REM – Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth

This one goes out to the one I love

Those that know me, or even know my writing and its youthful naïveté (OK Wilco’s The Whole Love might not be the best album of the decade) will be unsurprised to know that I’ve never been in a relationship that has lasted thirty years. In truth, although I’ve always loved REM’s music, it’s only in recent years that I’ve taken the plunge into their stunning pre-Out of Time oeuvre. And yes, whilst we had difficulties towards the end, and despite the real brevity of the relationship, I was crushed by the breakup.

Now, there’s a 1998 Hirokazu Koreeda film called After Life, the basic premise of which is that after you die, you stop off on your way to the afterlife to have your favourite memories committed to videotape (this may sound familiar to Radiohead geeks). With Part Lies, Part Truth, Part Garbage REM have done the hard work for us, the highlights of their extensive career compiled chronologically for the first time. At two hours thirty minutes it’s something of an epic, though for the first three quarters of the album time flies by: I know every scene by heart, and they all move by so fast.