what the heck, let's give R.E.M another chance.

I love REM, but I can't say that I'm really pumped for this. I'll definitely get it when it's out.

As for the publicity, don't they always do that? This is the best one so far/experimental/not-too-experimental/blah blah/bouzouki etc.

I reckon Up is their only fully listenable record since Monster, which has aged suprisingly well as a fun-but-bad record.

That attitude always bugs me. Why should they dissolve a successful songwriting partnership simply because you don't like them?

monster. it all ended with monster.

(To be clear, I wasn't being serious with the "agree with me" thing, though I'd like you all to agree with me.)

(it was quite clear you weren't being serious! my response has an implied smiley at the end ot. but i hate emoticons even more than i hate monster, so i couldn't bring myself to actually type it.)

I agree with Tim that they are always pretty good, and some albums/songs are better than others. I really don't think they've ever made a bad record, though they can dip into mediocrity at times. How many folks make fourteen or fifteen albums worth of material without having some duds? The quality of R.E.M.'s music is remarkably consistent for a band that has been around as long as they have.

Pleasant Dreams ('81)-A-
Subterranean Jungle ('83)-A-
Too Tough to Die ('84)-A
Animal Boy ('86)-B+

I hope for the best.

to be honest don't really care for any REM whatsoever, but their unlistenability probably hits high gear with Green.

this of course is without mentioning what wimps they are in regards to their cover of "There She Goes Again".

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp100/p149/p14907mm13c.jpg

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp000/p010/p01035uc356.jpg

And that's about it, really.

The Bee Gees did.

But wasn't Bad Day a leftover from the mid-80s?

This is not to diss...I actually love love love New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and what I heard of Up seem okay....

Q: John do you hate fun A: you're damn right I do

beatles
the clash
bruce springsteen
elvis costello
prince
lots and lots of others

I'm putting this in my "resources" folder and replacing the 'REM' with "________"; over time, I expect it will become as handy as "Lorem Ipsum".

the one late-period rem thing that i really liked was a demo version of "why not smile" (from up) that appeared on one of those oxford american cd samplers. the full-band version of the song bored me to tears, but the demo was great. so yeah, maybe you've got a point there.

With the exception of Hi Fi (which was written and recorded on tour - mostly in soundchecks, with four songs recorded live in concert), every record they've done since Green has been created and conceived in the studio, and so they do lack that special energy that Josh In Chicago talks about. I don't think it's always a problem - some of those records benefit from it, though others (like Reveal, for example) suffer.

Sorry to take it a little off topic, but thought it was a nice thing that happened.

Dean

I was thinking more bands than individuals, though, which is why I asked. Forgot that the Bee Gees did a lot of that. Who did the Beatles and Clash write for?

They played songs that would eventually end up on Out of Time on the Green tour.

Hstencil is right about Out Of Time, at least for "Belong" and "Low." That slipped my mind. Most of that record was written in the studio, though.

the clash wrote an entire album for ellen foley.

the beatles wrote for a variety of their contemporaries, such as cilla black ("love of the loved"), peter & gordon ("world without love") and helen shapiro (who bizarrely rejected "misery," forcing the beatles to record it themselves).

YES IT IS.

I think there's some other minor mid-1960s Macca-penned hit I'm thinking of, but for some reason the name escapes me.

that would be the great "i wanna be your man," actually.

"i wanna be your lover" was a song the beatles wrote for, um, prince?

Stipe should go on American Idol. They should do a night of R.E.M. songs and he should be the guest judge.

If Bill Berry were still around, I'd not hesitate to pick up a new album. Without him...well, it just hasn't done anything for me.

I can't imagine someone going to an R.E.M. show, watching the whole thing, and then saying, "Yeah, no, they're no good."

I don't get this at all. Can't you come up with 20 English bands that you "swoon" over who had less "balls?"

I agree with Stockholm Cindy - REM doesn't really need an impressive drummer, just a competant one. I like Bill Berry and all, but I'm never thinking "oh wow, this drummer rules" when I'm listening to the old records/live recordings.

Hstencil otm.

I agree with danh.

I think you've got me confused with someone else: my list of nutless-English-bands-I-like is about five entries long

Don't make me check the Last Plane to Jakarta archives!

x-post

I should stay off this thread, my anti-R.E.M. stance has actually softened lots in recent years. I remember with fondness however the title of an album by the Georgia noise band Peach of Immortality, ca. 1987: "JEHOVAH MY BLACK ASS - R.E.M. IS AIR SUPPLY"

"Radio Free Europe," "Wolves, Lower," "Carnival of Sorts," "Sitting Still,' "9-9," "West of the Fields," "Shaking Through," "Harborcoat," "Pretty Persuasion," "Second Guessing," "Little America," etc., etc., etc.=NOT ROCKING?

