"You said the air was singing."
Reveal, released in 2001 through Warner (Bros.) Records, is the twelfth studio album by American Alternative Rock band R.E.M.. Following the Troubled Production of and critical and fan backlash towards Up in 1998, the band took note of the greater response towards their Man on the Moon soundtrack single "The Great Beyond" and shifted back towards their traditional Jangle Pop sound for their next record.
With Up producer Pat McCarthy returning, the band sought out a middle ground between their previous material and the Electronic Music direction of their 1998 album, resulting in a style that reviewers described as a modernization of their smash success Automatic for the People. Indeed, the album bears a similar relatively quiet and contemplative tone drenched in effects, though trades out most of the strings with the synthesizers that had dominated its predecessor. With the stress of Berry's absence no longer overwhelming the band, they also moved away from the bleakness of Up in favor of a calmer mood, with dark songs being few and far between this time around.
Reveal was supported by three singles: "Imitation of Life", "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star", and "I'll Take the Rain".
Tracklist:
Chorus Side- "The Lifting" (4:39)
- "I've Been High" (3:26)
- "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" (4:45)
- "She Just Wants to Be" (5:22)
- "Disappear" (4:15)
- "Saturn Return" (4:55)
Ring Side
- "Beat a Drum" (4:21)
- "Imitation of Life" (3:57)
- "Summer Turns to High" (3:32)
- "Chorus and the Ring" (4:31)
- "I'll Take the Rain" (5:51)
- "Beachball" (4:14)
Easy to trope yourself square in the eye:
- Album Title Drop: Stipe wonders "have I missed the big reveal?" in "I've Been High".
- all lowercase letters: The tracklist on the front cover is written this way, contrasting the all-caps tracklist on the back.
- Animated Music Video: "I'll Take the Rain", depicting the adventures of a crown-wearing dog and their sentient wooden cart through an island landscape.
- Anti-Love Song: "I'll Take the Rain" returns to the band's famously ironic use of love songs, with lyrics about an aloof and uncommitted lover that the narrator is constantly trying to reach out to.
- Artifact Title: "The Lifting" was titled after a lyric in the song's demo that went "you said you'd found the lifting," which was changed to "you said the air was singing" in the final version.
- Beneath the Mask: "Imitation of Life" is about how people tend to hide their insecurities while trying to be happy. The music video is a 20-second clip set at an outdoor party played backwards and forwards, with dozens of smaller events going on, many of which aren't immediately apparent in the first viewing."That sugarcane that tasted good, that's who you are, that's what you could. Come on, come on, no one can see you cry..."
- Book Burning: "Chorus and the Ring" mentions how the subject will "singe your own wings burning books."
- Color Motifs:
- The front and back cover, the logotype on the CD and DVD-Audio label, and the LP labels are all predominantly yellow, and the limited-edition CD release packages the disc in a translucent yellow envelope, all tying in with R.E.M.'s typical association with the color.
- White appears as a secondary motif: the jewel case uses an opaque white tray, much of the liner notes are white, and the logotypes and tracklist on the cover use a solid white fill. Additionally, aside from the logotype, the CD and DVD-Audio label are mostly blank, with the reflective silver color of the disc acting as a substitute for white, and the limited-edition CD release actually uses a mostly-white label (aside from, again, the logotype and red copyright text).
- Concept Video: The Animated Music Video for "I'll Take the Rain" tells the story of a canine monarch who, in a bout of depression and loneliness, treks out across its kingdom with a sentient wooden cart.
- Dramatic Irony: The narrator of "The Lifting" is confirmed to also be the narrator of "Daysleeper" from R.E.M.'s previous album. In this song, he praises nightlife as a reprieve from daytime corporate doldrums— the listener, however, is expected to know that he'll be stuck with that same monotony as a night shift worker in "Daysleeper", with added circadian rhythm-induced angst to boot.
