Best R.E.M. Album

Reckoning.

fables

fables is the one i reach for 60% of the time these days, but it's gotta be Murmur

Surprised Automatic didn't poll higher.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi

Gonna answer this question soon.

Tier 1: Chronic Town, Murmur, Green
Tier 2: Reckoning, Document, AFTP, Monster
Tier 3: Fables, LRP, Out of Time
Tier 4: NAIHF, Up
Tier 5: Everything else

(not counted: Eponymous, Dead Letter Office)

*Albums listed chronologically within each tier

New Adventures in Hi-Fi for me as well. I'm especially keen on the run from Green to Hi-Fi, but I do really enjoy all of them except for Around The Sun.
And I often play Up because I adore its final track, Falls To Climb.

I'd rank 'em like this at the moment:

1. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
2. Automatic for the People
3. Reckoning
4. Accelerate
5. Document
6. Green
7. Murmur
8. Collapse into Now
9. Chronic Town
10. Lifes Rich Pageant
11. Fables of the Reconstruction
12. Monster
13. Reveal
14. Up
15. Out of Time
16. Around the Sun

Reckoning
Chronic Town
Murmur
Green
Out of Time
LRP
Fables
Automatic
New Adventures
Document

Haven’t heard anything after New Adventures.

Automatic for the People
Reckoning
Murmur
Chronic Town
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Fables of the Reconstruction
Life's Rich Pageant
Monster
Green
Document
Out of Time
Up
Reveal
Collapse into Now
Accelerate
Around the Sun

Tier 1: Chronic Town, Murmur, Green
Tier 2: Reckoning, Document, AFTP, Monster
Tier 3: Fables, LRP, Out of Time
Tier 4: NAIHF, Up
Tier 5: Everything else

(not counted: Eponymous, Dead Letter Office)

*Albums listed chronologically within each tier

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp)

i like this tier system, so i'll follow suit:

Tier 1: LRP, Murmur
Tier 2: AFTP, Chronic Town, Reckoning
Tier 3: Document, Fables, NAIHF, Out of Time
Tier 4: Green, Reveal, Up
Tier 5: ...
Tier 6: Accelerate, Around the Sun, Collapse into Now (caveat: only listened to these albums 2 times, at most)

Tier 1: Murmur, LRP, Document
Tier 2: Green, Out of Time, Fables, New Adventures, Reckoning, Chronic Town
Tier 3: Monster, Automatic
Tier 4: everything else

Tier 1: Out of Time, Monster, Reckoning
Tier 2: Automatic, Murmur, Green, Document
Tier 3: Chronic Town, Fables, LRP
Tier 4: Up
Tier 5: Reveal, New Adventures
Tier 6: the rest

That Bright, Tight Forever Drum: AFTP, Document, Murmur
Becomes Your Special Book: Reckoning, Green, NAIHF
Scissors, Paper, Stone: LRP, Fables, Out of Time, Up
Kiss Breath Turpentine: Dead Letter Office, Monster, Collapse Into Now
You're Only As Big As Your Battles: Accelerate
Tier 6: Around the Sun, Reveal. I can't even bother to look up a relevant lyric for these albums.

1: MURMUR FABLES
2: AFTP
3: RECKONING GREEN
4: LRP
5: OOT DOCUMENT NAIHF

(caveat: only listened to these albums 2 times, at most)

This is primarily the reason it doesn't bother me too much when I see people ranking Accelerate low. I would say most casual and/or lapsed R.E.M. fans haven't spent much time with the last two albums.

Murmur/Reckoning
Lifes Rich Pageant
Automatic for the People
Out of Time
Collapse Into Now
Fables of the Reconstruction
Document
Around the Sun
Green
Chronic Town
Accelerate
Monster
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Up
Reveal

ooh I'll play

1. Automatic for the People
2. Green
3. Reckoning
4. Fables of the Reconstruction
5. Out of Time
6. Murmur
7. Up
8. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
9. Document
10. Lifes Rich Pageant
11. Around the Sun
12. Collapse Into Now
13. Monster
14. Accelerate
15. Reveal

murmur #6!! but kudos for the accurate assessment of LRP and NA

Fables, it sticks to (my) 3 killer opening tracks rule with Feeling Gravity's Pull (surely one of the greatest things they ever did), Maps and Legends and Driver 8. Southern Gothic heaven

Ha. And here I thought my affection for Around the Sun was my most controversial R.E.M. opinion ;) xpost

+ life and how to live it! They’ve done that sequence live a few times I think. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve listened to the rest of the album though. Auctioneer always sounded great live too.

xpost

We need a side projects / “anything an R.E.M. member appears on” poll to catch stuff like Hindu Love Gods, “Kid Fears,” “To Sir With Love” (feat. unfortunate camera cutaway during Nat & Stipe dance), etc.

Feeling Gravity's Pull is really great.

xpost I like this idea. The possibilities! "Darkening of the Light," "Trout," "Almond Kisses" (by ILM faves Spacehog).

We need a side projects / “anything an R.E.M. member appears on” poll to catch stuff like Hindu Love Gods, “Kid Fears,” “To Sir With Love” (feat. unfortunate camera cutaway during Nat & Stipe dance), etc.

pete's solo albums haven't been bad at all

"your ghost" is amazing

I re-listened to Collapse into Now not too long back, and think there's some great stuff on it - 'All the Best', 'It Happened Today', 'Uberlin', 'Oh My Heart', 'Discoverer' and 'Blue' is such an amazing way to end the record.

And why even stop there? "Every Day Is Yours to Win," "Mine Smell Like Honey," "Alligator-Aviator-Autopilot-Antimatter," "Walk It Back"

speaking of side projects, Alive and Living Now is amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfOy5miUf4

Here ya go.

Yeah I guess I should expand my last tier to say I rate Accelerate and Collapse into Now above everything else post-New Adventures

Sometimes I think that REM changed the trajectory, outlook of my entire life and then I realize they did the same for a lot of people.

Alfred. Dude. WTF does “90210” have to do with the greatness of Green?

Dylan McKay!

They did for me, for sure. I think they really emphasized for me at a pretty young age that the best path was that of honesty and openness and intellectual curiosity.

xp

dammit Soto's right, Out of Time rules. (as an *album* tho)

Also, it’s “Shiny Happy People” that was actually on Sesame Street (if that’s somehow an important metric):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXVvvRBBUn8

They did for me, for sure. I think they really emphasized for me at a pretty young age that the best path was that of honesty and openness and intellectual curiosity.

xp

― timellison,

otm

This is very difficult but I'm sure of my number one

Up
New Adventures In Hifi
Murmur
Automatic For The People
Out Of Time
Reckoning
Monster
Lifes Rich Pageant
Fables Of The Reconstruction
Green
Reveal
Document
Around The Sun
Collapse Into Now
Accelerate

If we're counting Chronic Town, it's somewhere in the top 9

Lifes Rich Pageant
Automatic For The People
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Out of Time
Murmur
Reveal
Green
Document
Reckoning
Fables of the Reconstruction
Monster

Collapse Into Now
Accelerate
Around the Sun

This is a tough one for me, could see some of these swapped

Murmur
Life's Rich Pageant
Automatic For The People
Fables of the Reconstruction
Document
Monster
Green
Reckoning
Up
Out of Time
New Adventures in Hi-Fi

Haven't ever bothered hearing any of the ones after Up

Murmur
Life's Rich Pageant
Reckoning
Automatic For The People
Out Of Time
New Adventures In Hi-Fi
Monster
Fables Of The Reconstruction
Green
Document
Up
Reveal
Collapse Into Now
Accelerate
Around The Sun

I left Chronic Town out by accident, but all of the Mitch Easter produced records are Tier 1 or 2 for me.

Eh this band is super overrated

Lifes Rich Pageant
Chronic Town
Reckoning
Murmur
Green
Automatic for the People
Dead Letter Office
Fables of the Reconstruction
Out of Time
Monster
Document
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Up

I know New Adventures is widely beloved and it's probably better than I'm ranking it, but I had kind of lost interest by then and just never really listened to it much. I don't know if Dead Letter Office exactly counts, but I like it a lot.

