Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

Out of Time, followed by Monster, NAIHF, and Document.

"Automatic For The People" remains the best thing they've ever done, and I doubt they will ever be able to top it.

I really love New Adventures -- I usually don't care about someone's summing-up album, but for me this one worked.

my top 3's Automatic - New - Document, but i voted for New

Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Document, Monster, Green, New Adventures in Hi-Fi

but really I love the first five about equally, and loathe New Adventures.

up and reveal and the other latter-day albums sold less than document and green? ouch.

Yeah, Document and Green both had big singles.

i've always bought into the out of time/indie cult band become mtv darlings narrative but i guess it wasn't quite that sudden or drastic a change

Document and Green both had big singles.

Weren't "Daysleeper" and "Imitation Of Life" rather big? Kind of?

compared to "The One I Love" and "Stand"? not really.

Weren't "Daysleeper" and "Imitation Of Life" rather big? Kind of?

Not in the US; I don't know if anyone who isn't an ILX poster ever heard them.

Difficult poll. I voted "Document" but could have gone with "Automatic" or "Hi Fi." For some reason "Out of Time" never grabbed me, maybe over-exposure. "Green" seems the weakest of the bunch, "Monster" the most under-rated (now, not when it was released).

Document. Green has some amazing highs (Stand, Orange Crush), but lower lows. Out of Time is better than it gets credit for, though Shiny Happy People still offendeth mine eye. Automatic is the critic's darling and objectively impressive, but it just doesn't move me much. Plus Everybody Hurts exceeds Shiny Happy in sheer loathesomeness.

Yeah, you're actually wrong on both counts there.

I get that a lot

green, without hesitation

Automatic For The People is their best record.

Document, easily. Followed closely by AFTP. Those two are rated just about right, I'd say. I do agree that "Everybody Hurts" did not age very well, though. But that could just be b/c I'm old and bitter now. FWIW, I think Up is better than all of these.

I'm a lurker and voting Automatic. I imagine it will win and people will blame the lurkers.

Automatic and you can blame me for that.

Automatic for the People > Document > Out of Time > New Adventures in Hi-Fi >
Monster > Green

i think automatic probably is the best of these, but something about its self-confidence makes me doubt it a little. like, they knew exactly what they were doing when they made it, and they nailed it and hit their big commercial peak, but the relative absence of the weird half-baked-experiment stuff that you can find on most of their albums makes it seem a little too neat. i'm tempted to vote document, which has lots of half-bakedness, but i think i'll go green because apparently too many people hate it.

Monster.

Oh, Green. It remains among my 2 or 3 favourite REM albums, rather unfashionably. I pretty much can't listen to any of the other listed albums, although they all have high points. I'll listen to Green all day.

the toplessness in the "pop song '89" video was a controversy for about a week. mostly now i just notice stipe had all that hair...

hahah tipsy before i even clicked on that first youtube i was all i bet it's "Get up".. i still love it 19 years (?wtF?!) later. hate to say it ('cause it's hella played) but i'm afraid one of their biggest sins post-Fables is stipe's vocals being pushed up in the mix.

i fucking accidentily clicked on "out of time" when i meant "automatic for the people", but didnt notice until i had already clicked "vote". AFTP is by far their best album in general, and one of the best rock records of the 90s.

when out of time came out, i thought it sort of took green's ideas and built on them. now i think it took green's ideas and contracted them. i still like it -- can't fuck with "losing my religion," "low," "country feedback," the unjustly maligned "shiny happy people" -- but green seems bigger and more intimate at the same time.

Since the poll isn't "platinum REM albums with my favorite songs on them" and Lifes Rich Pageant didn't go platinum, this has to be Automatic For The People. It's not my favorite REM record, but it's their best post-Murmur.

Yes, it's tremendously assured, but if this is their "cocky" play it's awfully weird and dark. Where tipsy mothra hears shrewd and canny, I hear a band at the peak of their powers. And what we're both hearing is an extraordinary control.

Maintaining that melancholy beauty across an entire album's worth of material is no mean feat, and the extraordinary consistency that makes some of the stuff that might have counted in the oddball column on earlier records fit right in.

It's also what makes everything that they've done since more or less irrelevant. There's a lot of great material since, but nothing left to prove or say.

i guess automatic is in that nevermind zone for me, where it's hard to actually hear the record. i know it's great and respect it and just am not drawn to it anymore. still needs more distance, maybe. where green or monster can still seem sort of fresh if i go awhile without listening to them.

(nb: rogermexico and i have been debating r.e.m. albums since we used to listen to reckoning in my bedroom in like 1984 or something.)

weird. dark. beautiful.

i guess automatic is in that nevermind zone for me, where it's hard to actually hear the record.

doesn't the legend now have it that automatic was the last record K-Cobe played?

I had no idea Green was so hated. It's my favourite here by a million miles. I Remember California is possibly my 2nd or 3rd favourite REM song.

document or automatic. i loved green the week it came out (out of time too) but the love didn't last.

i think automatic probably is the best of these, but something about its self-confidence makes me doubt it a little. like, they knew exactly what they were doing when they made it, and they nailed it and hit their big commercial peak, but the relative absence of the weird half-baked-experiment stuff that you can find on most of their albums makes it seem a little too neat.

This was exactly my reaction to Out of Time, so much so that I kind of slept on Automatic for a few years.

"Shiny Happy People" and "Country Feedback" are weird half-baked experiments! They're weird, fully cooked experiments!

make up yor mind!

I've always liked "Pop Song 89," never saw the video before. Leave it to Stipe to be able to render a bunch of topless women 100% non-sexual. Kind of brilliant.

I'm least sick of Document. I remember reading an interview in Spin or Option in late '87 when Peter Buck said they're still hoping to be able to create a classic album as good as their favorites from Patti Smith, Wire, Television, etc. The irony, is they already did with Murmur. I guess it's hard to admit everything's downhill after your debut.

"Shiny Happy People" and "Country Feedback" are weird half-baked experiments! They're weird, fully cooked experiments!

*are NOT weird half-baked experiments

Thanks for posting the Sugarland cover of "Nightswimming", Tipsy! I'd not seen that. I really like that band; my brother has been sort-of acquaintances of theirs since Jennifer Nettles Band and Billy Pilgrim days, so it's been weird to see them get huge.

I listened to Automatic last night, at 3AM when I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep because the wind is so strong here this weekend. It sounded like my house was fighting back, and I could sympathize. Automatic takes me to a strange place that I won't get into because it's so intensely personal; the record is so much a part of a specific period of my life that was quite dark and new and weird (nobody was telling me what to do, and I wasn't sure that was a good thing). So listening to it is like going home for the holidays, that mix of nostalgia and familiarity with the puzzling foreignness places and people get when you haven't seen them for a long time. I was struck by the organ work (is that Mike Mills or Peter Holsapple?), it's really overwhelming, and gives the record its funereal vibe that critics seem to focus on (yeah, the lyrics too, but they're all over the place).

As a mood piece the record overwhelms me but as a family of songs I still prefer Out of Time. I think I'm the lone person on ILM who absolutely loves "Radio Song", though. The vibe is so technicolor, all those pastels we were wearing in the early 90s, and the mood's of possibility (and love songs!), rather than nostalgia and memory. I usually prefer possibility over nostalgia, as I'm naturally inclined to look back anyway, I don't need help.

I had no idea Green was so hated.

Me neither. It's still my favourite too.

"Out Of Time" was on to something. "Losing My Religion" may be their all time best, "Near Wild Heaven" is wonderful and "Endgame" is way underrated. I even kind of like "Shiny Happy People". But then there's stuff such as "Radio Song" dragging it down. "Automatic" may be the only R.E.M. album that worked perfectly from the beginning to the end. And there are wonderful songs such as "The Man On The Moon", "Drive", "Try Not To Breathe" and "Find The River" - all among their career highlights.

Document and Green = great, wonky arena pomp. POLITICS!!
Automatic For The People and Out Of Time = great, wonky schmaltz. LOVE AND DEATH!!
Monster = great, wonky '90s arena pomp. IRONIC SEX!!
New Adventures In Hi-Fi = A Use Your Illusion style data dump of everything left in the coffers

Schmaltz wins because Love And Death, yo. Out Of Time because its a little more the former. The most gawky and innocent album by a band I associate with the gawky innocence of precocious youth.

"Automatic" may be the only R.E.M. album that worked perfectly from the beginning to the end.
!? One word: Reckoning.

(ar, yes, I realize it's all subjective. I can't listen to Automatic from beginning to end without losing the thread.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

A few months back I listened to Green front to back for the first time in years. Parts of the record sounded really ace, mostly the more acoustic recordings, while some of the more pop rock songs sounded really overcooked.

One thing I kind of liked about New Adventures in HiFi was that it kind of blurred up their sound and got rid of the big sheen. It was a bit more like the early records.

i dunno if it feels like the early albums to me, but HiFi definitely gets a great sound and ambience out of the whole process of it being largely written and pieced together on tour.

yeah, I think I dislike that album for a couple of reasons: (a) Stipe's voice annoyed me for the first time on an album, too much of that declaiming voice (like on "E-Bow" or "Departure"); and (b) too many midtempo songs. Both of these seem to have gone on, with the notable exception of Up, and I've liked their albums since then a lot less for it.

by "declaiming" I mean, that kinda staccato bark on those songs I listed as examples. It was there on "Strange Currencies" and "Ignoreland" already, but it became his primary way of singing on New Adventures.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Green maintains its status as most polarizing R.E.M. record, coming in 2nd on "worst" but getting lots of votes here too.

shifting rem discussion over here from the pfork thread. relistening to green now for the first time in a while. it's so good! not their best or my favorite, but it does a really good job of polishing up and summarizing everything that had gotten them to that point. and it's fun, dammit!

great last post by eephus there. wonder how a redux would go.

also wow--- they had a lot of good old classic rock in them, didn't they?

I saw them a bunch in the pre-Warner days. The tour for Green was the last time I caught them. It was clear something had changed; the show was a lot more polished, and as a result the awkward weirdness that was part of what made their earlier gigs so good was gone. I feel kind of the same about the albums. So, I'd say that of these, Document would be my pick.

I agree with these results but I might switch Green & Document. It's pretty close. The quieter songs on Green are so good, "You Are The Everything" is definitely on of there best slow jams.

"The voices talking somewhere in the house, late spring
And you're drifting off to sleep with your teeth in your mouth"

Sigh.

I went through a couple years in high school where I thought I was bisexual, mainly because I was so swoony for Stipe. Eventually I realized it wasn't a sexual thing, I was just so fascinated by him.

jimb- really cool you got to see them "in the early days" as it were. i always rewatch that clip of "so.central rain" from letterman because here they are on national television and, dave: "what's the title?" band: "lolidk" very classic.

lots of other thoughts re:green, but "orange crush" still kinda usurps all of em. big tune.

anyway 4 of the band's current top 5 on spotify come from automatic or out of time. lots of chat about the band's legacy - do people just consider the 80s records quaint beginnings with their dedicated cult at this point?

Inspired by this thread, I am listening to Reckoning for the first time in ages. It still sounds fresh and surprising.

it's their best.

"You Are The Everything" immortalized in Beverly Hills 90210 episode where Dylan McKay dreams about his dad.

new adventures is the clear choice here

otm

1. NAiH-F
2. AftP
3. Document
4. Monster
5. Out of Time
6. Green

^ that's how I'd rate them

Sometimes I feel like there is only really one sister-city as far as R.E.M. is concerned and that is James

1. Green
2. Monster
----------
3. AftP (tho I never really listen to it anymore)
----------
...I don't like the others very much

New Adventures would walk this poll in 2023

Sometimes I feel like there is only really one sister-city as far as R.E.M. is concerned and that is James

James opened for them on the . . . Life's Rich Pageant tour? Sometime around then.

Camper Van Beethoven also opened for them in the mid-80s, they were kinda sorta in the same vein.

OOT
New Adv
Document
Monster
Automatic
Green

Maybe I need to go back and give New Adventures another shot. I remember liking the song with Patti Smith.

1. Document
2. Green
3. Out of Time

but not sure where I rank them after that. Agree with others that NAiHf has risen in people's estimation a lot. It's still, for me, a record with high points that I never ever feel like listening to straight through. Document, on the other hand, has lost nothing for me in the what, 35 years since the year I spent listening to it every day.

