After making Automatic for the People and releasing it for the people to hear in 1992, the members of R.E.M. made a conscious decision to make their next album rock. They figured that people would be expecting an Automatic… 2, more of the acoustic, introspective, ‘Everybody Hurts’/‘Losing My Religion’ type deal that had made them massively popular at the beginning of the ’90s. So to subvert those expectations, they made Monster, released in 1994, a record heavily inspired by glam rock and a little inspired by the grunge movement that was the style of the time. A lot of tremolo guitar effects happening on this album. And Michael Stipe shaved his head right down to the dome. It was a big deal. And one song I’ve always dug from it is the fifth track, ‘Star 69’.

Like the rest of the R.E.M. albums, I heard Monster in its entirety when I went through the band’s discography in the early months of 2018. It actually may have been the first two weeks of that year. I’d heard ‘What’s the Frequency, Kenneth’ a couple months prior for the first time, so I guess I was a little excited when it came round to hear Monster. That song will get its due on here another day. And I think ‘Star 69’ was a number on there that I liked pretty much instantly. Michael Stipe’s vocals are almost indecipherable, drowned in the applied echo effects and energetic guitar work of Peter Buck. When you find them online, you’ll see they tell something of a story in which Stipe knows a person who’s burned down a warehouse because that person went on to call him. He refuses to be involved with the whole situation. You’ll be breaking out the air guitar and jumping around to the punk rock attitude of it all. At least, that’s where I’ve found myself I few times.

What the title ‘Star 69’ refers to is the last-call return feature of telephones in the US. Someone called you on the landline and you missed it? Well, then you’d grab the phone, dial ‘star 69’ and your phone provider would tell you the last number that called and what time it happened. So that’s what Stipe’s talking about when he says ‘I know you called’ in the chorus. We have that service over here in the UK too. You dial ‘1-4-7-1’ instead. Not as cool as a song title, though. Overall, it’s got quite the outdated message because everyone uses mobile phones now, and it’s very easy to see who specifically called and where they’re calling from, in addition to the number that called and what time. But that’s just how things were in the ’90s, man. The early 2000s too. Song makes for a nice little capsule. Always a good time hearing it.