Outside of a couple songs, I've never understood the appeal of New Adventures. It sounds like a collection of half-hearted outtakes to me.

it's their physical graffiti and "leave" is their "kashmir"

no

Moodles otm. It's the first REM album where I can look at the track listing and not bring a single note to mind for several songs (New Test Leper, Undertow, Departure...). The band were in good songwriting form, but yeah half the songs feel like sketches/outtakes (however inspired). Wasn't half the album live/no overdubs?

Murmur
Lifes Rich Pageant
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Automatic for the People
Out of Time
Green
Reckoning
Document
Fables of the Reconstruction
Monster
Up
Reveal
Accelerate
Collapse Into Now
Around the Sun

Dividing into tiers would be difficult but I can say that those top four are all among my favourite records of all time and it's only the bottom three I don't really have any time for.

I suppose I'm a broken record on New Adventures on here, but yes, I don't enjoy the album much at all. I'm down with the following severe cut of the album:

New Test Leper
Undertow
Leave
Be Mine
Binky the Doormat
Electrolite

The rest I'd be happy never hearing again.

I’d be down w/ the following “severe cut”:

Ebow the Letter

do not want

It’s interesting that even among a bunch of R.E.M. fans, there’s such divergence of opinion on favorite albums/songs/etc. Is that true of other bands with large discographies? Seems like most can agree on the best Beach Boys albums, etc.

agreed on NAIHF being overly long. My proposed cuts. howl away 'Binky The Doormat' partisans.

How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us
E-Bow the Letter
Undertow
New Test Leper

Departure
Bittersweet Me
Electrolite
Low Desert
Be Mine

(I’m actually glad to learn that some ppl hold “NAIHF” in high regard — to me, JJ was (and still is) such a clear sign of artistic decline; a band repeating itself for the first time, a stopgap, even the title and cover art were lame, etc.... but it’s cool as an R.E.M. fan to know that others find value where I don’t.)

[“JJ” = weird autocorrect for “it”]

When the “Bittersweet Me” video was in MTV rotation, I remember recalling Buck’s quote from the OOT era —

"I can write that kind of stuff in my sleep [...] I can write 'Driver 8' every day of the week. We all can. In rehearsal it's always easy to fall back on a midtempo, minor-key rock thing. And we try not to rely on that."

— and thinking... uh, dude?

New Adventures was the only R.E.M. album where I almost didn't buy it. I remember standing there at a CD listening station not feeling it and then realizing there were a lot of things I liked about it.

dang, that's a good quote hitting on what rubs me wrong about the New Adventures era

I heard "Everybody Hurts" on a regional bus in the south of France last week, alongside Elton John's "Sacrifice" and Daft Punk's "Get Lucky", and awed at what this band, who I've called my favorite since 1987, had pulled off: a universal hit.

which is to say, I don't know that there's a single class of REM fans, and so disagreement is expected.

a stopgap, even the title and cover art were lame, etc....

The cover art is kind of anonymous but I really like it. Think I'd probably pick Fables for their worst cover up to that point.

A lot was made at the time about R.E.M. writing and recording New Adventures in Hi-Fi on the road, but the thing is that a lot of the IRS material was written on the road too. I don't think the album is overlong at all and I agree with the band themselves when they say it's their best album. Yes, there were overdubs on the record... some of the tracks were recorded in a "proper" studio (Bad Animals in Seattle, iirc) ... it's not difficult at all for me to look at the tracklisting and remember how all the tracks go (just looking at the words 'So Fast, So Numb' make me wanna hear it) ...

it's their physical graffiti and "leave" is their "kashmir"

― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, August 25, 2018 3:02 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM.

Also, Lifes Rich Pageant has gone from being underrated to wildly overrated at this point. There's quite a bit of obvious filler on it - 'Underneath the Bunker', 'What If We Give It Away', the Reckoning reject 'Just a Touch', 'Swan Swan H' ...

Just a Touch is fun as hell though.

Robert - pleased to see you rep for "Up". For me, that's far and away their most *interesting* album and the only Warner era lp I care about. It's like a completely different band. Why do you rate it so highly?

agreed on NAIHF being overly long. My proposed cuts. howl away 'Binky The Doormat' partisans.

How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us
E-Bow the Letter
Undertow
New Test Leper

Departure
Bittersweet Me
Electrolite
Low Desert
Be Mine

― campreverb, Saturday, August 25, 2018 4:04 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This tracklisting lacks 'The Wake Up Bomb', 'Leave' and 'So Fast, So Numb' which are, like, three of the best songs on the album. Also, if you don't think 'Electrolite' is the perfect closer for this album, then I dunno what to say.

How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us
the Wake-up Bomb
New Test Leper
Undertow
E-bow the Letter
Leave
Departure
Bittersweet Me
So Fast, So Numb
Electrolite

Here's ten songs, 48 min. With a little resequencing that's one of their best rock records. Maybe swap "Be Mine" for "Bittersweet Me" if so inclined but

Here's which songs I would cut...

...

...

(Precisely - none of them, since it's their best album)

And why even stop there? "Every Day Is Yours to Win," "Mine Smell Like Honey," "Alligator-Aviator-Autopilot-Antimatter," "Walk It Back"

― timellison, Saturday, August 25, 2018 12:27 AM (eighteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not much of a fan of 'Every Day is Yours to Win' or 'Walk It Back' but YES to the other two! 'Mine Smell Like Honey' has an awful title, but it has such an uplifting chorus that is just classic R.E.M. ... 'Alligator-Aviator-Autopilot-Antimatter' has a pretty neat riff, too.

Those last two R.E.M. albums truly are ripe for rediscovery.

Robert - pleased to see you rep for "Up". For me, that's far and away their most *interesting* album and the only Warner era lp I care about. It's like a completely different band. Why do you rate it so highly?

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, August 25, 2018 7:14 PM

It has a really thick brooding atmosphere, almost oppressive sometimes and some of their most lovely moments. "Suspicion" is unbelievably underrated. I've heard this album has a really passionate following but I don't see it often as I would like. A little sad that it doesn't have many ilx superfans. More often I hear people dismiss it as some sort of hackwork, which is ridiculous because it's a fairly intense, obsessive set of songs.

I think someone here said that it had as much mysteriousness of Murmur but in a completely different style. I kind of like that idea but I think it's so up front about what the songs are about that it cant be as mysterious as Murmur.

It's one of my favorite albums ever. Maybe it hasn't had enough of a fair hearing. I dunno.

I've never forgotten Stipe grooving in a sarong to the then-unreleased songs at the Tibetan Freedom Concert. I distinctly remember "Airportman."

Oh god, I'd forgotten about the late '90s "sarong era" or the phase of wearing the blue stripe circa Around the Sun, but it's always nice to be reminded.

I was a big fan of Up back when it came out, but unlike New Adventures in Hi-Fi (which has a broader range of tempos) it really suffers from being too long. There's a decent 40 minute record there, though. There's a slickness and a "laboured over" feel to this record that would become perhaps more extreme on Reveal and Around the Sun... without Berry in the band - who, along with Buck, allegedly liked to work quite fast - the recordings reflected more of Mills/Stipes preferred method of working at the time, which was to be meticulous and labour and take time over the details.

Without looking at the tracklisting, I still really like 'At My Most Beautiful' and 'Walk Unafraid', along with 'Lotus', 'Suspicion' and 'Hope' ... 'Sad Professor' has its fans, but I always thought it was crap.

The mishmash of Lifes Rich Pageant is part of its appeal for me, the really early songs that they did, the fact that they finally got "Hyena" on a record (and sounding fantastic), "Swan Swan H," "Superman," "Underneath the Bunker" (which is good in the way that a lot of their early B-sides are good), all of it. They were riding high.

