R.E.M.'s Murmur Gets Deluxe Reissue

11/04/08 3:51pm

R.E.M.'s brilliant 1983 debut album, Murmur, will be reissued in a two-disc 25th anniversary deluxe edition by Universal Music Canada on Nov. 25.

The original 12-track album has been remastered and will be packaged with a recording of a concert at Toronto's Larry's Hideaway that followed three months after Murmur's release. The performance includes nine Murmur songs, three cuts from 1982's Chronic Town EP, two numbers that appeared on 1984's Reckoning, "Just A Touch" from 1986's Life's Rich Pageant and a cover of The Velvet Underground's "There She Goes Again."

The music comes with exclusive essays on the recording of Murmur by producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon and thoughts from executives who worked for R.E.M.'s label of that era, I.R.S. Records.

"R.E.M. was a product of the record store, the library, and the college classroom colliding with the ultimate counter-culture, nerd, dance, ambiguous sex party," wrote Dixon. "They were a band in the most classic sense of the word. The perfect amalgam of The Velvet Underground and The Doors."

Murmur was named Rolling Stone's album of the year for 1983, while Entertainment Weekly listed it as one of the 100 greatest CDs of all time and Mojo called it one of the 100 records that changed the world.

R.E.M. were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame last year.

Here are the songs on the bonus disc of Murmur — Deluxe Edition, which were recorded live at Larry's Hideaway:

"Laughing"
"Pilgrimage"
"There She Goes Again"
"7 Chinese Bros."
"Talk About The Passion"
"Sitting Still"
"Harborcoat"
"Catapult"
"Gardening At Night"
"9-9"
"Just A Touch"
"West Of The Fields"
"Radio Free Europe"
"We Walk"
"1,000,000"
"Carnival Of Sorts (Box Cars)"