The quieter songs on Green are so good

hard agree - my keepers off this would be hair shirt, world leader pretend and you are the everything.

and the wrong child! that's on green, right?

Yeah, and I think it’s my favourite on it

On my long drive today I’ve been listening to the entire discography in order. Haven’t heard some of these albums in 10+ years

Reckoning not as good as I remember, Fables is worse than I remember; Murmur is perfect, Life’s Rich Pageant is perfect. That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far

It’s really interesting to hear how formulaic the band are on Murmur, all the songs are Stipe-Buck call and response, same tempo (except a couple). Lyrics oblique always. Interesting to hear topicality develop on Reckoning (esp “Rockville”). Interesting to hear what a minor-key mess Fables is, poorly mixed too, but also the template for so many later REM slow songs (“Wendel Gee”) and some gems I’d forgotten. Pageant is good as hell dunno why people underrate it

lifes rich pageant is their best, a refinement of everything that came before and managing to sound bigger without losing anything like they started to with document

Love all these albums and pretty much everything on them but here's my ranking

1. Automatic
2. Green
3. Document
4. Out of Time
5. Hi-Fi
6. Monster

Yeah, moving on to Document was like getting whiplash. Litt set the band on fire. “Finest Worksong” sounds like they’re nuking the IRS offices. Document feels like 12 attempts at a #1 single, the “2nd (and 3rd) verse, same as the 1st” writing is annoying but it weirdly works on “The One I Love” because of the subtle variations in Stipe’s delivery, and the strength of the lyric, I guess. “It’s The End…” contains a higher word count than the rest of the album combined (with repetition excluded). Every song feels one reprise too long. Man tho “Finest Worksong” is such a hit

And yeah Pageant is so, so good. I think the highest point of R.E.M. v1.0 remains the A-side of Reckoning, but Murmur and Pageant are the best overall

It’s shocking listening to Murmur again, all I remembered was Stipe in mumblemode but listening again it’s all about the Wire’d up band, it’s exhilarating

1. Out of Time is ridiculously beautiful throughout, the electicism is the point, the KRS-One vocal is great, Mike and Michael never sound better, I love every second.

2. Automatic has many of their best melodies, the sequencing is their best since Murmur, some points off for the lull around the start of the B-Side. Also, I massively overlistened to both OOT and AFTP as a a teenager, but OOT still sounds fresh to me.

3. Green! It's great. All the slow stuff is amazing. The Untitled track is very sweet. I don't really dig the stadium rock/pop bits.

4. Document has a lot of filler beside the obvious classics. It clicked with me as a kid, but not as an adult.

I like but don't love ther other two.

Or: Out of Time > Murmur/Chronic Town > Automatic/Reckoning > Fables/Paegant/Document >>>> The rest

The second side of OTT has some of the band's most beautiful music up to that point, and I include the kudzu tunes of Murmur. It took a decade to figure out how to write "Me in Honey" and "Half a World Away."

This'll be easier for me - songs I'm not so bothered about:

Actually no it's just one: I Took Your Name. Which is still perfectly fine, and was a great live opener. But I don't think the album would lose much were it not there.

I am going to controp here.

Out of Time

Green

Fables

Document

Automatic

But of course I love all of those so much that the ranking is absurd and subject to change. Plus I don't even know where to put Up, Reckoning, Murmur, Monster, Dead Letter Office. New Adventures.

All I know is that I was hooked instantly by Fables, but they'd lost me before Around the Sun, with one exception. "Imitation of Life." Still the only post-Up song I can stand (in the place where I live)

Christ I forgot to put LRP in but it's somewhere close to the top

I’m curious why you guys like LRP so much (not that it’s an option in this poll). That album is so “mid”… it kicks off with a muddy, somewhat generic midtempo rocker, and never really improves much from there.

have you even heard “these days”

the only time i saw rem live (2003) they opened with “world leader pretend” and “these days,” i didn’t own either album they belonged to at the time and i was like WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

these days-fall on me-cuyahoga is as good as it gets imo

I’m curious why you guys like LRP so much (not that it’s an option in this poll). That album is so “mid”… it kicks off with a muddy, somewhat generic midtempo rocker, and never really improves much from there.

― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp)

It kicks off with their crunchiest rocker to date, helped largely by Don Gehman's mix. Stipe sounds so confident as a rock singer. The first three tracks are boom boom boom.

I've heard "These Days" (ha ha), but I don't find it to be a ton more distinctive than "Begin the Begin." It's fine! I never really want/need to hear these songs again, tho

“BtB” is like riding an express train, whereas “These Days” is like surfing a train derailment.

The first four of the b-side of LRP are also spectacular. Not a fan of Swan Swan H or the last track

I like "Superman" and I am always surprised to learn it was a considerable college hit in '86.

this is perfection in every way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcP7TxLnd9M

So is "Endgame."

The abrupt stop of "Begin the Begin" -- you take a breath, just still in the process of realizing the song is really over -- and then the guitar of "These Days" just fucking HITS

I like the trivia factoid that the original "Superman" by The Clique was based off a riff from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The REM version obscures this relation so that most people wouldn't notice it.

Re-listening to those opening tracks of LRP, I guess I hear them as early (and somewhat clumsy) attempts to write/record the kind of rock anthems that they eventually perfected on Green.

I do really like "I Believe," forgot about that one... though I feel like it could have been recorded better, something about the album's sound is just flat & dull.

there aren't many r.e.m. b-sides that are fully fleshed-out songs so i'm always a little blown away that out of time has two and they're two of the best r.e.m. songs ever, "fretless" and "it's a free world baby"

My college station played "Fretless" a lot thanks to the UTEOTW soundtrack.

Near Wild Heaven is the best R.E.M. song

And one of my 20 favourite singles by anyone ever

It's an extremely good song but "Half a World Away" is up there too.

Pretty much every album has at least one miraculous gemlike song.

Every once in a while I pick up a mandolin and wonder why "You Are the Everything" isn't more popular

"eviscerate" is not a word common to big hits

Re-listening to those opening tracks of LRP, I guess I hear them as early (and somewhat clumsy) attempts to write/record the kind of rock anthems that they eventually perfected on Green.

what rock anthems they perfected on "green"? "orange crush" is great but that's it.

Toss Ignoreland and put in Fretless on AFTP

xp Well I think they're all great. "Get Up" is probably my favorite R.E.M. single

...and as far as slow songs go, no other R.E.M. songs have the specific magic (for me) of "Hairshirt," "The Wrong Child," "You Are the Everything"... they're such incredible & affecting feats of songwriting & performance (even the final, untitled track is so special). I think the band was just at the peak of their powers.

Qualmsley

Word(s) that only ever appeared in one (hit) song, ever.

the KRS-One vocal is great

Thank you I have often felt I am the only person on ILX who likes this vocal or "Radio Song" in general

no other R.E.M. songs have the specific magic

Was this maybe the first-contact effect?

(the first one I heard was Eponymous, which was released earlier that same year, and Green was a minor letdown to me after that. I still can't really bring myself to listen past Document)

It very well could be! I remember lying in my bed, on hot summer nights, with the tape playing in the dark, from a boombox perched on a nearby chair.

That said, it has retained the magic, whereas some of the other albums I loved as a preteen/teen have not.

THEY AIRBRUSHED MY FACE

https://i.discogs.com/wh9J-w3PMQJmDWzqf4VuxWOKX3Wvcuzrfc2-cW9VKvo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTY1Mzkw/OS0xNTExNTg5OTg3/LTMzNDguanBlZw.jpeg

Oh damn, I had the cassette version, so I never saw that before.

The reason I relistened to the IRS albums was really just prep to see if my mind would be changed about Green but if anything I just feel more insane while listening to it. After “Pop Song 89” (which I like) I can’t think of any album that has me begging for each song to end, wishing it was over, feeling like my affection for the band is evaporating so quickly; and by the time I get to “The Wrong Child” another feeling overtakes me, a similar feeling to listening to The Shaggs, that I’m compelled to listen to such a car crash, lyrical clunker after clunker piling up. I cannot think of another classic album whose classic status leaves me feeling so confused, this is truly nightmare music

Interesting! What are the clunkers for you? How do you feel about the records after Green?

Well, I just listened to Out Of Time and I have never enjoyed it more! I don’t even like “Radio Song” but it was such a relief to hear it after Green.

The best thing about Out Of Time is “Me In Honey” tucked away at the end, what a great track. The only surprise really was realizing that “Shiny Happy People” isn’t the corniest song on the album, it isn’t even corny at all, it just rules in every way, the way the three vocal parts coruscate through the chorus is so delicious, I don’t think I ever realized how beautiful that song is.

“Belong”, on the other hand, what a lol! Sounds like a song a born-again creepy teen would put on a mix CD

I can’t quote any clunkers from “Green”, just “World Leader Pretend” and “You Are Everything” and “The Wrong Child” and “I Remember California” made me grimace increasingly with every line, every lyric Stipe repeats had me saying “oh you’re gonna sing that one again?” Ugh. Green joins Wild At Heart and James’ Gold Mother as “awful things from around 1990 made by artists I otherwise adore”

Well, I just listened to Out Of Time and I have never enjoyed it more! I don’t even like “Radio Song” but it was such a relief to hear it after Green.

The best thing about Out Of Time is “Me In Honey” tucked away at the end, what a great track. The only surprise really was realizing that “Shiny Happy People” isn’t the corniest song on the album, it isn’t even corny at all, it just rules in every way, the way the three vocal parts coruscate through the chorus is so delicious, I don’t think I ever realized how beautiful that song is.

“Belong”, on the other hand, what a lol! Sounds like a song a born-again creepy teen would put on a mix CD

I can’t quote any clunkers from “Green”, just “World Leader Pretend” and “You Are Everything” and “The Wrong Child” and “I Remember California” made me grimace increasingly with every line, every lyric Stipe repeats had me saying “oh you’re gonna sing that one again?” Ugh. Green joins Wild At Heart and James’ Gold Mother as “awful things from around 1990 made by artists I otherwise adore”

Green joins Wild At Heart and James’ Gold Mother as “awful things from around 1990 made by artists I otherwise adore”

These controps jumped the barricade and headed for the sea

The sea

Ooooooooooooooooooooh ohooooooooooh

i like that stipe reused a bit of the "radio song" chorus melody for "nightswimming", a much better song. whenever they tried to be funky it always turned out really goofy, idk why they could never quite pull it off.

"shiny happy people" is so odd and ridiculous that it kinda transcends being corny. it's still very goofy but it's one of their best in that goofy upbeat pop mode.

Me in Honey really is "tucked away" - when I was young I thought it was a bit of a boring throwaway, and now I love it as relief after "Country Feedback".

Stipe is best when he's got backing vocals (Mills, or Pierson, or whoever) swirling around him - that's part of what I don't like about the later records. Mills the vocalist really seems to disappear from Monster to Around the Sun.

xpost Funky REM never really gets worse than "Lotus"

OOT's dark horse is Texarkana I think - it was the last one that I loved and now its one of my favs on the whole record

actually similar to I Remember California being the penultimate song on Green for me to love and these days do I ever

i think "lotus" is relatively successful there lol. it's just an understated groove instead of this big goofy thing

Stipe is best when he's got backing vocals (Mills, or Pierson, or whoever) swirling around him - that's part of what I don't like about the later records. Mills the vocalist really seems to disappear from Monster to Around the Sun.

yeah the vocal arrangements are their very best thing about them as a band. there's still some of it on new adventures and up but nowhere near as much as there once was

I just listened to Automatic and wow, this classic masterpiece album is impossible to underrate

It is shocking to hear Stipe transform overnight into “the best singer in the world”. “Sidewinder” may have just knocked out “Harborcoat” as my favourite-ever REM song. I am maybe the dumbest bitch on the planet for this but I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of “Everybody Hurts” even after I’ve killfiled all the other “Hey Jude”s of the world.

“Nightswimming” has always struck me as so weird, that piano performance is so rhythmically square and every note is equally heavy velocity, it sounds so fake and strange, and yet I can’t imagine the song working with a more sensitive performance. This album is so good I listened to it twice

Easily Out Of Time, likely followed up by New Adventures. Monster/Automatic on level pegging. Don't like Green very much other than a song or two. Not heard Document enough to have an emotional connection to it - I should fix that

I like World Leader Pretend. That's the Green keeper

Ufo

i like that stipe reused a bit of the "radio song" chorus melody for "nightswimming"

I don't think I ever noticed that! Good callout.

