was ahead of them. I know I didn’t know what was ahead of me.
But I’m so glad I’ve had this album along for the ride.