'Hyena' is brilliant and I'm glad they held off recording it until that moment - I couldn't (and don't want to) imagine it with the production values of Reckoning (as much as I love that record) or Fables of the Reconstruction.

Certainly remember them playing it earlier on. Don't think I ever saw them play "Romance."

Also, Lifes Rich Pageant has gone from being underrated to wildly overrated at this point.

completely agree on this point. There were a couple of clear turning points through NAIHF where they were clearly just trying to hold it together.
which brings up...

This tracklisting lacks 'The Wake Up Bomb', 'Leave' and 'So Fast, So Numb' which are, like, three of the best songs on the album.

I really don't care for the Monster rehashes ('Wake Up Bomb', 'So Fast, So Numb', 'Revolution' for that matter). You're probably right on 'Leave', but man, 7 minutes and the siren. Ugh.

I've never forgotten Stipe grooving in a sarong to the then-unreleased songs at the Tibetan Freedom Concert

Several Species Of Stipe Gathered On A Stage And Grooving In A Sarong

the more I think about it, LRP is kind of a New Jersey

If a New Jersey is a “huge but somehow empty-feeling album that signals the beginning of a band’s commercial and artistic decline” (or whatever), then NAIHF is indisputably their New Jersey.

I love Monster but it is definitely their New Jersey

^^haha, this is true and I knew someone would call me on it

Agree!

It’s interesting in retrospect how huge the singles from Monster were (much like New Jersey, I guess):

https://www.billboard.com/music/rem

(...and how low “Pop Song ‘89” charted! Lower than “Supernatural Superserious,” damn!)

Putting aside the fact that they never stopped being huge all over Europe, then Monster in strictly a commercial sense - absolutely not in an artistic sense.

I don’t think Monster’s a New Jersey because it doesn’t rehash the previous hits.

Critic Robert Palmer noted that Stipe's lyrics dealt with issues of identity ("The concept of reality itself is being called into question: Is this my life or an incredible virtual simulation?"), and the singer occasionally "begins to sound not unlike the proverbial rock star, whining about all those fans who just won't let him alone."

(I mean, “issues of identity,” yes — but “The Matrix” thing?)

The thing I don’t get about the General New Jersey analogy (for any band), at least as pertains to artistry, is that my understanding is that later Bon Jovi LPs are considered to be artistic successes (even if the band was never as commercially successful again). But I’m not a BJ fan, so I dunno...

Crush was Bon Jovi's New Jersey in the UK. Keep the Faith and These Days were huge records that spawned a lot of hits. Crush had 'It's My Life', which was massive, but there was this sense they were just clinging on.

Went on a big west coast road trip recently, and as I was driving I got this bit of a song stuck in my head. I couldn't place it for a couple of days, then suddenly realized it was from "New Adventures," which for no good reason other than the try-too-hard vibe of "Monster" I never really listened to much but is so full of surprises and (natch) great for a road trip. Of course, my (often righter than me) wife is a big fan of that album, so it made for some good listening.

"Up" is too long, but features some of their loveliest songs and melodies. And I think as discussed/debated here, would have been a great final album, right down to the final track. Then they could have stuck the best of "Reveal" and "Around the Sun" on some compilation of unreleased stuff, broken up for 15 years, and returned with "Accelerate" and "Collapse into Now," which sound to me like a band that indeed had broken up for 15 years and reunited and surprised people by still being solid (a la, I dunno, the Afghan Whigs or something).

One of my core R.E.M. memories is a couple passionately making out during “Strange Currencies,” a few rows in front of me at the Monster stadium tour. (Don’t know where to file that, so I’ll mention it here.)

Reckoning
Murmur
Chronic Town
Other stuff

Green was a New Jersey but they pulled themselves out of the slump

The slump of three huge commercial & critical successes in a row?

If “Keep the Faith” and “Cross Road” had been “Out of Time” and “AFTP,” BJ would be in the an(n)als of rock history

Green was no New Jersey, it was the Big Major Label Bow..

Reckoning
Murmur
Chronic Town
Other stuff

I'm curious what you felt went wrong after 1984.

1985 - Stipe got chubs
1986 - that forehead, tho
1987 - don’t get the “LB” initials thing
1988 - “Get a Life” TV theme = no sale
(...)

Someone I knew thought the painting on the back of LRP was horrible and I remember I was like dude that was painted with mud.

lol

I haven’t listened to “Up” in what has to be a decade but the last time I did I remember thinking they pre-Kid A’d Radiohead to less success.

which is ironic, because i'm pretty sure i remember reading that up was heavily influenced by OK Computer

on a side note, the central piece of advice in "why not smile?" is so fucking annoying

What's ironic is reading on Wiki that the creative birth of New Adventures was actually inspired by The Bends.

on a side note, the central piece of advice in "why not smile?" is so fucking annoying

― Karl Malone, Monday, August 27, 2018

Not to worry. "Include Michael Stipe Guitar Solo" is a way to quash that advice.

I never used to mind 'Why Not Smile', but nowadays I don't think much of it as a song and I find the vocal melody incredibly bland these days. The production is great, though.

I haven’t listened to “Up” in what has to be a decade but the last time I did I remember thinking they pre-Kid A’d Radiohead to less success.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Monday, August 27, 2018 5:47 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nigel Godrich worked on Up, iirc.

Radiohead absolutely crushed REM on that Monster / Bends Tour. Sure, Stipe was carried off stage due to exhaustion or whatever in the show I saw, but there's no way they could hang with Radiohead on that tour.

Agree that "Why Not Smile" has dumb insipid lyric and bland vocal melody but nice production (def shades of Holiday-era Magnetic Fields)

I'm listening now to the much-ignored Around the Sun (right after listening to Up) -- and I actually think AtS may be the stronger album (...but don't take that as high praise).

The music's fairly plodding on this LP, but there are some good vocal melodies.

Despite answering this question probably annually, I don't think I've ever stuck to the same order.

Automatic
Document
Monster
Murmur
New Adventures
Green
Fables
LRP
Up
Reveal
Out of Time
Around the Sun
Collapse
Accelerate

In more detail: I was in high school when Automatic came out and it just hit me. It will always be my favorite. Although I knew the singles from the MTV era, I truly got into REM in the OOT/Automatic/Monster era, and then went back to the IRS material, so that early stuff has never held the power for me that it does for others.

I think Monster is the most underrated of all REM albums. To me it's very unlike their other records but it hangs together on its own terms very well. Meanwhile Out of Time is the most overrated - it's their most inconsistent (high highs, low lows).

The last three albums all have things to recommend about them but it's true they're not as inspired as the earlier albums.

All that said, REM are probably my favorite band of all time, and I listen to all their records with regularity, including the late-period ones. There is maybe one track that I've totally excised from my consciousness (that Q-Tip song from AtS - whereas I have a soft spot for "Radio Song"!), but I've got time for everything else.

Life's Rich Pageant
Out of Time
Fables
Green
Up
AftP
Document
Hi-Fi
Murmur
Monster

…

Everything else in no particular order

Man, "I Wanted to Be Wrong" is such an eloquent reaction to the George W. Bush years. I can't even imagine an R.E.M. response to Trump.

pgwp, you didn't even include Reckoning! Also curious what your low points on OOT are, other than Radio Song.

did i do this already? anyway

new adventures in hi-fi
monster
murmur
up
reckoning
automatic for the people
green
document
life's rich pageant
fables of the reconstruction
out of time
accelerate
reveal
around the sun
collapse into now

i have a weird and long relationship with this band, almost every record has been my favorite rem record

hi Brad

I agree that New Adventures is the best but after that I don't have strong opinions as to order really (other than that i haven't bothered with the post Up albums).

I'm a bit sad to see so many people placing the last two albums so low, I think they're both really good. Of course, they pretty much all are, I couldn't begin to rank 'em. Haven't heard Chronic Town though, I think I need to get myself a copy of Dead Letter Office.

