Let's Active - Big Plans For Everybody

Let’s Active – Big Plans for Everybody

I.R.S., 1986
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2010
Price: $6

From the belly of Athens, GA, this is the answer to “What does college rock sound like?” That, and I guess every early R.E.M. record, but this one is more tuneful and enjoyable than early R.E.M. records (I still for the life of me can’t make R.E.M. sound compelling to my brain. At least not yet. Still waiting for some like, revelation moment. Not ruling it out.) Or maybe I just wanna give R.E.M.’s producer some love, I dunno. Either way, I usually enjoy it when producers make music in addition to producing, and Mitch Easter’s jangle pop is no exception. While the album is mostly just “pretty good stuff,” the tracks “Fell” and “Writing the Book of Last Pages” were like, really excellent. I love these 80s bands because there were so many and all of them had at least one or two great songs.