Given the length and variety of their career I find it easy to forgive them for recycling. The most obvious example being "Electrolite," a good song that got used more than once.

And which itself has Nightswimming as an antecedent

Good point upthread about Mills' backing vocals taking a backseat for quite a long time. I do lament that a bit.

Does it ever happen when you’re driving and listening to music that you think about what would happen if you were to crash, and spend the final 20 minutes of your life gored in an upended car while the stereo plays out the rest of the album you’re currently listening to?

Anyway I have also been listening to everything Jim O’Rourke has ever recorded and when the endless back half of “Happy Days” was playing out and I was forcing myself to endure it I was driving so so fastidiously

I know this is the wrong thread for this post but anyway

i love "sidewinder" but it can't dethrone "harborcoat" as #1. it's probably top 5 though at the very least. "everybody hurts" is absolutely in the too corny basket for me. i think i'd be more sympathetic to it if it didn't just revolve around that guitar arpeggio, that's just too simple.

i love the weird stilted piano on "nightswimming", i wonder if the intention was to make it sound like a player piano? it fits well with how circular the part is

xp

I do think about that!

I believe the Tang version of Spacemen 3's Perfect Prescription had liner notes that mentioned a car wreck and getting the cassette out of the car in an impound lot later? I don't have it anymore, so I could be remembering that wrong. But I think that's what put it in my head.

I usually think about it when I'm listening to something goofy and how I would feel stupid pinned in a car with They Might Be Giants or Tiny Tim blaring.

I wrote off our 18-yo Ford Focus a few weeks ago in an incredibly minor no-other-vehicle-involved accident with Sun Ra's Sea Of Sounds off Space Is The Place on the stereo. It made a very stressful situation much, much worse.

The most obvious example being "Electrolite," a good song that got used more than once.

when did they recycle that?

Ufo I am pretty certain that the music for "Electrolite" was used for a different set of lyrics hut can't recall right now, and my bass player who told me that is currently still asleep so I can't ask him.

Anyway Re Nightswimming can I just say that I feel like there is a dearth of dope-ass oboe solos?

Sure, Mozart and Correlli wrote some sick AF oboe riffs, but for pop/rock/indie/alt music, you get... "Nightswimming." "Crazy for You." What else?

(And before anybody says "Life in a Northern Town," pretty sure that is a cor anglais, fool.)

"Twist in My Sobriety"

dreams they complicate my life

momentary sound collage of twelve music boxes playing at once

Oh -- I thought it was a clarinet or oboe xpost

I can’t think of any really. There’s an oboe moment on Siberry’s “Temple” (performed by Eno, apparently) but it’s kinda buried and I always wondered if it was real or synth

Big REM ballads ranked:

"You Are the Everything" >>>>>> "Strange Currencies" > "Everybody Hurts"

there's a bunch of go-betweens songs with oboe aren't there?

Oboe's? 'Fallen Angel' by King Crimson springs to mind and er.... 'War Dance' by XTC lol

Go-Betweens employed an oboe.

War Dance is a synth clarinet or rather what Andy calls a "singing penis"

Apparently "I Got You Babe" has oboe. I thought it was a clarinet. I am learning things today

I wanted to make a Pere Ubu joke here but decided not to

everyone knows the best oboe song is "ladytron" by roxy music

"War Dance" is one of the worst songs ever recorded.

imo 'one of the worst songs to be sandwiched between two of the best songs ever recorded' is much closer

(Daft lyrics but good music, Crocodile is for me the only sorta maybe kinda weakish link on Nonsuch)

by the time I get to “The Wrong Child” another feeling overtakes me, a similar feeling to listening to The Shaggs, that I’m compelled to listen to such a car crash, lyrical clunker after clunker piling up.

I think the lyrics of "The Wrong Child" are remarkable... I don't know another song quite like it:

I sit and watch those children
Jump in the tall grass
Leap the sprinkler
Walk in the ground
Bicycle clothespin spokes
The sound, the smell of swingset hands

The slower songs on Green (and OOT) are notable for how ponderous they are. Earlier albums were more inscrutable, and later albums became melancholy, but parts of Green and OOT have a real lost-in-the-ether element to them.

I feel like with Green, Stipe perfected his move toward making his lyrics "declarative" and comprehensible; while also retaining an aura of mystery and "evocativeness" (if that's a word... I guess not). It slips for me somewhat with the next two albums – his lyrics either lose their mystery ("Man in the Moon"), or the attempts to be evocative thru wordplay fall flat or feel forced ("Country Feedback"). Not that there aren't some great songs with very "direct" lyrics, like "Nightswiming."

Monster actually gets it back somewhat, I think his lyrics are particularly good on that one.

"Losing My Religion" sounds forced and lacking in mystery?

"Try Not to Breathe" is another very effective "character" song (I'm listening to it right now)... but I can't see liking these lyrics and not "The Wrong Child"'s, it's the same general approach (and I think the earlier song is even more poetic & interesting).

xp I'll have to think about "LMR"... it's somewhat hard to consider the lyrics in isolation, after hearing the song a zillion times; it's just so ingrained in my head.

I can't separate lyrics from music, and "Try Not to Breathe" is goddamn fetching.

I guess I feel like "LMR" has very interesting lyrics for a hit song, and the melody makes them feel powerful & meaningful, but they don't quite add up to anything in themselves. They're purposefully vague, right?

I don't mind vagueness.

the attempts to be evocative thru wordplay fall flat or feel forced ("Country Feedback")

no way

and i love that lmr is like a portrait of a breakup viewed from such a distance that you could easily mistake it for something else. its emotionally powerful use in aftersun cemented this for me

morrisp, again, you can't cleave lyrics from music. Upsetting its c&w roots with that sinister guitar drone, "Country Feedback" builds in intensity with each Stipe declarative sentence. The song devastates me.

I don't disagree! I was pretty much responding to fgti's critique of Green's "lyrical clunkers," and thinking thru the lyrics on their own (which I don't typically do...)

(I also don't disagree about "Country Feedback" being a powerful song – but I've always laughed a little at a line like, "You come to me with a bone in your hand"... it makes me picture The Flintstones or something.)

And (fwiw), I can see someone listening to a song like "I Remember California," and thinking it's corny, or just a pile-up of clichés – "I remember traffic jams," gee how original – but the cumulative impact of these (deceptively?) simple phrases, some of which aren't quite clear (what are "motor boys"?), just works for me.

these days-fall on me-cuyahoga is as good as it gets imo

― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Thursday, November 16, 2023 3:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

also Out of Time >>>>>>>>> Green

Out of Time is the worst of the Berry era.

Very high highs interspersed with songs that are just OK at best, or "belong" at worst.

in the past i've seen s reynolds talk of 'hidden shallows' in stipe's lyrics which seems like the oddest person to pick on for the simple reason that he's the only songwriter i've ever seen explicitly acknowledge the necessity to *never* be that sort of lyricist.

s reynolds doesn't seem like a talented enough writer to convincingly sing a line like "night time fell at the opening in the final act of the beginning of time" so it all comes out in the wash. not to overly white knight michael, who doesn't need it any more than like dylan or his hero p smith

Out of Time is the worst of the Berry era.

Would probably pick Automatic for this one

I love “hidden shallows” that’s very astute

I just scanned the lyrics on the offending Green songs and they don’t look so bad on the page. Idk! I just sat there today listening and thinking “wow wow wow I hate this”.

Also this particular thing is hard to describe, but I can really pick up on when a singer hasn’t taken the time to super-absorb the lyrics to a song so that they feel second nature in their delivery. Considering the insane lengths that Stipe must’ve gone to do deliver a song like “Sidewinder”, with all its nutty tight “callmewhenyoutrytowake her up”s and melodic leaps, like, it’s incredible that he was able to sing it so magically, it sounds like he’d been singing it for years. Nothing on Green sounds like that, there’s a kinda “still figuring it out” quality to the vocal performances which makes the lyrical choices feel even more last-minute and inessential

I listened to Monster too and it’s fine, I can’t get over how that one very-pretty song sounds exactly like Everybody Hurts and how Bang And Blame lifts its melody note-for-note from Losing My Religion. Do people like Tongue? I thought it was cute and fun

re: Stipe becoming the best singer in the world overnight, i remember a Bono quote from the early '90s saying something about that happening, how he'd suddenly morphed into this amazing crooner, just becoming the best singer around at the time.

Out of Time is the worst of the Berry era.

Would probably pick Automatic for this one

― a (waterface), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

lol I think Automatic is their best, full stop.

one very-pretty song sounds exactly like Everybody Hurts

That song is called “Love Theme From ‘The Bear’”

I listened to Monster too and it’s fine, I can’t get over how that one very-pretty song sounds exactly like Everybody Hurts and how Bang And Blame lifts its melody note-for-note from Losing My Religion. Do people like Tongue? I thought it was cute and fun

― as a lyricist he is from hell (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I really like Monster and I think it's aged well in their discography - no other REM album sounds like it.

I listened to it the other day and I had the realization that (although I like the song), "I Took Your Name" is the point where Peter Buck goes back to the same well one too many times.

I know it's Rolling Stone album guide received opinion, but those three early '90s megaplatinum albums are unfuckwithable.

That's me in the controps...

Alfred is right.

I will never not love these records. Ranking them is like choosing a favorite child. If I somehow had seven children.

REM's first ten albums (green is the first one i was semi-aware of at release) is the closest i think i'll ever come to live-experiencing the beatles. they were such a good band

Tongue is easily my Monster fave.

Radio Song is my least favorite track from the Berry days. Sooooo square and corny; there’s no room in my brain for Stipe and hip-hop together. Plus I’m just not into KRS-One.

I didn’t know Belong was considered a dud, that was one that helped win me over. There’s not a lot to it, but they’ve done much worse.

"belong" is the curative sequel to the displacement tragedy of "the wrong child"

Radio Song is weird, the A-section is so so good. The rest just makes. me. sad.

Like the world is collapsing.

One thing I would say about the big Warners albums…I don’t necessarily think of those albums as being much stronger on one side or another.

I would say that’s an issue with Reckoning, Life’s Rich Pageant and Document at least, they are to one extent or another frontloaded.

Document is probably the one I listen to most despite having a couple throwaway tracks. The first side is nearly perfect and the second is pretty good. I just love the IRS stuff overall way more than any of the Warners albums.

Automatic is maybe the actual BEST album here, but I rarely come back to it outside of a few songs. Monster is close behind it.

I like Green even though it feels a bit half-assed. The only times I saw them live were at the beginning and then the end of the Green tour, I was a super fan at that point. The early show absolutely ripped and was amazing. By the end of the tour, they felt like a different band, it was very lackluster despite having a similar setlist.

Out of Time feels like half of a decent album, some of the tracks are good to great, others are just miserable. It also felt rather half-assed and unfocused to me.

I don't like New Adventures whatsoever, never got the ILM love for that one.

i love Belong!!!

I've been listening to all their albums this week and have arrived at this ranking, which I'm sure will never be questioned nor debated.

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

Does it ever happen when you’re driving and listening to music that you think about what would happen if you were to crash, and spend the final 20 minutes of your life gored in an upended car while the stereo plays out the rest of the album you’re currently listening to?

I had Tourfilm on VHS and loved it. "King of Birds" on that was really good.

At the time, I had no clue what "After Hours" was, I hadn't heard the Velvets yet.

my surely never questioned much less debated ranking

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

post-Bill, in no particular order (Reveal; Up; Collapse into Now; Around the Sun; Accelerate)

i've watched the children come and go
a late long march into spring
i sit and watch those children jump in the tall grass
leap the sprinklers

she held the child
and whispered with calm, calm BELONG

i'm not supposed to be like this
BUT IT'S OKAY

it has been established that there is no incorrect REM album ranking, they are all correct in certain ways. even a strictly chronological ranking would be correct in some ways. my current power rankings are:

life's rich pageant
murmur
automatic
chronic town
reckoning
fables
document
green
new adventures
out of time
up
reveal
collapse, accelerate, around the sun

will gladly listen to any in full on a car ride except for that bottom line, and those have their moments

Fables is often underrated. Feeling Gravity’s Pull is great.