Lately I've listened a lot to the excellent Arthur Buck album, which is Peter Buck & my fave singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur. There's a great interview here: https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/arthur-buck-peter-buck-and-joseph-arthur-talk-new-duo-album-and-tour, I particularly like this bit:

“Joe’s obviously a great singer and a really great lyricist,” Buck says. “And while I really appreciate it, sometimes he’ll write a song that has 13 verses and one chorus. Whereas I’m a little more of a formalist—I learned to write songs by listening to the Beatles and looking through a Burt Bacharach songbook. So it’s my kind of formalist instincts balanced with his sort of, ‘just go as it goes…’.”

Aside from 'Leaving New York' and 'Electron Blue', which I really like, I can pretty much leave the rest of Around the Sun. I prefer 'Animal' and 'Bad Day' ... 'The Great Beyond' too, although that was between Up and Reveal.

Yeah, when I wrote "they pretty much all are [really good]" earlier, I actually meant all except for Around The Sun.

You could make a pretty solid CD collecting all the best REM from Up onward. But on the whole, those records just make you realize the importance of Bill Berry. They were never the same without him.

Of course they weren't - but also the first three post-Berry albums were three of their slickest productions, particularly Reveal which was Pro Tooled up to the hilt. The R.E.M. of the early '80s would have been embarrassed to make a record with a production as modern as that.

(I don't miss Berry so much on Accelerate or Collapse into Now)

Up isn't especially slick actually, certainly not compared to, say, Out Of Time. There's a real warmth to the way they handle the synths that's absent from Reveal.

They were never the same from album to album, though. If we're talking about something missing, I could maybe say something was missing as early as Green - the sense of who they were as a band, maybe? Certainly, by the early '90s, they were something entirely different. I could say that something was missing with Monster and New Adventures, too.

And I get that it becomes more acute with Up and Reveal, but I can't just pinpoint it as the missing ingredient being Bill Berry. By the time of the last few records, we're talking about old history and it's really a matter of how you feel about them as a five-piece with McCaughey and Rieflin.

And that five-piece, to me, was a pretty freaking great band.

They do feel to me like a very different band at the end, even though it’s three of the same core guys.

But the same is true for other bands that hang around a long time and put out a ton of albums, I guess.

berry-less R.E.M. is on par with Boris-less Cure. I haven't heard the last 4-5 R.E.M. albums but will occasionally watch some post-Berry concert stuff and the drumming will sound awful to me. Even if the drummer is "good" or whatever it doesn't sound like R.E.M.

I think Berry had a level of melodic input that most drummers don't and that's really noticeable after he left, although Stipe had started barking one-note lines one syllable at a time as early as 1994 or so.

TBH I think Murmur through Automatic is really one largely unbroken run of greatness with twin masterpieces bookending it. Monster through to Up is patchier but regularly excellent, even if they don't feel important in the same way at that stage. Post 2001 is a long slow process of running out of steam with the occasional livening moment (some of Accelerate).

New Adventures does stand out as the platonic ideal of a certain kind of mid-90s stadium-friendly rock record mind, even if a lot of it was never played live very much.

We've discussed it a bit but it's worth delving in again to all the things Berry contributed, not just drums, but guitar, piano, singing, songs, etc., and he was a vital editor/arranger/bs detector in the studio. In fact, I'm not sure, a la an act like the VU, that there is even a clear official guide to Who Did What on each album, is there?

Or New Order, there's another one with a vague/mysterious division of labor.

This is the band I'm talking about. Glad I got to see them a couple of times. (Wish they would have shown McCaughey more in these videos.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dL2t-YBAew

Up isn't especially slick actually, certainly not compared to, say, Out Of Time.

Ooh, I would most definitely disagree there - Out of Time is hardly a "raw" record, but it's much less pored over.

“Everybody Hurts” was largely Bill (IIRC)
xp

He wrote most of it, for sure. But back even on Murmur he was contributing more than drums.

Didn't he mostly write "Driver 8" too? Not sure where I read that/why I thought that.

Official credit on Murmur is Bill Berry – drums, backing vocals, percussion, bass guitar, piano.

I agree with Tim that the five piece R.E.M. were a great band, but I also agree that it was never the same after Bill left. How could it have possibly been? Not only was he a drummer, but he was also the one that came up with the initial musical ideas for 'Man on the Moon', 'Everybody Hurts', 'Perfect Circle', 'Leave', as well as playing bass on stuff like 'Star Me Kitten' amongst others.

iirc from either the liner notes on in time or an interview on one of their music video collections, bill is the inspiration for the beach boys-ish harmonies they used on "at my most beautiful." so he affected the band even in his absence

Skimming through the credits of future albums, looks like he's usually reduced to "drums, backing vocals," but with the occasional contribution on bass and keyboards.

bill also, at the time it came out, thought up was the best rem album fwiw

Bill plays bass on a lot of the mandolin-led tracks on Green, and 'Half the World Away' too...

"Pored over" isn't really the same as "slick", is it? Out Of Time is the shiniest most polished record they put out and I bet a shit-ton of work went into it but Radio Song aside it sounds very natural to them. Some of the later albums feel overworked but also kind of scrappy in sound quality terms. Obviously Berry was the big miss in general later on, but Scott Litt was also a big loss to the band as well.

And the loss of Downs (who left under mysterious circumstances, didn't he?).

Or am I thinking of Jefferson Holt?

It was Jefferson Holt. Downs was with them until the breakup.

Often the loss of a member will forever affect chemistry even if h/she didn't contribute to songwriting.

Out Of Time is the shiniest most polished record they put out

Oh god, no way. Document and Green are more polished, let alone Up or Reveal. Up sounds like they really zoned in on getting every last sound EQ'd and recorded to perfection, everything sounds really pristine and digital.

i'm sorry but no way are document and green more polished than out of time

my favorite band from about age 15 to 20. sentiment dictates a lot of the placement here, I'm sure Pageant is better than I'm giving it credit for:

Murmur
Chronic Town
AFTP
Monster
New Adventures
Fables
Reckoning
Up
Out of Time
Reveal
Green
LRP
Document
Around the Sun

haven't listened to Accelerate and Collapse enough to have an opinion

Always really moved by this Beat Happening type tune on the last album. Jim McKay did this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKJoX5YXs98

i'm sorry but no way are document and green more polished than out of time

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 3:24 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Of course they are. Document undoubtedly is!

???????????????

Document has a very specific sort of late-80s production sheen that the others lack, but nothing on it is as slickly-produced as Radio Song or Shiny Happy People or Near Wild Heaven.

Often the loss of a member will forever affect chemistry even if h/she didn't contribute to songwriting.

― The Silky Veils of Alfred (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 3:22 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree - in R.E.M.'s case they lost someone who preferred to get things done quickly, a working method that he shared with Peter Buck. Once he left, Stipe and Mills became more dominant.

While the arrangements on Out of Time are more thought-through, the overall sound of 'Finest Worksong' along is slicker than any of those tracks.

*alone

How so? Bigger drums with reverb, but apart from that...

yeah the drums may be huge but "worksong" is throwing off sparks in a way that basically nothing is on out of time, the rawest performance on which is... "country feedback"

I'm finishing a listen to Accelerate and I am weary. There's a steady guitar roar throughout the album that tires me out. There are interesting songs here and there but they are hard for me to hear. The production is unsympathetic to Stipe's latter day bleat, because it gets mixed up in that roar and so I have to work harder to try to understand what he has to do.

I actually always thought of Document as being that they pulled back a little bit on the commercial production after Don Gehman/LRP.

Euler, I kinda agree. I think the same production crew got better results on Collapse Into Now.

We've discussed it a bit but it's worth delving in again to all the things Berry contributed, not just drums, but guitar, piano, singing, songs, etc., and he was a vital editor/arranger/bs detector in the studio. In fact, I'm not sure, a la an act like the VU, that there is even a clear official guide to Who Did What on each album, is there?

