Wednesday 12 February 2014

POST 11: FOUR NOTIONS IN A SINGLE SONG AND VIDEO CLIP: R.E.M - EVERY DAY IS YOURS TO WIN

 Biography

R.E.M. marked the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock. When their first single, "Radio Free Europe," was released in 1981, it sparked a back-to-the-garage movement in the American underground. While there were a number of hardcore and punk bands in the U.S. during the early '80s, R.E.M. brought guitar pop back into the underground lexicon. Combining ringing guitar hooks with mumbled, cryptic lyrics and a D.I.Y. aesthetic borrowed from post-punk, the band simultaneously sounded traditional and modern. Though there were no overt innovations in their music, R.E.M. had an identity and sense of purpose that transformed the American underground. Throughout the '80s, they worked relentlessly, releasing records every year and touring constantly, playing both theaters and backwoods dives. Along the way, they inspired countless bands, from the legions of jangle pop groups in the mid-'80s to scores of alternative pop groups in the '90s, who admired their slow climb to stardom. 

Review of the song
 
Righting themselves via their long-awaited return to rock Accelerate, R.E.M. regrouped and rediscovered their core strengths as a band, strengths they build upon on its 2011 sequel, Collapse into Now. Cautiously moving forward from Accelerate’s Life's Rich Pageant blueprint, R.E.M. steer themselves toward the pastoral, acoustic moments of Out of Time and Automatic for the People without quite leaving behind the tight, punchy rockers that fueled Accelerate’s race to the end zone. This broadening of the palette is as deliberate as Accelerate’s reduction of R.E.M. to ringing Rickenbackers, and while it occasionally feels as if the bandmembers sifted through their past to find appropriate blueprints for new songs, there is merit to their madness. R.E.M. embrace their past to the extent that they disdain the modern, reveling in their comfortable middle age even if they sometimes slip into geezerhood, with Michael Stipe spending more than one song wondering about kids these days. He’s not griping; he’s merely accepting his age, which is kind of what R.E.M. do as a band here, too. Over a tight 41 minutes, they touch upon all the hallmarks from when Bill Berry still anchored the band, perhaps easing up on the jangle but devoting plenty of space to rough-hewn acoustics and mandolin, rushing rock & roll, and wide-open, eerie mood pieces that sound like rewrites of “E-Bow the Letter.” Any slight element of recycling is offset by craft so skilled it almost seems casual. This may impart a lack of urgency to Collapse into Now but it also means that it delivers R.E.M. sounding like R.E.M., something that has been in short supply since the departure of Berry. Every Day is Yours to Win is the 6th track of this album.

Own review of the song

 My point of view is that this song is about self-estime and that if you want something, you're the only one who can struggle for it. This song is all about reach for your purpose and that the only one who can succed them is you. But there is always someone who is here to support you and help you if you need it with "bridges" or other things. If people want to become heroes, they are the one who can change it. Every day is a new day and we have the cards in our hands to do what we want to do. We have to fight if we want to fulfill our dreams or purpose and we are the one we can change what we want to change in our lives.

Short interpretation of the video

The video is made of several home-made videos. Videos of people who wanted to show or to share something with the others, to feel a bit more heroic. Those people have done something special because they feel special and they wanted to show what they are abble to do when they try. Also, all these videos are made by young people so that it shows that if you want to make a change or to do something important or special, don't wait until it's too late.