When the world is a monster
Bad to swallow you whole
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in
Throw your trolls out the door

and if the wind were colors
and if the air could speak

Holy shit, there is a bootleg of the first show of theirs I saw

https://archive.org/details/REM_1985-11-02/1985-11-02+CU+Events+Center%2C+Boulder%2C+Colorado/CD+1/Track+01.flac

27 songs!

will gladly listen to any in full on a car ride except for that bottom line, and those have their moments

― i really like that!! (z_tbd), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

At least Accelerate and Collapse put their worst songs at the very end, so the car ride would generally be tolerable until you just end the album early.

Do not get the hate for Accelerate, 3-4 tracks up there with their greats, for me.

xp

tbh i'm not sure i've ever even gotten to the end of those two, despite enjoying them more than around the sun.

xp

i don't hate accelerate, could never hate any rem, can't imagine it :)

btw, this is probably a very good place to ask this:

what is the relationship between rem and smashing pumpkins? i feel like i should know this, that i've known it and forgotten it, or something. but i was reminded of it when listening to the bonus disc of the Up reissue, which was the Party of Five show. at two different points in the set, stipe talks about smashing pumpkins and billy corgan. in the first, he reminisces about seeing smashing pumpkins at the same place and how it ruled. in the second, Stipe seems to mock corgan's vocal delivery on "disarm", and even says “I’m gonna write a melody that motherfucker will never touch in his life…and this is how it goes: “, before performing a not great, showy version of disarm with his own melody. the crowd cheers, and he says “can you imagine?”. that seems...extremely rude to do?

but then i google (which sucks now) corgan/rem and mainly see that they really respect each other?

excuse me, this is probably not possible, but is there anyone on the music forum that is familiar with the lore of underground bands rem AND smashing pumpkins?

Despite having been a huge teenage fan of both bands, I wasn’t aware of any connection beyond Mike Mills playing on a Siamese Dream track (“Soma”).

Is he to be reached?

there's an interview from 2011 (https://www.chicagotribune.com/redeye/redeye-qa-smashing-pumpkins-billy-corgan-20111011-story.html) where they all seem like friends:

Q: Obviously you’ve heard about R.E.M. breaking up. I’m guessing you’re someone who can appreciate the difficulty of keeping a band together over the long haul.

Corgan: I also know all those guys personally. Not, like, BFFs, but Mike Mills played on “Siamese Dream,” I’ve known Michael (Stipe) since 1991 and I’ve been to Peter Buck’s house and hung out. I know them as people, and I’m really surprised because if you said, “Name a band you don’t think will ever break up,” I would think of them.

so maybe the stage banter on the party of five show is just really ironic and i didn't pick up on it. hell, it's on the party of five thing, probably near L.A., perhaps corgan or his agent was in the crowd or something

R.E.M.'s session drummer at the time, Joey Waronker, got his "start" (beyond his music-biz family) in the band Walt Mink, who felt their career ambitions were derailed by Caroline label-mates Smashing Pumpkins. Maybe he put a bug in Stipe's ear...

Also, three of the R.E.M. guys had recently played on Whitechocolatespaceegg by Liz Phair – who is, like the Pumpkins, from Chicago (and doesn't seem like she would have been tight w/Corgan, if they know each other at all). Just grasping at straws here!

joey waronker also played drums on "Perfect"!

this is also beck's fault

honestly though, curious if anyone else who listened to that party of five recording thought stipe was trying to be cruel (that's what i thought, on first listen!) to corgan re: "disarm" or if it was a joke that didn't land with me (happens constantly!)

Fables still my favorite. Barely. In the “which one could you never ever part with” sense.

Do not get the hate for Accelerate, 3-4 tracks up there with their greats, for me.

― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I don't hate Accelerate, even as I put it last in my ranking. Each of the last three have one or two songs that I really dislike--a rare thing for an REM album! And each has three or four that I think are great. So the difference between them ultimately comes down to the middle pack of songs - how many are just average or just a little better than average? So it's really all just a matter of degree.

OoT from the platinum menu

joey waronker also played drums on "Perfect"!

He was taking 'em down from the inside!!!

i just listened the bit on the up reissue bonus disc where stipe briefly does "disarm" (it's after "i'm not over you"). he talks about how he'd written his first ever song on acoustic guitar and showed it to corgan backstage at the tibet house benefit concert in 1997 (where they'd performed together, doing "e-bow the letter" with patti smith), who pointed out that the chords were just disarm (which stipe briefly covers there), and stipe said he took it as a challenge to write a better melody than "disarm", which he then performs wordlessly - i guess he never turned that idea into a full song? it's just stipe telling a funny story about how he accidentally ripped off corgan when writing a song. they're friends, it doesn't seem mean-spirited at all.

He (unconsciously) ripped off "Disarm," and then happened to play the song for Corgan? What a weird story

new adventures/murmur
monster
green
reckoning
up
lifes rich pageant
automatic for the people
document
fables of the reconstruction
out of time
around the sun
collapse into now
accelerate
reveal

idk seems right. feel like i'm doing out of time and fables dirty so i'll just say "me in honey," "kohoutek," and "green grow the rushes" are prob all in my r.e.m. top 20

i used to hate collapse into now, find the lyrics on it a little radioactive like fgti does green's, but i had a pretty pleasant time revisiting it yesterday, "blue" is a cool mashup of "country feedback" and "e-bow the letter"

"green grow the rushes"...top 20

*heavy otm*

i used to hate collapse into now, find the lyrics on it a little radioactive like fgti does green's

Yeah is that the one where he goes "Death is pretty final / I'm collecting vinyl"? Do not like, ha ha

That one’s on Accelerate and is def one of their worst songs

“And the weblogs that get tangled
As you willie and you wangle”

My list:

LRP
OTT
Automatic
Murmur
Monster
Reckoning
NAIH
Document
Fables
The rest
Green

something like this, keeping in mind that i haven't listened to a bunch of these in ages

lifes rich pageant
chronic town
murmur
reckoning
fables of the reconstruction
new adventures in hifi
automatic for the people
out of time
up
document
green
monster
accelerate
collapse into now
reveal
around the sun

Xpost ha, I love the “hey steady steady / in my mind” part of that song, I’m Gonna DJ. It’s a fun chorus despite the cringe vinyl line.

Relatedly I always wish there was a better song attached to the chorus of “Diminished”. The section of that song with the slide guitar and “sing along…” gets close to the beauty of the early 90s records, but the rest of the song has no idea what it’s doing.

LRP: the consensus greatest album of all time

xp

agree that diminished is a beautiful song in search of a core

FotR/RotF
Murmur
LRP
CT
OoT (the highs are just so so high)
AftP
Reckoning (a bit too consistent)
Document (I should like this more…)
Monster (maybe a tie with Docu)
NAiHF (good stuff but simply too long)
Green
(Post Berry stuff)

the entirety of “diminished” is gorgeous

Automatic
Green
Up
Out of Time
Document
Hi-Fi
LRP
Monster
Reckoning
Murmur
Reveal
Fables
Accelerate
Collapse Into Now
Around the Sun

This is fun! Alfo I’m glad I’m not alone re my Green feelings, it’s not easy hating Green

I’m gonna relisten to Monster today. Crush With Eyeliner is so fun. It does feel like Buck is having a “new guitar pedals” album— not a criticism so much as it just demonstrates how inventive and essential his guitar playing is to this band’s transcendence. I can’t think of a rock guitarist I admire more, this morning, tbh

I can’t wait to get to Hi-Fi. It’s always been in my Top 5 (along w Murmur, Reckoning, LRP and AftP)

I think too I wanna give Fables another shot, I don’t think it’s fair to assess it between its adjacents. The mix is so comparatively guitar-forward (the rhythm section buried) that it is jarring in this listening context

In a more just world, “Strange Currencies” would be the go-to 3rd act teen movie montage sync, instead of “Everybody Hurts”. It is weird to hear such a beautiful song and yet feel that it’s the product of pressure-for-another-hit.

“Bang And Blame” is annoying! Otherwise Monster is real good. “I Don’t Sleep” is so lovely, the way Stipe changes the timbre of his voice to suddenly become Green Gartside on the choruses is shiver-inducing

"Let Me In" and "Circus Envy" and "You" -- damn.

Yeah no kidding. The album ends so well. It feels too that Stipe is at the zenith of his Patti Smith fandom, he channels her here

Also I thought of a better title for “E-Bow The Letter”, and it’s “Bono The Rapper”

it's not as corny as that

Crush With Eyeliner

She's a sad tomato

People really rate “E-Bow”! I don’t like it. Oh well.

My feeling with Hi-Fi was similar to Reckoning— my long-time adoration for these albums was inspired by listening to the first half of both over and over as a teen. Hi-Fi is long! And mostly great. It’s a triumph of production, it’s stylistically diverse but always sounds of-a-piece. But I honestly can’t remember even listening to “Low Desert” before, I think I always tuned out by that point or something; this, after singing along to the a-side word for word. Man, I love “New Test Leper”. I think maybe people underrate this album because of all the goofy song titles, maybe

"Let Me In" and "Circus Envy" and "You" -- damn.

― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 18 November 2023 11:08 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Circus Envy" is a weak link for so many and I get why but I love it - sounds halfway between Radio Friendly Unit Shifter and the Manics' My Guernica. Basically its a three song album finale to rival Automatic's

My mum stopped buying R.E.M.'s CDs after Monster - like a lot of people, true, but with her I've never quite understood why because she always described them as one of her favourite bands for years yet, yet I doubt she'd have remembered anything post-Kenneth anyway. It's not like with U2 where she was the genuine real-life example of 'got off at The Fly and got back on again at Beautiful Day'. But it meant that for years, until I bought the post-Monster years for myself, they were sort of my "uncle's band" in my head. I got to know what Hi-Fi, Up and Reveal looked like - i.e. the full artwork, disc designs, booklets - years before I heard any of them.

There used to be footage of the Monster CD-ROM on YouTube and I'm heartbroken that it's gone.

the chorus of "e-bow" is quite nice but stipe's spoken word thing just isn't particularly compelling (better than bono's rapping, worse than the edge's!). new adventures is definitely too long but i'd still rather listen to it than anything else post-lrp

“New Test Leper” is an unbelievable song, I get caught in its narrative and dragged into its emotional turmoil every time.

Put pepper in my coffee,
I forgot to bark
... Uncle Band

New Test Leper, E-Bow and Leave are my favourites on Hi-Fi. If we catch each other at the right moment I find them all devastating.

gave Green a fresh listen last night, and I'm not as down on it as fgti, but it's always been near the bottom for me and i don't think that'll ever change. some lovely songs in there, and a couple of great rockin' performances in desperate need of more developed lyrics. but a lot of it feels underwritten and overproduced to me. like whatever it is that people don't like about Fables, that's how this album plays for me.

How the West Was Won is a bridge to Up. Not intentionally - that song came together quickly and was a breeze to work on, compared to Up's laborious, detail-intensive creation - but they share the same open-ended, downtempo coffee table feel. Definitely one of the two best free jazz piano breaks from a rock single around this time too (with The Heart's Filthy Lesson).

The only song I don't straight up love on Green quite as much as the others is the untitled one, which ig isn't part of the core body anyway, but that gets by almost entirely on spirit and feel - the sound of a group discovering a new way of doing things in real time.

Yeah! I thought that about “How The West”, it was obviously not Garson but it was inspired by him. What a great production that song is. Also AAAAAAAAAA.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082274490319

Siri wouldn’t play “Up”, it kept putting on Ariana Grande instead, so I asked it to play “Reveal”. I don’t like this. It sounds like Robbie Williams demos. Stipe is clearly doing the work tho, the songs are nice.

I'm one of this board's lone Reveal defenders. I really love how of its time it sounds - in the sense that most of it embodies this sunshine pop feel that is *very* much my version of 2001 (liminal early childhood sounds) bcuz of its similarities to Gregg Alexander's genuinely great hits with Ronan Keating and Texas, or something like Travis' Sing which has this lite-psych production with lots of sonic details dancing warmly over the music.

hate the hot takes in this thread, “e-bow” is so shudderingly beautiful, my favorite rem song for a while (still???). these corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet

the mellotron!

i guess on the surface it is a super weird and ungainly thing to release as a single but the titular e-bow and patti smith’s vocal just glow

god knows why anytime stipe does a spoken word thing i am like banging my hands on a table and hooting and hollering

All the boys and all the girls
Sweet-toothed
Each and every one a little scary
I said your name

Yeah, "E-Bow" was the last R.E.M. song I loved (or even really liked, I guess).