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 3:08 PM (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Out of Time and New Adventures in Hi-Fi have clear credits on who performed what and on which song, but there was a lot of instrument swapping going on on Green (Buck plays drums on the untitled track) and Automatic for the People ... on Monster, Berry wrote the music to 'I Took Your Name' and 'Strange Currencies' at least - Buck plays the organ on 'Let Me In' (Mills is on guitar) ...

What I'd be most interested in is a Song by Song book where they talk about the inspirations/writing/recording of each track and talk about their working methods etc. I'm not sure they'd ever want to demystify things to that level, though.

Also Fireplace, Lightnin' Hopkins, Oddfellow, King of Birds, the strained notes on Heron House and Strange. The album has a sort of monolithic polished granite feel but it's full of chips and scratches as well.

Accelerate has some great songs but Jacknife Lee is a terrible producer and everything is just served up as this big slab of sound, there's no space in the sound at all.

How so? Bigger drums with reverb, but apart from that...

― timellison, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 4:03 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Listen to the way everything is EQ'd, layered and tidied up in the mix.

Jacknife Lee certainly has a lot of varied credits. You really think he's terrible on the whole? He's produced One Direction, he's produced Taylor Swift...

Document is fairly tidied, yeah, no argument. But I think it's quieter than Lifes Rich Pageant and more mono-chromatic than Out of Time.

i said this on the bloc party thread but jacknife lee's production on the most recent silversun pickups record is really stellar

The mastering on Accelerate is stupendously loud. Not long after the album came out I had it in a 5CD changer, and 'Living Well Is The Best Revenge' came on three times louder than everything else. I had to rush to the stereo to turn the volume down. Despite this, it's a great record IMO.

xxxp
That’s a great diagnosis of Accelerate, Euler... I listened to it y’day afternoon (after Around the Sun), and my ears are still tired.

Document is fairly tidied, yeah, no argument. But I think it's quieter than Lifes Rich Pageant and more mono-chromatic than Out of Time.

― timellison, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 4:14 PM (forty-eight seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Out of Time is that way because of the band's way of arranging their material at the time - having strings and harpsichords on your record doesn't automatically make it a slick production!

last extremely ot post about jacknife lee but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol4Dko3rw28

this is a really lovely song with a lot of space in its sound imo; of course... it's very compressed and also kinda mastered without any nuance whatsoever. whoever masters lee's records sucks

having strings and harpsichords on your record doesn't automatically make it a slick production!

Of course, but I don't know what does make Document slick to your ears. You mentioned eq-ing, layering, tidying, all things that seem entirely applicable to Out of Time.

A rare instance where I kind of agree with Turrican. Document and Green are made to be big, more the former than the latter but certainly both. Out of Time has some big-ish productions, but it also has stuff like Country Feedback and Low, which are almost demo-like (albeit slick, major label demo-like!). Automatic for the People is pretty slick, though.

Scott Litt, who'd begun as an engineer, was the Bob Clearmountain of Amer-indie: he can make any song no matter how grotty sound like a million bucks. Doesn't meant the production cost a million bucks.

I think "slick" isn't a clearly defined term; so both sides may be "right" here.

Slickness in production generally comes from not the music itself but the way the music is recorded, engineered and mixed (a well engineered and recorded acoustic guitar can indeed sound warm and heavenly, and there's many great examples of this on XTC's Mummer) ...

In the case of Document, you can tell that a lot of thought and pre-production went into getting that record to sound the way it does - every guitar tone, every bass tone, every drum sound has been carefully considered. In terms of the EQ/mix, every sound occupies it's distinct place in the spectrum - there's no clutter, and no sounds treading on each other. The bass sits where it should, and the vocals cut through superbly. More "folkier" things like 'King of Birds' sound very well engineered and thought out.

Out of Time is a far more trebly record, even when the bass is loud on tracks like 'Belong' and 'Texarkana' (too loud, IMO - particularly on the former) - I'm also not convinced that the band/Scott Litt had recording acoustic guitars down to the best of their ability yet - they sound a great deal better on Automatic for the People. A lot of Out of Time sounds to me like they worked out what best "formation" to record a song in (which person on which instrument etc.), set up some mikes and did a live take, and if it worked they'd keep it to put overdubs on and if they didn't they'd find another way of playing it, which would naturally require a different set-up. There's no doubt in mind that the sessions for Out of Time were more experimental, with the main focus being on how to arrange the songs, and they were just basically making it up as they went along recording-wise, whereas with Document they knew what kind of record they wanted to make and how to go about making it from the off - and it makes a world of difference.

Listen to the mix on 'Half the World Away', the acoustic guitars get in the way of the harpsichord.

I think if you get the guy from Led Zeppelin in to do string arrangements for an orchestra, that's pretty close to the (or at least a) definition of slick.

xp - it sounds like by "slick" you just mean "well recorded," though...

I take it to mean "produced to sound as commercially appealing as possible, according to current standards"

yeah out of time sparkles imo

On Up, the approach seems to be the exact opposite of New Adventures in Hi-Fi - I'm willing to bet that the recording of that album involved laying a drum machine down at the preferred tempo and tracking everything seperately to that, and of course when you track everything seperately you can pay more attention to the sound of each layer and the way it slots in with what's already there. It also makes it easier to mix, and easier to control what happens in the mix due to much less bleed. I'd be very surprised if there was much "live" playing on Up and I'd bet even the drums were tracked as overdubs.

Yeah I bet most of the band was not in the room at the same time for that one.

"Loose, weird, semi-live-in-the-studio album"

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/r-e-m-on-their-weird-loose-album-document-192249/

Funny to read all of Peter's quotes in retrospect.

The loud bass in "Belong" is one of the things I like about it.

Oh, I have no doubt that the band did initial tracking together when making Document, particularly to get the drums down. Buck may have even felt the band were going about their work casually, which I can well imagine. The end product doesn't sound off the cuff at all.

that's prob bc they're a really good band

And had been playing those songs live a lot already?

But again, it's not the music itself, it's the way the music is recorded, engineered, mixed etc.

I take it to mean "produced to sound as commercially appealing as possible, according to current standards"

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 5:28 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Out of Time wasn't designed to be this huge selling unit shifter. While of course they wanted people to buy their music, Hysteria it ain't.

It was very obviously produced to sound great on the radio.

The "Losing My Religion" drum sound alone is peak "1991" (this isn't a knock, btw)

Unless there was some telling of the history I never read, the proposition that there was more consideration of sounds before the recording process on Document (how they were generated, how they were recorded, how they would fit together) seems speculative.

And perhaps somewhat contradicted by what Buck said in that article.

It was very obviously produced to sound great on the radio.

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 6:03 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There were many songs on the radio at the time that sounded like 'Losing My Religion', were there? I have no doubt that they wanted to put out a record that they felt sounded good, but let's not get silly.

You could say it was speculative, I'd prefer to say it was painfully obvious from listening to the record.

"sounds great on the radio" /= "sounds like most of the other songs on the radio"

I don't get it. Painfully obvious that Peter Buck's guitar tones were calculated on Document but not on Reckoning, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant, or Out of Time?

The point is that while I think the band would naturally have been happy with any radio play by this point (in spite of Stipe saying in '86 "radio doesn't deserve me"), it was not what they were aiming for. I think they were aiming to put out a record they were happy with.

I'm not arguing that they compromised themselves artistically or something, in service of a hit.

Here are the top songs in 1990 (as the album was being produced): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1990

Litt's production is right in the pocket for the era. I bet half of those records have the "LMR" drum sound.

Radio Song, Near Wild Heaven and Shiny Happy People sounded like they were aiming to have big hits to me. It's not like they put Low out as the first single. Even a couple of the album tracks were very commercial.

Even with the mandolin, I think LMR was a crossover like many before it. Alternative musicians had been having crossover, big production hits going back to the late '70s punk/new wave era. Something about their alternative quirkiness was often part of the big appeal.

I think that's exactly it (and this hits it, too: "sounds great on the radio" /= "sounds like most of the other songs on the radio").