Michael Stipe used to play in a band called Boat Of with Tom Smith!

I stick with my suggestion that R.E.M. should record a pretty no-muss "live" album, free of all the studio polish. Or specifically, record with Albini and then get Nigel Godrich to remix the singles.

But you dislike their groove, too. What WAS their groove, anyway? I think they were a power pop band first of all. Those pre-Chronic Town songs on live bootlegs (they recorded one recently--"All the Right Friends"--it's on the new greatest hits album) sound like a power pop band. But as they evolved, they were more "post-punk" somehow and "folk-rock" somehow. Not that you can compare them directly to British bands (they don't sound like the Soft Boys, they don't sound like Gang of Four) or U.S. bands (they don't sound like the Feelies, they don't sound like the Byrds!). I guess all I can say is that I like the power pop elements on the early records, I like the post-punk elements on the early records, AND I like the folk-rock elements on the early records.

And comparing R.E.M. to Pavement, to me, seems like the equivalent of comparing the Beatles to Badfinger.

Your point seems to be "not liking R.E.M. means not UNDERSTANDING R.E.M.," which is kinda a position that doesn't allow for much discussion, so, umm, I love R.E.M., everything they ever did is great, Stipe is a genius, their records are not and haven't always been colossal snoozefests.

This is PRECISELY where any music discussion jumps the goddamn shark.

The one REM album I've listened to with anything approaching regularity is Murmur. I had a near complete collection until recently, I mp3'd everything, burned it to a disc, and sold everything back, and I haven't missed it at all.

Ned, I don't understand your point. I wouldn't imagine that Michael Stipe's perspective on his early lyrics was that the main reason that he liked them was that people could interpret them any way they liked. That was how John framed it.

Tim your point seemed (and I'd parse this further given time) to be "not liking R.E.M.'s groove = not possible, they are too multifaceted!" I don't agree, but it's very very very difficult discussing something with an active fan (or, admittedly, with a hater: though as a hater I've spent a fair amount of coin on R.E.M. albums trying to figure out what made 'em tick, why people I respect love them, etc). I -don't- think they're the chameleon-like jacks-of-many-trades you do; I think they've got a gift for melody & feeling at times, but have generally made remarkably unremarkable records. "a cool guitar, played through tube amps with a really nice tone (ZERO distortion)" sounded like several steps down the road to muso ickness at the time & kinda still does.

so in conclusion while I'm sure that any reason I might offer for finding them dull can be dismissed as "not having understood what they're all about," yet must I on the whole pronounce them boring, your mileage may/does vary, etc

This is what I'm talking about, Tim -- I don't accept this as an answer to John's point either!

And John (and Ned chiming in), again, I'm not suggesting that disliking REM is misunderstanding them or that disliking their groove is impossible because the groove was multifaceted. I just wanted to talk about my perspective on what their groove WAS--the idea being that maybe you would agree or disagree and somehow I could understand what it is, specifically, that you don't like about it.

And I'm kind of insulted, actually, in being called a muso because I talked about the guitar tone on the Mitch Easter/Don Dixon-produced records. Obviously, the sound of instruments matters and is part of the appeal of musics.

I'm only explaining my feelings. I've accepted that it's fine for others to like REM. To me, REM fans = Jehovah's Witnesses: Believe what you will, just don't try to convert me.

http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/0916291456_m.gif

Bad Day was great, but it was written, like, 18 years ago. The problem these days I think is that they're either trying desperately not to sound like REM or trotting out big Xerox 'REM singles' like Daysleeper or Imitiation of Life.

Life's Rich Pageant was their best record. Apparently I am the only person in the world that thinks this.

Also, Stipe's lyrics are boring. "They mean what you want 'em to mean!" to me = "they are so badly written that you can pretty much make what you like of 'em."

You mean, like, the Bible, the Constitution or *any* quasi-religious text?

Stipe made myth out of his own imagination and successfully cultivated an obsessive, small group of devotees that kept the band fed and sheltered until Document and Green gave them control over the whole of Athens. Until any of us griping morons can achieve this ourselves, our critiques will fall on deaf ears.