I was on a boring camping holiday and travelled two hours to buy “E-Bow” on cassingle, the day it came out, at Norwich Our Price. The glamour!!!

I love it but the end section where Patti sings “tastes like fear” always pulls me out a bit, because it’s a bit silly, and I always sing “tastes like feet”. Otherwise it’s fantastic. It’s one of those classic REM songs that doesn’t sound like anything else.

“Reveal” (and “Around The Sun”) had me hyper-aware of Stipe’s confidence-growth as a songwriter, there is a moment toward the end of “Saturn Return” (on Reveal) where he’s just so exposed and confident and it felt like the total inversion of the early IRS records, where he was the appealingly shy guy in front of a taut and extroverted backing band

The last song on Reveal, “Beachball”, is kinda lovely, but the real faceplant is “I’ll Take The Rain” right before it, it’s almost a heart warmer but something about it just trips and falls. I don’t think I noticed before that “Imitation Of Life” is somewhat of a clips episode, lyric-wise, lots of little nods to previous songs, what a great song

Oh and that second song? “I’ve Been High”? Wow. What a series of bad production decisions. Jaw-dropping!

Around The Sun is really specific in its failure, the entire production/songwriting has shifted away from “every part is essential” to being this kinda mealy fruit salad of “things”. It’s very under-mixed compared to the other albums, lots of room, and I kept wondering what it’d be like if it was as punchy and compressed as, say, Out Of Time, but truth is none of the instrumental components are/were worth bringing to the forefront. Could be a casualty of early-ProTools creative tendencies? Either way, like Reveal, Stipe sounds just as committed as ever. It’s nice to hear this band in its “falling off” stage and know it’s not because the songs themselves are weak.

I'm one of this board's lone Reveal defenders. I really love how of its time it sounds - in the sense that most of it embodies this sunshine pop feel that is *very* much my version of 2001 (liminal early childhood sounds) bcuz of its similarities to Gregg Alexander's genuinely great hits with Ronan Keating and Texas, or something like Travis' Sing which has this lite-psych production with lots of sonic details dancing warmly over the music.

Opening song “The Lifting” definitely did this for me, yeah, but the rest of it was pretty floppy

drawing patterns with a cork on the tablecloth
promising volcanic change of plot

a nice thing i'll say about reveal is that i adore buck's guitar playing on it, like "saturn return" is a hard song for me to enjoy but his guitar work is full of these clear yet desperately bent notes clawing out of this noisy mass and it's imo the the peak of the kind of composition and tone he'd been working toward since monster

The best REM song I heard today was “Leave”. It overstays its welcome and ends half-heartedly but I don’t care, what a wonderful send-off for Berry

The worst REM songs I heard today were all off of “Reveal”. Either “I’ve Been High” or “She Just Wants To Be”. And the song on ATS with Q-Tip on it, it’s not conceptually bad but the rap stinks and so does the song before it

And yes ivy. you are otm

REM's first ten albums (green is the first one i was semi-aware of at release) is the closest i think i'll ever come to live-experiencing the beatles. they were such a good band

― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, November 17, 2023 12:37 PM (yesterday)

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

The Micky Dolenz EP is nice. He brings out a lot of cool elements of the songs and the fact that it spans "Radio Free Europe" to "Leaving New York" is a nice way of making it all one.

I have Up last but I like it a lot. It has fricking "Hope" on it, come on.

I was surprised by Dolenz' version of "Man on the Moon," actually. It's idiosyncratic, and not a real anthemic version.

gave Reveal a fresh listen after all the talk. it's still a very mixed bag and i still only really like the same handful of songs i always did. but for the last few days I've had all these different bits stuck in my head, of songs I *don't* like --- especially All the Way to Reno and Chorus and the Ring.

so i guess i have to admit that there's great melodic material scattered all throughout the record... let down by lugubrious tempos and some really dull, over-repeated refrains. the verse and prechorus of Reno are fantastic, and all the dreamy-buzzy-bee accents add a lot. but then that chorus arrives and i'm instantly bored.

The Lifting is so good though. i think of this as such a keyboard-and-production album, but as with Airportman on Up, those smeary waves of fuzzed-out guitar are really really essential. pretty straight line from Monster to "Be Mine" to where he ends up on these albums, as far from his previously iconic sound as George Harrison when he switched to the slide.

Document has been a rough relisten- half of the songs sound like they would’ve been better by the B-52s (they would’ve fared much better with the “Strange” cover imho)

The Bear confirmed that "Oh My Heart" is a great last-gasp REM song.

^Yeah, that got me interested to at least revisit the album.

Oh My Heart bugs me just because it's a callback to "Houston", and the melody of the verses on both songs doesn't really seem worthy of two songs. But I do like the chorus on both.

I may like both "Walk It Back" and "Every Day Is Yours to Win" better than that one.

"oh my heart" was the thing that got me to go back and check out everything from the beginning. i still like it.

i made a list
of things to say
but all i want to say
all i really want to say is

You gotta hear Micky Dolenz do this part of "Leaving New York"

And all not lost, still in my eye
Shadow of necklace across your thigh
I might've lived my life in a dream, but I swear, this is real
Memory fuses and shatters like glass
Mercurial future, forget the past
It's you, it's what I feel

Was on a 7 hour solo car drive and went through their discography and I can still confirm Up rules. “The Apologist” is something else.

I took a break from my big listen-through but I’m gonna finish today. It’s been nice hearing REM ambiently (in grocery stores, in restaurant playlists) and have this deeper familiarity and affection for the band

i really like collapse into now now, it’s better realized and more consistent than accelerate, my only issue is the tempos feel a little rushed throughout, which obv makes me continue to miss bill berry, a drummer i often think of as nervy and taut in the post-punk tradition until i remember what he’s doing on stuff like “how the west was won” and “drive” is soo patient and spacious

there is a moment toward the end of “Saturn Return” (on Reveal) where he’s just so exposed and confident

I'm having a hard time picking up what this thread is ranking, and searched for eephus and found a lot of baseball posts.

Sometimes I wonder if a 28 year old find early REM like early Go-Between's. Like, what is this weird jangle band?

anyway, did they have a more anthemic chorus than "here we are"?

when I was a kid just getting into alternative rock, REM seemed like rock music for “smart” people

Sometimes I wonder if a 28 year old find early REM like early Go-Between's. Like, what is this weird jangle band?

no? there's a long history of jangle-pop in indie rock so those have always made sense as the beginnings of that tradition

Up kinda rules. I haven’t heard it in 20+ years. The biggest surprise is all these secret string arrangements hiding in the mix, all super interesting but barely they’re like an intricately painted matte backdrop. “Hope” is amazing! I wasn’t aware of the L Cohen connection but it was extremely obvious without any foreknowledge, and I was listening and thinking that the song elevated both Cohen and Stipe as songwriters rather than feeling like a lift, it more felt like Stipe made a pilgrimage to drink from the same fountain. Generally the songs consistently plod and feel, well, not unfinished, but they lack the same investment and worshipped-feel that Hi-Fi had. As “lesser albums” go you can’t really do better than this imo

*barely there

*workshopped-feel. Man my phone doesn’t agree with my style choices

up is way better than you would expect from 'the drummer left the band and they all got into synths & drum machines', especially given how unsuited on paper they seemed to that pivot. not everything works on it (there's definitely a tendency to plod) and i don't know if all the ideas on it really hold together overall but it's definitely a success. i wish "daysleeper" had a gorgeous overlapping backing vocal part from mills, that's what would elevate it to greatness.

"Hope" is by far the best song on the record for production/melody/singing/whatnot, IMO. It might be the only keeper for me.

"You're in the Air" is gorgeous, but, like "Diminished" it doesn't feel fully-formed. There's sort of a pre-Arcade Fire template to several of the songs on this album - all these mid-paced rock songs that start to accelerate and build as they go on... but I don't love Arcade Fire and REM don't really have the stupid swagger to pull it off.

There's a nice demo of "Why Not Smile" that I prefer to the finished version:

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

always on board for some up love. if we polled best rem album opener, "airportman" would get my vote.

That would be an interesting poll.

How the tracks were polled and where it got us

I think it’s the best possible opener for Up but there’s no way I’d vote for “Airportman” over RFE, Harborcoat, Finest Worksong, Pop Song 89, Drive, HTWWWAWIGU, or even The Lifting, I’m afraid!

It’d def beat out Radio Song tho

Lol @ fgti.

I ate the POLLtus

Oddly even tho I rate Harborcoat higher as an REM song overall, “best opening track” has to be Finest Worksong imo

Pop Song ‘89 for me (even tho I feel the same way about Harborcoat)

"Wolves, Lower" if it counts.

"The Lifting" is top five REM opener imo

I dig "Pop Song 89" as much as anyone here, but upon reflection I believe fgti's opinion may be the correct one.

Though I had to give serious thought to whether "Finest Worksong" might be tied with "Radio Free Europe."

gonna rank em

harborcoat
what’s the frequency kenneth
pop song 89
finest worksong
how the west was won and where it got us
radio free europe
begin the begin
drive
feeling gravitys pull
airportman
the lifting (demo version would be much higher)
living well is the best revenge
discoverer
radio song
leaving new york

that is some serious shade on "leaving ny" lol

One can never reexperience the joy of buying a new album and hearing its first track for the first time. REM and their producers appear to have understood this. And it's worth noting that they had so many openers that just give you that instant sense of heart-lifting excitement.

Generally, speaking: Uptempo, major key, a good combination of familiarity and surprise.

What I came up with a few years ago. The tl;dr:

Meh

Discoverer
Radio Song
Leaving New York

Sound, Solid

Airportman
Harborcoat
Pop Song ‘89
Feeling Gravity’s Pull
How the West Was Won and Where It Cost Us
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
Living Well is the Best Revenge

Good to Great

Begin the Begin
Radio Free Europe
Wolves, Lower
Finest Worksong
Drive
The Lifting

("Drive" being a major outlier from my general rule, of course. But normally one tries to grab the audience quickly and that takes a very specific kind of energy.)

I remember distinctly this band clicking for me for the first time when a girlfriend made me a mixtape and I heard "Wolves, Lower."

I'm less fond of "Drive" and more fond of "Discoverer" but I pretty much agree with that list.
"Pop Song '89" is OK but the sound and production of it announces "primary colours-era R.E.M.", as I think of it, where the sonic mystery evaporated for a few years.

Like that fuzz guitar lead is just cartoony to me.

...or bubblegum, which is fine in its place, but not what I wanted from them.

I'll be the guy who loves Radio Song again. But all of these are wonderful.

Drive
Finest Worksong
Radio Free Europe
Radio Song
What’s the Frequency Kenneth
Pop Song 89
Feeling Gravity's Pull
Harborcoat
Begin the Begin
Wolves Lower

>>> The rest

Fuck, how DO I rank these

Like this apparently

Drive
Radio Free Europe
Pop Song 89
Finest Worksong
How the West Was Won
Airportman
What's the Frequency Kenneth
Radio Song
Harborcoat
The Lifting
Begin the Begin
Feeling Gravitys Pull
Living Well
Leaving New York
Discoverer

Actually, if I'm hoooonest, The Lifting above Harborcoat

I don't want to put Wolves, Lower in there but it would be AHEM lower

Aaargh I even forgot about Kenneth (I always forget Monster exists). Name a band with a higher batting average for perfect album openers

“Leaving New York” is so bad, it’s almost like they didn’t want anyone listening to more of the album (and it was the single!)

Actually, if I'm hoooonest, The Lifting above Harborcoat

― you can see me from westbury white horse,

otm

You've said the air was singing
It's calling you you don't believe
These things you've never seen
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never
Never

that is some serious shade on "leaving ny" lol

― "another slice of death, please." (Austin), Friday, November 24, 2023 12:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like the song but “leaving was never my proud” is prob stipe’s worst nonsense

Finest Worksong
Pop Song 89
Radio Free Europe
Drive
The Lifting
Airportman
What's the Frequency, Kenneth
Radio Song
Discoverer
Begin the Begin
Feeling Gravity's Pull
Harborcoat
Leaving New York
Living Well is the Best Revenge
How the West was Won and Where it Got Us

I’ve never liked “RFE” that much (besides the bridge), which I guess is a somewhat unusual R.E.M. opinion. I even tend to skip it when I put Murmur on…

Yeah it’s just an amazing song on an album of other also amazing songs

The Murmur song I am inclined to skip is “We Walk” and it’s not even a bad song really

Relistening to Hi-Fi made me realize how much I’d teenage-internalized all the instrumental components of How The West and I’ve been cribbing from them a great deal without even consciously knowing

I have already said that I cannot and will not rank these songs (any more than I will rank my children)

but I will say that Chuck and fgti are bringing high-quality opinions here.