"LMR" was a hit for the same reason a lot of (great) songs are probably hits; it sounded "new/different/interesting" (musically) while also perfectly suited "for the moment" (aesthetically).

I don't get it. Painfully obvious that Peter Buck's guitar tones were calculated on Document but not on Reckoning, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant, or Out of Time?

― timellison, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 6:26 PM (eighteen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know that you don't get it - but at the risk of repeating myself, you do not arrive at the sound of Document by setting up a bunch of mics and hitting record - of course all aspects of the production were carefully considered!

Whereas if Peter Buck had said the sessions were "loose" for Out of Time, I would have believed him. They were not recording, for a lot of the time, with their usual set up - the instrument swapping combined with it being new territory (for them)* gives the music its rough edges. It's not a slick record, and they'd take the lessons learned from the experience of recording Out of Time and put it to better use on Automatic for the People.

*(Yes, I'm aware that they did acoustic folk on 'Swan Swan H', but the acoustic guitar doesn't sound great on that either.)

let us take something that is very good and enjoyable and ANALYZE THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF IT UNTIL THE VERY THOUGHT OF THE ONCE VERY GOOD THING IS PERMANENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH PAINFUL ANALYSIS

let us take something that is very good and enjoyable and ANALYZE THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF IT UNTIL THE VERY THOUGHT OF THE ONCE VERY GOOD THING IS PERMANENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH PAINFUL ANALYSIS

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:40 AM (sixteen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xxp - Turrican, sounds like you're committing the fallacy you called out above -- making a slippage btw. music/performance and production. There's nothing "rough-edged" about Litt's production on Out of Time, even if the band all swapped instruments and were playing the songs for the first time while sitting on the toilet.

That's basically ILM in a nutshell, so much that it should have "#ilm" at the end of it.

(x-post)

motherfucker you make this happen

very true

i am actually into the analysis up to a point. i enjoy the first 7 dozen or so posts about the slickness and non-slickness of a record out of time compared to adjacent records in their catalog. then all of a sudden it hits me, like the last few bites of a lazy lunch consisting solely of a family size box of kraft macaroni & cheese, and i swear i'll never ever do it again. but a few weeks later the bookmarked thread gets bumped and i'm right back in the thick of it

I mean, even with regard to the songs themselves -- this is at the top of the "Shiny Happy People" Wikipedia page, I didn't even have to Google around for all those quotes where the band talks about how it was written to be a hit:

"It's a fruity pop song written for children. It just is what it is", Michael Stipe told the BBC's Andrew Marr in 2016. "If there was one song that was sent into outer space to represent R.E.M. for the rest of time, I would not want it to be 'Shiny Happy People'".

There's nothing "rough-edged" about Litt's production on Out of Time, even if the band all swapped instruments and were playing the songs for the first time while sitting on the toilet.

The mic'ing/recording set up for Out of Time would have been very, very different from that which was used on Document - you do not record 'Half the World Away' in the same way as you would record 'Finest Worksong' or 'Orange Crush' - and yes, there is a roughness to Litt's production on Out of Time - if you don't think you can get acoustic instruments to sound better than what they do on that record, then I really don't know what to say. I believe they went into Document knowing they were going to make their version of a rock record, and I believe they didn't know what was going to become of Out of Time when they began making it.

Radio was less important to R.E.M.'s breakthrough than MTV, which was where a whole lot of radio hits were breaking during those years ... at first the band was reluctant to do videos at all, and many of the early ones were primitive/arty efforts directed by Athens friends, but after the band left IRS, they and their management embraced the video format vigorously and were rewarded with heavy MTV rotation. As I recall, LMR was much better known at the time for its video than as a radio hit. I think the production decisions required by the expectations of the MTV audience affected their sound as much as anything.

motherfucker you make this happen

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 6:47 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My ironyometer went ballistic upon reading this.

The mic'ing/recording set up for Out of Time would have been very, very different from that which was used on Document

uh, duh?

if you don't think you can get acoustic instruments to sound better than what they do on that record, then I really don't know what to say.

I never said that. I said it was recorded to sound great on the radio.

I believe they didn't know what was going to become of Out of Time when they began making it.

I believe they included at least several songs that were meant to be big hits, and it was recorded to sound "commercial" i.e. great on the radio according to the standards of the time.

fwiw, "The One I Love" was also produced to sound great on the radio, and it was a big hit.

My ironyometer went ballistic upon reading this.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:56 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh cool, see you in your next multiparagraph post where you recapitulate every wrong point you've made

As I recall, LMR was much better known at the time for its video than as a radio hit. I think the production decisions required by the expectations of the MTV audience affected their sound as much as anything.

This may be true, but I remember it being a big deal at radio as well... moreso than even the hits from "Green" (indeed, "LMR" was their biggest Hot 100 hit, peaking at #4)

let us take something that is very good and enjoyable and ANALYZE THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF IT UNTIL THE VERY THOUGHT OF THE ONCE VERY GOOD THING IS PERMANENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH PAINFUL ANALYSIS
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:40 AM

Turricunty is making the discussion here intelligent. You should be thanking him.

What are we arguing about

What are you arguing about!?!?!

What are we arguing about

The band R.E.M., who may or may not be experiencing an early career reevaluation.

I believe they included at least several songs that were meant to be big hits

I don't think 'Losing My Religion' was written to be/meant to be a big hit - 'Shiny Happy People' is indeed what Stipe says it is, but I cannot imagine them saying "this is the one that's gonna make us mega, boys!"

Out of Time of course is otherwise stacked with potential hits like 'Low', 'Endgame', 'Belong', 'Half the World Away', 'Country Feedback'... ehhhh!

oh cool, see you in your next multiparagraph post where you recapitulate every wrong point you've made

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:01 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whether you think they're "right" or "wrong" is not something I concern myself with, at least I don't take a bus ride around the houses before I get to making one.

I mean - christ, if they had designs on 'Near Wild Heaven' being a smash, they sure as hell wouldn't have got Mike Mills to sing it!

I think it's fair to say Out of Time sounds different from its predecessors, but that has more to do with the changing aesthetics of the time. The previous records shared a lot of characteristics of late 80s rock production, the booming gated drums, tons of overdubs, etc. That sound quickly fell out of vogue in the 90s. Out of Time is slick, but in a different way. They put tons of effort, time, and money into a record that sounds more "naturalistic". It's not lo-fi or non-commercial by any stretch of the imagination, it just doesn't sound like an 80s rock record.

Out Of Time was made using a portable cassette recorder Peter Buck picked up at a Walgreens on his way to the session. They forgot to hit record, and the album does not exist.[4]

Those songs (Losing My Religion, Shiny Hapoy People, Radio Song) were absolutely recorded with the goal of being big hits.

^OTM

I cannot imagine them saying "this is the one that's gonna make us mega, boys!"

I can absolutely imagine everyone at the label saying this. I saw a label guy announce “Sounds like a hit to me!” (loudly, to no one in particular), after a live performance of “Daysleeper” (eons later)

Out of Time was a letdown for me when it came out because it felt like they abandoned rock for a pure cash in. It felt like a completely commercial move.

Well, it's definitely not lo-fi, and I agree that at the time a lot of '80s production trends were on their way out - that it doesn't sound like an '80s rock record is a bit of a given since it isn't one.

If you scroll up, what started this whole thing off was Matt DC's assertion that Out of Time has the slickest production of any R.E.M. album and of course I disagree - I used Document and Green (rightly) as examples, but Josh also pointed out that Automatic for the People - which is essentially a continuation (albeit a darker one) of Out of Time stylistically - is a slicker record, and I agree.

I can absolutely imagine everyone at the label saying this. I saw a label guy announce “Sounds like a hit to me!” (loudly, to no one in particular), after a live performance of “Daysleeper” (eons later)

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:19 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They probably did, as it's the record label's job to figure out how to sell and promote the record. They don't write or record the record, even if they are financing it! If I remember correctly, Warners didn't think 'Losing My Religion' was a hit single anyway!

