Regular readers of this blog know that my attitude toward music and literature and art and everything else is one big overlap. How it all affects me is all tangled up in a web of mental associations, which in turn determines how I approach all of it.
Take my Graham Greene obsession. The first mention of it was this post, which was sparked by conversations about music, not literature. Prior to posting about it here, I'd had an email conversation with a friend where I also related my Graham Greene fancy with music. The title of that email was "Graham Greene is my R.E.M. is my Graham Greene," or something like that. I was going on about how the best thing about Greene is that he's done just short of a million books, so any time I'm in a reading funk I can go to him. It's sort of like realizing late in life that you really dig R.E.M.—there's always more back catalog, all dependably wonderful. (Not coincidentally I was picking up a bunch of R.E.M.'s back catalog at the time, thanks to Tower Records' going-out-of-business sale.) I really do think that if Greene could have a pop music equivalent, it would be R.E.M.
So imagine the kismet when, just as I'm starting in on reading everything Greene has ever done, Matthew Perpetua (a Fluxblogger) has begun a similar endeavor with R.E.M. At his new blog Pop Songs 07, Perpetua is writing about every R.E.M song ever written. If ever a band was worthy of such an effort, it's probably them.