And everything Alfred wrote about "Radio Song" is 127% correct.

Yeah it’s just an amazing song on an album of other also amazing songs

The Murmur song I am inclined to skip is “We Walk” and it’s not even a bad song really

― meaner stinks meat bake it cone (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, November 24, 2023 2:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

I have such fond memories associated with "We Walk" that I am constitutionally incapable of skipping it.

I like “We Walk” a lot!

something like this tierwise.
Congratulate Me
radio free europe
begin the begin
feeling gravitys pull

hey, kids, rock and roll
harborcoat
drive

Throw Thoreau and rearrange
what’s the frequency kenneth
pop song 89
finest worksong
how the west was won and where it got us
discoverer
radio song

sad and lost apostles
airportman
living well is the best revenge
the lifting
leaving new york

I'm having a hard time picking up what this thread is ranking, and searched for eephus and found a lot of baseball posts.

Geez, do I have to post my low rating of AFTP 100 more times in order to move my primary REM challop up the search rankings?

The ominous crashes make We Walk

"we walk" is cute. not my pick from that album, but i've never not loved it.

When I think of New Adventures I wonder if it was one 'risky' lead single too far for the casual fans, even if it charted high

To be fair there are next to bugger all decent proper singles on that album anyway

xp Definitely was in the US. Probably in the UK too although their highest charting to date (but that's partly because it was the latter half of 1996 - suddenly first week debuts were everything)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Bow_the_Letter#Release_and_impact

Some interesting quotes here

Many a time I've seen people say 'they should have gone with Bittersweet Me'/'The Wake Up Bomb'. Come on

In the UK, hardcore fans buying the CD single definitely did not mean popularly was peaking

Yeah that's my point. It was the charts that were changing.

Having said that, releasing something like Bittersweet Me or The Wake Up Bomb would be a case of Monster II or songs that sound like single #3 offerings, so why not go for the more out there offering

'96 was a year for it - The 13th, Who You Are, What's in the Box?

"e-bow the letter" is a fucking masterpiece. among the best of their best.

single or no.

the most obvious hit on hi-fi to me is “electrolite,” even tho it wasn’t one lol

it was in the UK. Actually reckon it would have been a decent shout for the lead single

The best songs on NAiHF are "Undertow" and "Departure" fwiw, both rockers but neither in any way Monster redux, they're just kind of their own thing that the band decided to do for this record and didn't really return to

xpost Electrolite was indeed not a big hit but a single of moderate success here. I suppose like Bittersweet Me it doesn't scream return or artistic rebirth like Kenneth etc

"E-Bow the Letter" is great if you're the kind of person who thinks "Country Feedback" is the best song they ever wrote, and I do recognize that some members of the band are this kind of person.

idk. Out of love for ivy. I gave “E-Bow” another shot but it just sounds worse and worse to me after repeated listens. Bonorap was too kind really, the lyrics even look OK in places but just come blustering out and it’s bad, it’s bad! “Maria Callas… wherever she is” she’s dead. This is the second time of many that a lyric is just a celebrity name and whenever a songwriter does this I think of Italian restaurants with celerities on the walls, Stipe looking around the photographs for lyrical inspiration. If this song came out and I ran into a Michael Stipe I’d grab him by the shoulder and say “Maria Callas: name ten songs”

I think the glam on Hi-Fi is more fully realised and confident than on Monster. Which isn't a criticism of the latter album at all, mind.

As for me, despite the number of times I've listened to this record, I had to go back and play "E-Bow" to remember which song it was. Oh yeah, that one!

is it worse that it’s actually:

dreaming of maria callas
whoever she is

Never can forget Andy Partridge referring to it as 'E-Bow Shite'

And an album late as well. He was talking about it in 1999 like it was still their latest thing.

this fame thing
i don’t get it
i wrap my hand in plastic and try to look through it
maybelline eyes and girl-as-boy moves

about a billion million times better than anything bono ever wrote imo

To be fair I can't really get behind releasing your uncommercial artistic statement single first if it doesn't actually cause any fireworks beyond your hardcore fans. Is there any point whatsoever, beyond not having an suitable/'interesting' lead single

*a

To be fair there is also the parallel 90s alt rock thing of having a specific fanbase-catering first single before the second single is there to set things up properly. Losing My Religion and Smells Like Teen Spirit were both intended as such. Key word is intended ofc.

Drive would be another that actually was just the fanbase single before Man on the Moon and beyond got it going.

i think: whatever, it’s an amazing song, buck’s e-bow part is such a light-viewed-through-smoke kind of thing it deserves to be name checked in the title, and as a lead single it is ultimately representative of hi-fi’s vibe, bc it sounds like something that fell out of someone’s mind at 3 am on a tour bus on a long ride from nowhere to nowhere

I believe that the likes of Losing My Religion etc had a shot in the dark, whereas E-Bow was more here's an odd album track that's 'different'

I guess because it was just by now 1996. R.E.M. hadn't realised, or chose to ignore, that doing that wasn't really on the cards for them anymore (as it wasn't for the Cure, Pearl Jam etc)

Indeed

“E-Bow” is a whole vibe… I guess you either feel it or you don’t. I can’t see picking apart the lyrics; their delivery and the music just works so well for me.

(An exception to the rule: Depeche Mode? Because I'd say (at least in the UK) It's No Good is certainly better known, such as it is, than (the higher charting bcuz 1997 etc) Barrel of a Gun.)

(sorry, I didn’t mean to echo Ivy‘s recent post, the whole thread hadn’t loaded yet… and it’s much better than mine, lol)

Anyway yes E-Bow is perfection

I might have a fonder view of E-Bow song had it not been the lead single. Who knows

Fwiw, I don’t like the rest of the album at all, so I disagree that it’s representative

E-Bow is all about that Patti Smith finale, Stipe’s lyrics take a big backseat otherwise.

Barrel Of A Gun I remember being a song that charted high based on the fact Dave Gahan was still alive, which in hindsight might have been unfair

It took a tumble from 4 > 23. Worse than E-Bow's 4 > 15 but generally consistent in light of Blur's intervening 1 > 7 and U2's 1 > 6. Suddenly Iron Maiden weren't such a punchline anomaly anymore.

Beyond Horses and maybe including some of that, I've come to think of Smith as more a vibe than an interesting artist - her actual music is pretty dull for me, Springsteen cover, "People Have the Power" etc are just shrug inducing. Having read M Train I came away thinking there wasn't anything I had missed, she's an example of self-belief as self-actualisation, nothing to declare but oneself. A long way of saying I find "E-Bow" and her contribution pretty slight. I do like the lyrics ivy cited tho, and if it was just a deep cut on NAIHF I would like it more.

I'm prepared to be schooled tho.

i don’t enjoy her work as a memoirist but i don’t think that impacts how i feel about her music, she has several great songs and albums beyond horses

going for an unconventional lead single with "e-bow" was the wrong move after monster was relatively poorly-received - "bittersweet me" would have been the safe choice yeah, or even "electrolite"? they could manage to have "drive" as a lead single coming off the huge success of out of time, but couldn't get away with something like that after monster.

I mean they knew what they were doing, it just didn’t pay off (commercially) this time:

MICHAEL STIPE: We did have an ability to release the most unlikely songs just to push radio as far as we could push them, get more good music on the radio. And there was… for a while. “E-Bow The Letter” sounded the death knell for us being able to do that! But I think it represents some of my best writing.

“Bittersweet Me” sucks IMO, it sounds like R.E.M. half-assedly writing an “R.E.M.-sounding@ song… a real “the gig is up” moment. Even the bad songs on OOT were adventurous, in a way.

their ability to succeed with challenging songs on the radio was limited after monster was a relative flop, which is why it was the wrong move. if "e-bow" had followed aftp then they'd have been much more likely to get away with it

“Bittersweet Me” sucks IMO

you continue to be wrong about the album and this song. love the kind of shimmy-across-a-deserted landscape feel of this song (“i move across the earth in my new pattern shirt”) and it features one of the last great mike mills backing vocals

oh my peer
your veneer is wearing thin and cracking
the surface informs the underneath
the underneath is lacking

^^^ my favorite rem lyric ever

I like the way the verse, prechorus and chorus are in three different keys that they manage to weave together naturally.

their ability to succeed with challenging songs on the radio was limited after monster was a relative flop

I get what you're saying, OOT was a huge smash and so they could afford to be risky with "Drive," but they were intentionally pushing the envelope with "E-Bow" and not worrying about these considerations. Maybe "Bittersweet Me" wouldn't even have done so (modestly) well if it had been the lead single instead of the follow-up? Idk

Just speaking as a fan, "E-Bow" had me super excited (I bought the CD single before the album came out)... if "BM" had been the pre-album single, I would've been like, "uh oh"

I think the glam on Hi-Fi is more fully realised and confident than on Monster. Which isn't a criticism of the latter album at all, mind.

― you can see me from westbury white horse,

otm

and "Bittersweet Me"'s use of the fuzz on the chorus is the entirety of Monster's ethos perfected.

Monster, for better or worse, sounds like they tried to make a 90s Sonic Youth record (outside the main singles).

idk, the notion of the “glam” tag on Monster has always seemed laughable, even more so trying to tie it with NAIHF

yeah i have no idea what they ever meant by the 'glam' thing, or the notion that it was "rock in quotation marks"?

they were definitely more successful at rocking on new adventures

I say this a lot but Monster sounds pretty Britpop to me. Echobelly as an influence does make sense. My friend thinks it sounds like 90s Fall a bit too, which I sort of hear.

But as 'glam', Kenneth, Eyeliner, I Took Your Name etc are quite timid and boxed in next to The Wake-Up Bomb and Undertow. Developing the latter songs live may have helped. Maybe ditto being friends with Radiohead (the song The Bends is a good analogue I think)

a lot of britpop and britpop adjacent stuff sounds pretty glam rock anwayway - Suede, Denim, Your Arsenal era Morrissey. Oasis sounded more like Slade or ELO than they did the Beatles, there's lot of Blur stuff that sounds like Bowie or Roxy Music

Well yeah that's the thing. Every Britpop (or adjacent) band of note has glam stuff. This feeds into R.E.M. anyway because Pulp and Suede were specific influences on Monster, at least according to Stipe when the 25 set came out, and Blur and Oasis opened for them in 95.

Specific inspirations might be closer actually

Star 69 really sounds like Blur to me, it's got that queasy fairground waltzer thing - it's funny to think about REM being indirectly inspired by Cardiacs

pulp being an influence on monster would be pretty weird just given the timeframes

Yeah agreed. Michael might be getting the reality a bit mixed up but who knows.

Ivy otm re: Patti Smith

And I like that girl-as-boy lyric on the page, very much, it’s just delivered so non-specifically in the song that it loses any potency. Glad other people like that song! I don’t even like the instrumental

I misjudged my driving-to-flight schedule today and had to make a 2h30m drive in 1h45m. I pushed this Passat to the limit and averaged 180-200 km/h in the left lane on the autobahn while appropriately listening to Accelerate

I was mostly interested in Jacknife’s production, he is the finest of the “stock rock” producers and it was great to hear him make everything two-dimensional after the under-thought over-overdubbed blurriness of Around The Sun (which I didn’t hate). Jacknife is such an efficient rock producer and the band and Stipe just sounded extremely quotidian in an excellent way.

The songs just kinda passed by without much impression. I seemed to recall somebody citing “Hollow Man” as a late-period clunker but I didn’t mind it. I disliked “Houston” but I dislike any lyric that tosses off place names or celebrity names without any real reason. “Mr Richards” was fun, not quite acerbic enough to match Morrissey but good nonetheless.

I was mostly preoccupied with a theoretical, like, “what if REM worked with Albini instead on this?” The drumming was harder but less agile than Berry and I thought it might’ve been an interesting late-stage experiment…

… and then suddenly “Sing For The Submarine” started and I was grinning wildly, what is this? And it just ramped up harder and faster and I think Michael actually sang “fuck” on “Horse To Water”? (A first?) and I think I have a new favourite post-Hi-Fi track. “I’m Gonna DJ” reminded me of the cynical early-90s “make a joke, score a hit” songs, but the joke was funny and I felt thrilled! Like thrilled!! and then the album ended suddenly and segued into “Sex Type Thing” and I never felt so disappointed, just when it felt like the band was about to break the sound barrier.