I think "slick" is just a tricky term that could mean a lot of different things. In some ways Green was both their most pop record and their heaviest rock record up to that point. But the big hit was the rather light and smarmy "Stand".

With Out of Time, it felt like they were saying if "Stand" is what people like, then let's make a record that really flows that vibe.

Whether you think they're "right" or "wrong" is not something I concern myself with

This is why you're the poster on this forum.

*the worst

Should say: that really flogs that vibe

xxp

It was certainly a baroque record. The string section is like nine people and they're on seven of the eleven tracks.

And besides, anyone who can't obviously see Out of Time for what it is (one of the band's most overproduced —if not THE most overproduced— records) is just being contradictory for the sake of being contradictory.

I think "slick" is just a tricky term that could mean a lot of different things. In some ways Green was both their most pop record and their heaviest rock record up to that point. But the big hit was the rather light and smarmy "Stand".

With Out of Time, it felt like they were saying if "Stand" is what people like, then let's make a record that really flows that vibe.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:31 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Stand' is no more or less a piece of "dumb fun" (or however you want to phrase it) than 'Superman' was, and everyone seems to like that one (yes, I know the band didn't write it)

If people were really buying Out of Time with the intention of getting more 'Stand' then I'm sure they were disappointed - for the most part, it isn't a poppy record.

And besides, anyone who can't obviously see Out of Time for what it is (one of the band's most overproduced —if not THE most overproduced— records) is just being contradictory for the sake of being contradictory.

― outside, you're never alone. (Austin), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:38 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*points you in the direction of Reveal*

"Stand" was a big commercial hit, "Superman" was not.

I'm saying they had a hit with that song and tried to get more hits by recording similarly catchy songs like "Shiny Happy People".

I think it's a totally poppy record, even "Low" and "Country Feedback."

'Stand' was indeed a big hit - albeit in the US, not the UK - but the point is I don't think it was designed to be. If anything, it was a continuation of a dorky side to them that had been there even in the IRS years - that it was a hit was no doubt great for them, but I'm not sure they wrote it specifically for that purpose. Ditto 'Shiny Happy People', ditto 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite' etc.

Also, hard to use 'Shiny Happy People' as a stick to beat Out of Time with in any sense - it sticks out like a sore thumb, even with 'Near Wild Heaven' on there.

They really hadn't recorded with a million guest musicians like that before. Not exactly what you'd do on some tossed off DIY recording.

Oh c'mon, 'Low' is totally not poppy. It's such a dirge!

(x-post)

Yeah, but since when were rock bands not afforded the opportunity to do creative things on big budget album cuts?

And still managing to sound super polished

xp

"Stand" wasn't meant to be a big hit any more than a bunch of other songs on Green, it just happened to be the one that caught on. I think the fact that it was a hit was part of what drove the direction of Out of Time.

"Shiny Happy People" never stood out at all for me, fwiw. Always saw it as a very cohesive album.

I mean, it doesn't follow from "Endgame?"

Kate Pierson doesn't bookend Side Two?

LRP was really the first to embrace the arena sound to my ears. it's almost like LRP-Document-Green is one era, and OOT/Automatic being another.

They really hadn't recorded with a million guest musicians like that before. Not exactly what you'd do on some tossed off DIY recording.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:50 PM (twenty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Firstly, nobody said or even implied that Out of Time was a "tossed off DIY recording"

Secondly, R.E.M. were on their seventh album and were mostly working with people they'd known for a while* - Peter Holsapple was hardly a household name, Kate Pierson was a bigger name but she would have been on the record because they had been friends for years, not because of anything to do with 'Love Shack' ...

KRS-One was the exception, and 'Radio Song' was a bad idea. If indeed it was conceived to be a hit - which I'm sure it wasn't - all it would have proved is that the band were shit at writing hits to order.

Oh yeah, of course there's the strings and the horns, but as I said above, having string and horn players on your record doesn't automatically make for a "slick" production.

It's hardly a late-period Santana record.

I think you are getting hung up on a very specific interpretation of the word "slick" that only you understand

LRP was really the first to embrace the arena sound to my ears. it's almost like LRP-Document-Green is one era, and OOT/Automatic being another.

― campreverb, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:02 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I group 'em together this way too!

What are we arguing about

― The Silky Veils of Alfred (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 3:04 PM

xp
Kate Pierson was a voice behind a much bigger hit than anything KRS-One had been involved with. Your allegation that “Radio Song” was a “hit to order” rests on his involvement?

"Stand" wasn't meant to be a big hit any more than a bunch of other songs on Green, it just happened to be the one that caught on. I think the fact that it was a hit was part of what drove the direction of Out of Time.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:53 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It drove them in the direction of 'Country Feedback', 'Half the World Away', 'Belong' and 'Low'?

Kate Pierson was a voice behind a much bigger hit than anything KRS-One had been involved with. Your allegation that “Radio Song” was a “hit to order” rests on his involvement?

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:08 PM (forty-five seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I made no such allegation that 'Radio Song' was a hit to order - Moodles did.

So what's he "the exception" to?

I'm not claiming that every track was meant to be a hit, but a bunch of tracks clearly were, and guess what? It went right up to #1 on the billboard charts and sold 4,000,000 copies!

In the US, that is...

Obviously, KRS-One was the exception because... well, I've already said it, but it bears repeating... he truly was a "guest artist" brought in from outside. The band had known Pierson for years, and they were friends with Holsapple.

And why do you think he was brought in?

It made sense for them to work with The B-52s because they knew them and came from the same scene, but it was also a completely commercial move.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Dp6EdFRHo

I'm not claiming that every track was meant to be a hit, but a bunch of tracks clearly were, and guess what? It went right up to #1 on the billboard charts and sold 4,000,000 copies!

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:12 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, we all know that Out of Time was the record that catapulted R.E.M. into the major, major leagues, that the band managed to do it on their own terms and with a record that doesn't play like 11 hit singles is remarkable.

Why is remarkable?

It would be more remarkable if it did play like 11 hit singles, IMO

And why do you think he was brought in?

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:14 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because they had never worked with a rapper before, they were seven albums in and wanted to try something different, as artists tend to do. Out of Time was all about trying out different things - different ways of recording and presenting material, different ways of working and breaking with tradition etc. so it makes perfect sense - some of the experiments worked, some of them didn't. It was the record they had to make so they could go on to make Automatic for the People where they perfected everything that was good about Out of Time and delivered a superior set of songs and a richer, slicker production.

Out of Time is definitely a highly idiosyncratic album, I'll give you that, but it was also very much angling for commercial success. I like some of the more low-key tracks, but it felt very much at the time like the classic pop album front-loaded with a bunch of hits and also containing a fair amount of filler.

And I still don't get what's not "slick" about it.

John Paul Jones gets talked about a lot in relation to Automatic, but Mark Bingham did a bigger volume of work on Out of Time.

Turrican have you really been arguing about this for SIX HOURS?

Front-loaded? The album opens with one of the worst Berry-era tracks to ever make it onto an album, the second track is the hit that the record company were sure wasn't going to be a hit, and the third track is a five minute dirge on organ, power chords and bongos.

They tried to make a hit out of "Radio Song" too

xp I thought it didn't matter what the label thinks, lol -- they just "sell the records"

Dirge is a strong word. It's a fairly mellow tune with a string section and bass clarinet.

Turrican, do you really imagine their thought process was "gee, this song sucks, let's put it at the beginning of the album"?

They thought it was hot shit!

John Paul Jones gets talked about a lot in relation to Automatic, but Mark Bingham did a bigger volume of work on Out of Time.

― timellison, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:30 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's because John Paul Jones is not only a much bigger name, but also because what work he did on Automatic for the People was superior! When the strings come in on 'Drive' it really gives that track an extra dimension, and his arrangement on 'Nightswimming' is gorgeous.

xp
LOL (They performed it on "Unplugged," too... they clearly liked it a lot)

And the Bingo Hand Job tape

Turrican, do you really imagine their thought process was "gee, this song sucks, let's put it at the beginning of the album"?

