REM - When The Light Is Mine

by Joe Awesome

This is a nostalgia trip, established fans to watch and wonder

"Where so many music DVDs of similarly influential artists might try to depict the bigger picture within which they began to change lives, REM’s ‘When The Light Is Mine’ is a comparatively insular affair."

Where so many music DVDs of similarly influential artists might try to depict the bigger picture within which they began to change lives, REM’s ‘When The Light Is Mine’ is a comparatively insular affair. It offers a collection of music videos - some good, some bad enough to make a modern viewer smirk, some live performances that serve to highlight how much of a good thing it was that Michael Stipe went bald, and some brief interview footage from ‘Cutting Edge’ circa ’93 and ’94.

There’s no attempt within to comment on REM as a band in their earlier years, just a compilation of material that, while comprehensive enough, will only serve to alienate those whose lack of familiarity with early REM; leaving them bemused as to the importance of some clichéd, curly haired 80s bohemians. This is a nostalgia trip, established fans to watch and wonder what happened to the kid and the dog in the ‘It's The End Of The World As We Know It’ video.

And what better release for a band whose last album they fully admitted bore the familiar curse of simply "sounding like REM" and whose overdue entry into music’s Hall Of Fame came just this September? ‘When The Light Is Mine’ is as good a compendium of nostalgia as any, which will no doubt set alight those originally around to remember it.

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