Those three last tracks are so good, maybe my favourite run-of-three of this band since the 80s. For them alone this might get my vote for “best post-Berry album”.

Collapse Into Now sucked in comparison. “Oh My Heart” is great, the Peaches duet is great, the Marlon Brando song is better than people made it out to be. The rest is mostly pass-able (as in “I’ll pass”)

“All The Best” is a real shark jump, lyrically. I just googled it and it’s “I’ll show the kids how to do it / fine, fine, fine” but when Stipe sings it, it’s “I’ll show the kids how to do it fine” and I made a face. Maybe not as bad as “leaving was never my proud” but it’s pretty bad.

Overall it was nice to hear a lot of Mills bgvs and some nice mandolins stuff. I really don’t like “Discoverer”.

“Blue” was a cool last-ever album track, the song isn’t much of anything but it sounds like Stipe is frantically flipping through his lyric sheets and blathering a bunch of gems he never found a place for. Patti works well here, she sounds like Charon in a death scene, carting Stipe away into the afterworld. I was left feeling satisfied…

… but then Buck comes in for the final word? God no, it’s a fucking reprise of “Discoverer”. Go away REM! I’ve had enough!

My shame is that I’ve never listened to Dead Letter Office (or Chronic Town!) and I will but for today it is:

Murmur
Automatic
Reckoning
Hi-Fi
Pageant
Out Of Time
Document
Monster
Accelerate
Up
Around The Sun
Fables
Collapse Into Now
Reveal
Green

wow that's really low for fables. chronic town is maybe the very best thing they ever did. dead letter office on the other hand is not that interesting as far as b-sides comps go

Michael actually sang “fuck” on “Horse To Water”? (A first?)

"star me kitten"!

+ Country Feedback, Ignoreland, What's the Frequency Kenneth, Departure, maybe some others I'm forgetting

Yeah I don’t like Fables really at all, it’s an “ugh turn this off” album; mostly because of the mix, the guitar so loud and the rhythm section non-existent. “Driver 8” is irresistible tho, I feel like everybody always says exactly this about Fables

What’s The Frequency, Fuckwad? a poll of every REM song in which Stipe sings the F-word

"life and how to live it" too! it's the weakest of their first four and the mix is worse but it's still very good, no real duds and the highs are up with their very best

Artists who had UK No. 1 albums in the 90s with F bombs but no Parental Advisory sticker*
R.E.M. - 4
Suede, Pink Floyd - 2
The Cure, Carter USM, the Cult, Nirvana, Prodigy, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Pulp, U2, the Verve, Manics - 1

*the ones I can think of anyway

a lyric is just a celebrity name

Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein

Yeah I don’t like Fables really at all, it’s an “ugh turn this off” album; mostly because of the mix, the guitar so loud and the rhythm section non-existent. “Driver 8” is irresistible tho, I feel like everybody always says exactly this about Fables

― meaner stinks meat bake it cone (flamboyant goon tie included),

My man.

I’m not crazy about the mix on fables either but jesus the material is so good it just doesn’t matter

(I’ve settled on a vinyl rip as my go-to FotR version these days)

There was discussion about a rerun of the R.E.M. poll, hopefully we haven't exhausted the topic here. Or maybe we don't run polls anymore?

i think rogermexico has been listed to do it for ages, i'd be interested in it for sure and could help with tabulation

@ Jon Not Jon it’s not just the mix, it’s the endless minor keyness of it all, the jangle replaced with distorted lead guitar, it’s pleasureless to me; Pageant feels of the same piece but in every way a corrective

I have a lot of thoughts about Stipe and his decade-long development as a lyricist, I typed like 5000 words on my phone during takeoff. I think he settled, around Automatic, and onwards, on a very specific kind of colourlessness, he sought to “create a mood” rather than say anything meaningful. I think it’s an influential approach (The National, Grizzly Bear) and I can think of few precedents for Stipe’s “thing”— less Cohen or Smith, more T-Rex era Marc Bolan

bolan is a good call

xp morrisp I don't agree that NAIHF sucks per se, but I think you're right that there are cracks in the facade on this album.
To put it succinctly, I think their ability to objectively value their material begins to slip here. NAIHF has a surge of lesser material (what is the difference between 'Wake Up Bomb' and 'So Fast, So Numb'?) releasing ebow as a single, leaden setlists from this era, etc.etc.

the kind of quality control problems of the National begin here.

what is the difference between 'Wake Up Bomb' and 'So Fast, So Numb'?

The first has a sterling hook, the second does not.

no way, the latter has an amazing chorus

i don’t think there’s a single bad song on hi-fi tho. they could’ve cut “binky the doormat” i guess but i love the mike mills “go away” counterpoint in that one

as i’m so given to say, the sprawl suits it. it’s a road album, road albums should be a little long and unwieldy (the only other example i can think of is lonesome crowded west)

new adventures is too long but largely gets away with its sprawl somehow and is one of their most consistent albums for sure. i noticed recently that the start of the verse in "leave" sounds like "when doves cry"

it’s the endless minor keyness of it all, the jangle replaced with distorted lead guitar

yeah fables is very much their Post-Punk album but i enjoy their take on it. not many post-punk albums have mills on backing vocals doing his incredible thing and it might just be their best album for that. so many tracks have really cool overlapping vocal parts!

Halfway there: no objection to a poll as long as it gets titled "Feeling Gravity's POLL."

^That name was already used for a Fables poll thread!

xp morrisp I don't agree that NAIHF sucks per se, but I think you're right that there are cracks in the facade on this album (…) releasing ebow as a single, leaden setlists from this era, etc.etc.

I’m glad someone agrees! (lol), but I’m still nonplussed by the critique of releasing “E-Bow” as a (first) single. It’s far & away the best song! And even if you disagree – they made the album they made, and were a super-famous band… would it really have sold much better if the singles were switched around?* I think it’s admirable they were still trying to “push radio forward”… anyway, they had already re-upped w/Warner so had nothing to prove.

*I guess it really could have & I could be totally off-base here.

Morrisp dang, I should have checked. Upon reflection I am not surprised.

Have we done Automatic for the PeoPOLL?

POLL On Me? DaysleePOLL? New Test LePOLL? Shiny Happy PeoPOLL?

i was once a member of the fables cult and swore up and down it was easily their best. i've cooled on it over the past little while, but going back to their best openers: "feeling gravity's pull" is very important to that conversation.

If I was going to ask a random-REM-poll-type question, it would be "Make an album as strong as Automatic For the People" from post-Automatic tracks.

I don't think it's possible! But still wondering...

No.

what do you do if you think they just got better over the next three albums?

Releasing "E-Bow" as the first single feels like the same idea as F. Mac putting out the "Tusk" single--we're huge and can do anything we want. Unfortunately they weren't coming off their Rumours (AFTP), they were coming off their Tusk (Monster).

Don't forget that "Losing My Religion" was a "risky" first single (which the label hated the idea of)... I guess lightning doesn't always strike twice.

xpost

I enjoy Monster a lot but it's a weird one-off. Its disposability is, I've come to realise, its chief virtue.

But Up and NAIHF never synched with me - I think "Hope", "E-Bow" and "Electrolite" are the only post-Monster songs that measure up to their old stuff -- and those fun couple of tracks FGTI mentions at the end of Accelerate.

Also: E-Bow is a great single IMO, it has a brainworm chorus, what else do you need

I mean, in a way, E-Bow is a novelty song, and the UK charts are a good place for novelty songs

I was 10 years old when E-Bow came out and I still remember how bizarre it sounded in the context of 1996 rock radio. My mom called it "the weird talking song" lol

ergo, why it's a masterpiece. subvert everything.

Same year as “Pepper”; talking songs were having their moment…

aluminum

No way in hell NAIHF would've sold more with a different single. The radio climate had changed. Also: the Telecommunications Act already making playlists more conservative. R.E.M. as superstars were done.

Thanks for that joyous take on Accelerate fgti, loved the image of the bulleting Passat coasting on their late momentum. I still think you could drop “Horse to Water” onto Lifes Rich Pageant and it would fit in seamlessly.
btw the vinyl is SO MUCH NICER in mastering terms.

The only REM I own on vinyl is… Green. A director I was working with told me “I been listening to that album an lot” and it can be found everywhere for cheap so I picked it up. It is absolutely my least favourite album I own!

If I was going to ask a random-REM-poll-type question, it would be "Make an album as strong as Automatic For the People" from post-Automatic tracks.

Yes— but it’d be a rock album, not a soft-serve and sweet tea album like Automatic

Kenneth
Electrolite
Imitation
Oh My Heart
New Test Leper
Horse To Water
I Wanna DJ
Lotus
Hope
Wake Up Bomb
We All Go Back To Where We Belong (or Daysleeper)
You

That’s pretty good imo. Leave isn’t even on it and only two off Monster

Also leaves off Strange Currencies bc I like it more than Everybody Hurts but it’ll always sound like a clone to me

Putting Monster’s opening & closing tracks in the same positions is cheating! ;)

Hey man it’s a tall order so I’m keeping my top note and base note intact on this brief

… and then suddenly “Sing For The Submarine” started and I was grinning wildly, what is this? And it just ramped up harder and faster

I just listened to (half of this song)… He name-checks other R.E.M. songs in the lyrics(!) Surely you, fgti, must find that to be corny…

Make an album as strong as Automatic For the People from post-Automatic tracks.

I made a similar playlist - "make Rumours out of Tusk." I'll give this a shot, trying to match style and pacing, and every one of these replacement songs I prefer to the ones on Automatic.

Side one

"Drive" – Boy in the Well
"Try Not to Breathe" – New Test Leper
"The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" – Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
"Everybody Hurts" – Strange Currencies or Be Mine if you prefer
"New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" – Zither (if an instrumental is not required here, then Star 69)
"Sweetness Follows" – Around the Sun

Side two

"Monty Got a Raw Deal" – difficult, let's say Diminished
"Ignoreland" – Accelerate
"Star Me Kitten" – Suspicion
"Man on the Moon" – Bittersweet Me
"Nightswimming" – Parakeet
"Find the River" – Electrolite

(hmm - nothing from Reveal, it's too distant sonically)

Houston is a better match for Monty I’d say.

Uberlin is more upbeat but it's a clear descendent of Drive

I've made the Tusk/E-Bow comparison before. Tusk definitely set up the model for 'that' sort of lead single as lengthier album cycles were becoming a thing.

Houston is a better match for Monty I’d say.

You're right, I just find it musically undistinguished.

Uberlin is more upbeat but it's a clear descendent of Drive

That would be a good first track for a contemplative yet serene R.E.M. playlist. I liked the idea of starting with a dramatic dirge.

so i proposed this then didn't even bother to answer my own question beyond generalities. so after some thought, and of the ones i know well enough to rank...

airportman
harborcoat
drive
how the west was won...
feeling gravity's pull
radio free europe
pop song 89
kenneth
finest worksong
begin the begin
radio song
leaving ny
the lifting

Many xxxp, but to respond to morrisp’s q about self-reference in “Singing To The Submarine”; I only vaguely caught the references in listening, and in relistening w lyrics, I love it. Self-reference good, using place names and celebrity names generally bad.

The song itself seems to be more a comment on Stipe’s occasional tendency toward automatic writing for his lyrics— “Singing To The Submarine” = “Singing My Subconcious”

I generally am allergic to when songwriters claim/admit to having used a “stream of consciousness” approach in their writing— particularly Bowie when he does so, or reorganizes phrases or words on slips of paper. “Stream of consciousness” is just brainstorming, guys, it’s the first step in your songwriting process, not the last. If you want to make a name for yourself as a freestyle poet then there are outlets for that.

Self-reference on the other hand, rules. I can’t remember when it happens on Nebraska, but there’s a moment when one Springsteen character sings the same stanza as another Springsteen character from another song, and it gives me the impression that Springsteen sees these underclass characters as birch trees, individuals who are connected via the same underground subconscious. I love that shit

There are times tho when arbitrarily writing in a bunch of place names/celebrity names really works, in REM’s case it works when it feels goofy/funny rather than weighty/serious: “Hollywood is under me / I'm Martin Sheen / I'm Steve McQueen / I'm Jimmy Dean”

Fair enough… it struck me like, “We told you ‘bout the Seether before….”

