REM: Pretty Pictures (rec. 1981-1983)

 Another vintage boot that I picked up at Record Mart, back in 1990 or so. This set collects studio sessions from the pre-Murmur era and features several songs that never saw an official release, as well as early versions of songs that later appeared on Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning, and Lifes Rich Pageant. 

Side three is a particular revelation as it reveals that Chronic Town could easily have been a full-length but was very wisely cut down to an EP (Murmur could have been so different). 

Side four collects recordings of all those songs from their early live sets while the first two sides offer up “That Beat” and “Skank”, neither of which ever got an official release. 

This copy has been well worn for three decades, and is a bit scratchy, from the thousand spins this got back in the day, but it is still one hell of a spin. I love this set.