The whole "mumbling" thing masked what were often some of the most searing and effective lyrics in pop music at the time (speaking of which; did "power pop" even exist prior to REM?). I and other friends spent countless dreary college evenings drenched in hallucinogens and gin trying to unravel the lyrics to the whole of Life's Rich Pageant -- a chore that rarely went unrewarded (YES, the drugs made it more fun, but still). Fables of the Reconstruction can kick around just about any singer/songwriter filth you can shake down. Document and Green generated "It's the End of the World as We Know It", "The One I Love", "King of Birds", "You are the Everything", "Hairshirt", and "I Remember California"...fantastic songs all. From then on they rarely generated more than three quality songs/album, but when they hit they really hit right. I suspect I won't give them another chance for a decade or so, but they've done enough for me; not a negative peep will pass these lips concerning the latest work by the boys from GA.

("I'm a negative peep; I'm a negative peep; I'm a negative peep and I'm stoooooooooned.")

And though it's unrelated to the rest of this rant, Monster is utterly useless. Anyone who argues otherwise is patently cracked.

speaking of which; did "power pop" even exist prior to REM

Yes. Yes, it did, for several years. Also: Fables of the Reconstruction can kick around just about any singer/songwriter filth you can shake down. This is a gross overstatement - the day Stipe is capable of, say, "Paris 1919," "Tupelo" from The First Born Is Dead, "The Story of Isaac," "Pancho & Lefty," "Pleasures of the Harbor," "Raised on Robbery" or that song off Hejira about the freeway, Sarah Dougher's "No-Handed," Kristin Hersh's "A Better Light" - off the top of my head, some singer-songwriter stuff that Stipe & co. emphatically did not equal with Fables.

The notion that Bibles, Constitutions etc. are as open to any interpretation as stuff you can't actually hear is "interesting" as they used to say when they meant "ridiculous."

"Feeling Gravity's Pull", "Driver 8", and "Green Grow the Rushes" can wrestle those bastards to the ground. "Kohoutek" is a little spotty, but I'm not sure we can deny lines like "Fever built a bridge, reason tore it down" their due. "Auctioneer" is overlooked and excellent. I'll admit, Pancho & Lefty are pretty tough, but Wendell Gee is an ornery old coot, and wacky to boot. He'll go asylum on your ass in a second.

He had a dream one night
That the tree had lost its middle
So he built a trunk of chicken wire
To try to hold it up
But the wire the wire turned to lizard skin
And then he climbed inside

[sniffle]

And nobody actually *reads* their Bibles or Constitutions anyway, so I still think mumbled, neglected, and misunderstood lyrics are a fair comparison -- though I'll concede the scale here is a little skewed.

stence I'm trying to make the connection there but: 1. say "Pearl Jam" in a room full of People Like Us and you'll get a whole buncha groans and then the one or two contrarians (I'm one of 'em) saying "actually a kinda good singles band" 2. say "R.E.M." in the same room and everybody gets misty for the Seven Chinese Brothers, or Five, or however many it was

go ahead. get mean and specific. i'm genuinely wondering what kind of music fan you mean. i was an rem fan who didn't like monster 'cause it sounded to me like their songwriting had grown suddenly stale, and the big glammy sound they had suddenly adopted didn't do much to cover up that huge shortcoming. if they have made a GOOD big glammy album that would've been quite fine with me.

2. One of the first-ever arguments I had with Hstencil was at a party (this was before ILX) in which I talked about how even though Pearl Jam kinda sucks, if you hear "Black" or "Even Flow" on the radio, you still want to sing along, and maybe they did write good melodies, or maybe it's just early 90s nostalgia, but it's still nice. And Hstencil looked at me and said, "Are you fucking kidding? No, it's not."

I think part of the appeal of Monster is how affected it is, and how a lot of the record is about affectation. The key song is "Crush With Eyeliner" in this respect. It's not glam, it's fake glam. They sound like they were having a lot of fun screwing around with their identity - it's kinda like their Achtung Baby. I like that Monster isn't earnest, and that it's mostly a bunch of songs about stalkers and weirdos. I like that it is by far the most sexual and flirtacious REM record.

Yeah, that and "The Outsiders."

That gets so irritating. that's why me and Oystein planned it out that we would purposefully work hard to make it into the recording business just so we could release a 2nd cd, and then tell everybody in all the interviews:

"yea, this album is kind of contrived and we definitely didn't hit the mark like last time."

My other idea is to be a recording artist and release a debut album, and every subsequent album would have the same title and artwork as the debut album, and also the same song titles, but the songs would all be new songs...and there would be no date information on the cd, so people would never know which one they were buying

Boy, if ever a comparison was designed to NOT get me to relisten to something...

And the title should always be Greatest Hits Vol. I

"Play 'Swift as the Tiger'!"

"Which one?"