- Epic Rocking: "I'll Take the Rain" just falls 9 seconds short of the six-minute mark.
- Eye Scream: "Saturn Return" opens with the line "easy to poke yourself square in the eye."
- Gratuitous French: The first verse of "Beachball" features Michael Stipe singing the lines "À tes souhaits/À tes amours chéri" ("Bless you/To your loves darling") midway through.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: LP and cassette copies divide the album between a "Chorus Side" and a "Ring Side", nodding to the title of "Chorus and the Ring". Notably, this was the band's last invocation of this trope until Collapse into Now a decade later, with both Around the Sun and Accelerate using standard numbers per side.
- In the Style of: Like "At My Most Beautiful" before them, "Beat a Drum", "Summer Turns to High", and "Beachball" were all written as musical homages to The Beach Boys, of whom Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and the retired Bill Berry were fans.
- Lighter and Softer: Reveal is much more upbeat and tranquil than the bleak, brooding tone of Up.
- List Song: "Imitation of Life" mainly revolves around Michael Stipe listing a variety of flowery and affectionate metaphors for the song's subject.
- New Sound Album: After the experimental Electronic Music direction of Up, this album sees R.E.M. seek out a middle ground between that approach and the contemplative Jangle Pop of Automatic for the People.
- The Night Owl: "The Lifting" is narrated by a guy who enjoys the urban nightlife, finding his daytime rituals bogged down by corporate ritual. As the song is a prequel to the much bleaker "Daysleeper", it acts as an ironic juxtaposition with the narrator's impending agony as a night shift worker.
- Non-Appearing Title: "The Lifting"; it was in the demo, but got taken out in the final version.
- One-Word Title: Reveal, "Disappear", "Beachball".
- Ordinary People's Music Video: "Imitation of Life" is set at an outdoor party, as a 20-second clip alternately played backwards and forwards and zooming in and out on different parts of the party.
- Pan and Scan: Exploited for artistic effect in the video for "Imitation of Life". The whole clip is a single 20-second loop of footage at an outdoor party, but the camera repeatedly zooms in and pans around to specific areas (including various extras lip-syncing to the lyrics) as the song goes on.
- Performance Video: "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" features the band giving a (staged) performance of the song at an urban high school, intercut with scenes of them singing and walking down the school halls.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: "Disappear" was inspired by a Survival Mantra Michael Stipe used to cope with the stress of touring, where he'd repeat the phrase "I'm not here, this isn't happening." Notably, he taught the mantra to Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke while the latter was overwhelmed from the stress of aggressively promoting OK Computer, and Yorke would use it as the basis for "How to Disappear Completely" in 2000. Upon remembering the shared inspiration, Stipe phoned Yorke to apologize for stealing the song, only for Yorke to say it was more Stipe's than his own upon hearing him recite the lyrics to "Disappear".
- Remix Album: 2002's r.e.m.IX, which features remixed versions of "The Lifting", "I'll Take the Rain", "She Just Wants to Be", "I've Been High", "Beachball", and "Summer Turns to High" by a variety of outside producers.
- The Reveal: Aside from the album title, "I've Been High" features Michael Stipe asking if he's "missed the big reveal."
- Rhyming Title: "Saturn Return".
- Self-Plagiarism: In the liner notes to the In Time Greatest Hits Album, Peter Buck admitted that the verse chords in "Imitation of Life" were accidentally lifted from "Driver 8" 16 years earlier.
- Sequel Song: "The Lifting" acts as a prequel to "Daysleeper", in effect turning the earlier song into a sequel to the later one.
- Shout-Out:
- The line "have not, will travel" and "have done, will travel" in "I've Been High" references Have Gun – Will Travel, the title of which is itself a nod to the advertising slogan "have tux, will travel."
- "Saturn Return" mentions "these Elvis poses."
- "Imitation of Life" takes its name from the 1959 Douglas Sirk movie of the same name, despite the fact that nobody in the band had actually seen it.