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:36 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, but I am saying that in the unlikely event that it was deliberately written to be a hit single, it would prove that they were really bad at trying to write hit singles.

Or maybe they were just kind of hit and miss

Doesn't it seem likely that they imagined a song called "Radio Song", that was released as a single, might actually get played on the radio?

Not that they had ever done anything similar before, either -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Song_89

(title/single-wise)

I love almost every song they made during this period (regardless of its intention or achievement) so add me to team "what exactly are we arguing about".

Thxbye

Yeah, I guess one reason I argue about this a lot is that I've never really loved Out of Time outside of a few tracks.

Radio Song was a reaction to the idea that they were primed to get huge with a radio hit. Stipe wasn't comfortable setting out to write a radio hit so he wrote a song about how radio songs suck. Then lmr took off and out of time hit #1 and he became an insufferable celebrity and didn't break up the band at the end of the millenium like they said that they would.

Listening to "Life's Rich Pageant" for the first time in yonks. This is my favorite IRS album, it's just so damn joyful (as well as tuneful)! I mean, "Underneath The Bunker" sounds like a ALL Of Voodoo track!

the flowers cover everything
they cover over everything

Xp Wall Of Voodoo, damn typo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_wFRLDo6OI

Turrican have you really been arguing about this for SIX HOURS?

― Matt DC, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 1:31 PM

Shh, he's making the board more intelligent.

Doesn't it seem likely that they imagined a song called "Radio Song", that was released as a single, might actually get played on the radio?

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not particularly - radio do not generally pay attention to the titles of songs, unless they're ridiculously long or offensive. They playlist according to quality, popularity and audience. Lyrically, it's anti-radio, which I'm sure would have helped its chances getting playlisted if it wasn't a shit song to begin with.

Yeah, I guess one reason I argue about this a lot is that I've never really loved Out of Time outside of a few tracks.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's down at the bottom of the pile for me in terms of Berry-era records, but it has nothing to do with thinking the band made a conscious attempt to "sell out", which is just silly.

No one said “sell out”; that’s the baggage you’re bringing to it.

If you click on the Document-era RS article above, you’ll find Peter Buck eeyore-ing about how it’s unlikely for the band to have a hit record “at this late date,” probably only his aunt will buy the new record, knock on wood, salt over his shoulder, etc.

This band wanted to be successful. They were psyched to be the biggest band in the world. And as you said, they did it “ok their own terms.” But just because they didn’t hire Mutt Lange and Diane Warren when they made Out of Time doesn’t mean they weren’t going for some big songs (the ones everyone keeps mentioning).

Go watch Tourfilm, and tell me this is a band that wanted to be boutique-y, indie darlings playing the club circuit.

It doesn't matter how you frame it, I am still very much an extremely long way from ever being convinced that 'Losing My Religion' was deliberately conceived to be a huge hit.

They hoped it would be.

It’s “Shiny Happy People” that (as Moodles said) was clearly intended to be a “Stand”-style hit.

Anyway, my initial point in all this was that it’s not wrong to call the album “slickly” produced, i.e. designed to sound as appealing as possible in a “commercial” sense (without compromising the essence of the band); which seems hard to deny considering that “Losing My Religion” has only somewhat less reverb on the drums than the top 3 singles of 1990.

"Stand" and "Shiny Happy People" are their absolute nadir for me. I couldn't stand "Green" when it came out, it felt like a total betrayal. But hindsight and life experience gives me the perspective that going in that direction allowed them to do lots of other things that I enjoy so more power to them.

I wouldn't say it felt like a "betrayal," but hearing the ending of "The One I Love" for the first time -- just those last three chords -- definitely felt like, welp, looks like they really wanna play arenas now (I can't remember if it was post-Document or post-LRP when they were on the cover of Spin with the caption, "Are we there yet?"). It seems like such a small thing in retrospect, but at the time it was really disorienting.

Yeah, I totally remember first hearing "The One I Love" on the radio (probably before the album was out because I surely bought that thing on the first day). I will say it did sound more generic to me than anything that had come before but then the album came out and it wasn't, really.

'Losing My Religion' was the first single, and the band's first video to have lip-sync.
They may not have thought they had a hit, but they put all their chips in on LMR.

LMR doesn't sound like it was written to be a hit, but once it was recorded, I imagine they knew what they had. That song and video got pushed hard right out the gate.

They apparently even had to push the label to release it (which I think was alluded to above) -- which IMO makes the band seem even more impressive, as their "ears" for a potential hit were better than the label's.

(Or push the label to release it as the lead single, at least. WB probably wanted to lead with "Shiny Happy"...)

That could almost be a thread--Bands Using Their Newfound Sales Power to Make the Label Release a Weird Lead Single

"E-Bow the Letter" definitely

Fleetwood Mac "Tusk"

Heck, you could look right to the next R.E.M. album, and “Drive.” That was a very unusual single.

Or, ah, WTFK.

I for one am glad that oh ffs never mind

Listening to Automatic For The People today. R.E.M. is such comfort food to me, so many memories attached.

One such memory is that when I was a kid I had no idea what Michael Stipe looked like, so I imagined the songs of R.E.M. being sung by Robin Williams

I'd love to hear an Ilxor-compiled best-of of their post-Up third-phase stuff. It can't be all bad, right?

Some of it is in fact the best? "Horse To Water" is the best rave-up of their career imo

Algorithm just suggested I watch a "Michael Stipe names his favourite R.E.M. album" video and so I clicked it, why not. He's talking about Hi-Fi and I'm like "yes, it is a great album, good choice", but then at the end he says "recently, however, Reveal has become tied for #1" and I'm like "I have never heard an opinion so wrong"

xxp “Houston” is an amazing avenue I wish they’d explored further

Historical interviews with individual members of REM consistently feature the most egregious use of statements along the lines of “hand on heart, I truly believe that [most recent album] is the best record we have ever made”

And that includes Around the Sun

If I were a working musician and I was convinced the best thing I ever did was the first thing I did in my 20s, I would quit being a working musician. If you don't love your most recent stuff the most then you're probably in crisis. Let the critics rank the early stuff.

I'd love to hear an Ilxor-compiled best-of of their post-Up third-phase stuff. It can't be all bad, right?

― your mom goes to limgrave (dog latin), Wednesday, March 27, 2024 8:19 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe a poll for this?

I made this reference disc for myself which I barely managed to squeeze on to one CD, but you could drop the three Up tracks and maybe replace them with "The Lifting" from Reveal and the aforementioned "Horse To Water"?

1 Lotus 04:31
2 At My Most Beautiful [radio mix] 03:33
3 Daysleeper [single edit] 03:31
4 The Great Beyond 05:07
5 I've Been High 03:26
6 All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be A Star) 04:43
7 Imitation Of Life 03:56
8 All The Right Friends 02:48
9 Bad Day 04:07
10 Leaving New York 04:49
11 Electron Blue 04:12
12 Living Well Is The Best Revenge 03:11
13 Man-Sized Wreath 02:33
14 Supernatural Superserious 03:23
15 Hollow Man 02:39
16 Houston 02:05
17 Discoverer 03:31
18 Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter 02:45
19 Überlin 04:14
20 Oh My Heart 03:20
21 It Happened Today 03:48
22 We All Go Back To Where We Belong 03:35

And “I’m Gonna DJ”!

I should go back and rework the one that was Monster and on to just this time period. I think “Reveal” was the one that I had the toughest time getting through. “Überlin” and “Discoverer” were another immediate ones I’d rank up there.

Thanks birdistheword

I tried to make a best of the post-Berry playlist last time we had a lot of thread activity. There’s definitely a worthwhile comp there but I never really finished the project…

Here's a Spotify playlist of birdistheword's compilation with the Up tracks replaced by those other ones mentioned. Looking forward to listening

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6iFoLsxrVLBaBIiYMwNQMf?si=02696cae024944c3