That's both self-reference and a pastiche of "Glass Onion".

The Walrus was Louise Post?

Oh man, I never saw those Beatles lyrics… yikes!

Steve Miller also does the "I told you about" thing.

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

I'm Martin Sheen / I'm Steve McQueen / I'm Jimmy Dean

In my house we riff on this all the time. I'm Mister Bean / I'm Paula Deen / I'm Rachel Levine / I'm Ellery Queen / I'm a soup tureen / I'm Norma Jean / I'm Mean Joe Green / I'm David Lean

"Sing for the Submarine" is a cool deep cut that kind of flew past me back then. It's the one longer track on that album that seems like it's still in the New Adventures mode, although the chorus is a waltz. Mills' playing is nice on that.

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

around the sun

r.e.m. trivia (that i don't know the answer to): do the titles of r.e.m. lps appear in any of the songs? chronic town / 'carnival of sorts (boxcar)', but are there any others? i know i'm probably missing some obvious examples but none come to mind.

accelerate is a terrible album title!!

hi, zach!

the r.e.m. room is always nice and cozy, hi alfred <3

“begin the begin” comes close with “life’s rich demand”

“have i missed the big reveal” is in “i’ve been high”

i think that’s it

“Circus Envy” says “make way for monster jealousy”

as a kid i always misheard 'i never understood' on kenneth as 'i (something) monster'

suspicion has 'order UP another drink'. there may be others on that album but i'm stopping there.

ivy and morrisp immediately providing the knowledge, thank you :)

suspicion has 'order UP another drink'. there may be others on that album but i'm stopping there.

it does, but...up is also a bad album title

i can say this because i love r.e.m.

(I always assumed the bear on the cover of Monster further referred to “Circus Envy” and its “animal”…)

“Circus Envy” says “make way for monster jealousy”

― This field is required (morrisp), Sunday, November 26, 2023 8:19 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i am so bad at parsing the lyrics to “circus envy” so i don’t think i ever knew this, thank you!!!

oh and stipe says “collapse into now” several times in “blue”

"i believe" is a top 10 r.e.m. song

Kenneth does mention Green, which has a song that mentions Up in the name. They're on some XTC jumbled title drops trip.

I think “I wore a shirt of Violent Green” references some Seattle band of that name (fwiw)

“monster” is mentioned TWICE in “circus envy” (“this monster in me makes me retch”)

monster is a great album title, maybe one of the greatest

“monster” is mentioned TWICE in “circus envy” (“this monster in me makes me retch”)

feels suitable somehow that it's on the song with the lowest mixed vocals on possibly any album

It’s hard to express how Monster made R.E.M. feel cool and almost “sinister” when it came out (particularly “Circus Envy,” and the “Bang and Blame” bassline); and how unexpected that was after the mellowness of AFTP).

up is also a bad album title

More appropriate for Peter Gabriel and Shania Twain?

and Right Said Fred

what are you thinking for the title?

i don't know, maybe...down?

*record label exec* hey i know...what about up?

*everyone in room high fives*

*guy who hasn't talked until now says 'forward'*

*crickets*

It’s hard to express how Monster made R.E.M. feel cool and almost “sinister” when it came out (particularly “Circus Envy,” and the “Bang and Blame” bassline); and how unexpected that was after the mellowness of AFTP).

― This field is required (morrisp), Monday, 27 November 2023 01:59 (fifty-three minutes ago) link

i hadn't listened to it in probably 20 years and my first thought was "oh, they tried to make their version of a sonic youth record." could totally have seen kim singing "crush with eyeliner."

“The Apologist” also has the line “I've skirted all my differences / But now I'm facing up”

“monster” is mentioned TWICE in “circus envy” (“this monster in me makes me retch”)

monster is a great album title, maybe one of the greatest

― ivy., Monday, 27 November 2023 01:36 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'd always passively assumed the title was used as a noun, however I think going forward I shall choose to believe it was intended to be read as a verb.

could totally have seen kim singing "crush with eyeliner."

Thurston Moore is already playing and singing on it!

Gonna listen to Monster again brb

i’m straight i’m queer i’m bi

xxp xp well that's one for the "things you were shockingly old when you learned" thread

my intro to Monster, and REM for that matter, was when I was 12 and invited to a birthday party at a mini-golf course by a classmate I'm sure I was trying to impress. Having no money, my mom took whatever suggestion I'd said - my best guess is a coded "A CD by a band because I'd heard this band called The Offspring sing curse words at the playground so that must be cool." So she came back saying she'd asked the person behind the music section at the local K-Mart for any "age appropriate" (i.e. NO SWEARING) and that's what she was recommended.

that classmate could not have been less impressed when he unwrapped it at the birthday party. I swore off the band despite never having heard a note of their music.

"REM? Who invited that kid?"

i've watched the children come and go!

my feelings are fluid, but today

fables of the reconstruction (they may hate it but i dig the joe boyd production on one of the finest set of songs i've ever heard, front to back)
murmur (this is maybe the greatest debut album in english-speaking rock history)
life's rich pageant (this has their best songs)
"chronic town" (if this were an album with another five songs this good it would be their best)
new adventures in hi-fi (rivals the cure's disintegration as an all-time awe-inspiring 'how are they still this awesome this long into it?' album)
green (the first one i heard in real time, too young to have a problem with anything i liked)
out of time (this has some of my favorite songs not on any of the aforementioned)
reckoning (this is still better than most bands' best album)
automatic for the people (the last two songs stick the landing the best in a canon full of amazing album closers)
document (despite it being this low i still love this album -- side 2 continues to grow on me however many years after first feeling disappointed by it)
monster (this is still better than most bands' best album)

the post-bill years remain elusive, but i still think it's me, not them

One of the things I like about the last two albums is that, when they go back to more rock per se, it's not the rooted in the '70s hard rock of Monster/NAiHF. It's something smaller, and while it's not really confined to whatever parameters define garage rock, it's kind of more in that ballpark. And that's what they were originally, too. It's a good use of Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin.

The thing about that "Do it one more time/Show the kids how to do it fine" bit criticized above in "All The Best" is that, when he's singing that, he's singing it over fucking "The One I Love."

"Every Day Is Yours to Win" - last Velvets style jam

listening to dead letter office a lot the last few days. it's kind of a move to cover VU THREE TIMES

but i also wasn't around when it came out, which i think was right around time the VU (1985) album came out, kind of an eara of relative rediscovery of the velvets, maybe? maybe covering them 3 times was more like covering a kind of obscure band?

If you covered them three times, Lou Reed blew you.

xp I think they were covering VU from the beginning(?) Here they are in '84 (I'm sure there are earlier clips):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEEDxQ-xl40

Apparently "There She Goes Again" was the b-side of the IRS version of the "Radio Free Europe" single (which I didn't realize).

kind of an eara of relative rediscovery of the velvets

Definitely. The Polygram reissues of the first three albums came out in '85 as well.

also while relistening to DLO, i've thought more about my assumptions of the pylon cover. "crazy" is one of the greatest songs of all time, i fucking love pylon. i assume that r.e.m. was trying to do pylon a favor by making it track #1 on DLO, but have they ever talked about it?

peter buck's famous anecdote about r.e.m. and pylon releasing records on the same day, so he went out and picked up the pylon album to see what he was up against. paraphrasing: "i was so disappointed that their record was so much better than ours."

lol

I'm pretty sure Buck thought, "....but we're gonna outsell you four to one."

all told, pylon's og is clearly better but rem's take is hardly disrespectful.

Pylon opened for R.E.M. a few times (including a leg of the Green World Tour). Also, when Rolling Stone called R.E.M. "America’s Best Rock and Roll Band" in 1987, Berry apparently insisted that title belongs to Pylon (though I don't see that quote in the archived article; maybe it was a sidebar).

(I have the actual issue in a box somewhere...)

I was on the Natalie Merchant thread and went to YouTube to find this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpIxOPUxIt4

And much to my surprise, found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKlwHbXVBJ8

i gragbbed this still

https://i.imgur.com/8K6Na5G.png

awesome performance! regis looked stunned

ha Peter buys a mandolin in that RS article. I remember reading that one!

“Iwill never, ever, ever, ever play another general-admission show, ever. Ever. And I will never, ever, ever play a place that’s bigger than the place we played tonight, ever.” A pause. “Did I put enough evers in there?” It’s one day later, and Peter Buck isn’t feeling so fine. R.E.M. has just played to 12,000 fans in Williamsburg, Virginia, the only general-admission show of their 1987 tour – and while nobody was hurt, the crush down front was serious, and the band was upset.

“Fables sucked,” says Berry bluntly – though others in the band are somewhat happier with the moody, atmospheric record.

the crush down front was serious

Was it orange, or with eyeliner?

i'm not supposed to be like this

Two bad REM songs that might be ok:

“The Outsiders” - The bit at the end where the drums pause and restart, like “hey we’re hip-hop now!!!!”, is cringe, but the vibe is tender and lovely and the Q-Tip section always moves and surprises me. This might me my favourite song from the REM: the chintzy era

“I’ll take the rain” - David Cavanagh loved this but it’s a career nadir for me and Stipe’s vocal is unusually feeble. And yet… it’s a lovely, strong melody. They should’ve sold it to Lee Ann Womack or something

it's an abysmal attempt at a power ballad, and, no, Lee Ann Womack wrote and commissioned much better songs

Not sure if I'd thought of this before, but Around the Sun sort of reminds me of Bowie's Hours

With almost as shifty a cover

Shitty even!

Hours cover is amaaazing. Albeit only with all the text, that massive viridian O.

Amazing in 1993 during peak Corel Draw.

And those thong sandals

It looks like the Designers Republic's idea of a dentist waiting room and that is one of the only times I will invoke a trip to the dentist in my praise of anything (except, presumably, dentistry).

Around the Sun cover has a similar muzzy morning/chillout CD look to it except it's just kind of boring.

Reminds me of this actually

https://i.discogs.com/l3WeAoIvYqmbKnbQeKUKfQt33Vi7mtVezjUSD52kKfI/rs:fit/g:sm/q:40/h:300/w:300/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTQ0MzE3/NS0xNDg2MjE3MjA4/LTI0MTkuanBlZw.jpeg

Re: hours I had the exact same thought!

To an extent, both Around the Sun and ...hours were disappointed attempts to give fans what they (artists and listeners alike) thought they wanted: "why can't they just sit down at the piano or with an acoustic guitar and write us the soulful, melodic songs the way they did in a past decade?" Both are somewhat underrated with a handful of great songs apiece.

both are extremely disappointing

...hours is the worst album he released after Tonight.

Around the Sun is not really any worse compositionally than the other albums from that period (which is to say that it’s excellent, really). A bunch of slow songs, I guess.

There are two outright duds on AtS, in my opinion - The Outsiders and Wanderlust. The rest of the album is slow but generally solid, with one or two truly terrific songs.

As a game with myself, when I listened to all their albums a few weeks back I "rated" every song on a scale of 1-5. My criteria were 5 = truly excellent AND nebulous/subjective personal associations and nostalgia; 4 = truly excellent but lacking that intangible/nostalgic factor; 3 = very good; 2 = just OK/fine; 1 = trash, skip, delete.

And in doing that I only marked seven songs, over the course of their entire recorded output with a 1. (and five of them came on the last three albums). That's a pretty astonishing level of quality.

...hours is the worst album he released after Tonight

absolutely. It has one and a half good songs on it, which is even fewer than Tonight.

What were the two duds from the earlier albums?

I liked AtS fine one I accepted the odd production/mix choices, it’s a formless pastel thing. More inclined to revisit it than Reveal (or hours for that matter)

What were the two duds from the earlier albums?

― Cow_Art, Friday, December 1, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Underneath the Bunker and Belong.

"...hours is the worst album he released after Tonight."

Agree with that, although I don't think it's ever actively bad. Some nice songs and all. The most curate's eggy of all his curate's eggs.

Disagree on Belong being a dud

I think "Oddfellows” is the only true dud (pre-NAIHF). There are a few others I’d give the “2” rating.

I think side 2 of Document is amazing/underrated. West of the Fields (2) and Hairshit (1) are my only skips through Aftp.
pgwp- Good arbitrary nebulous rating!

I don’t care for “West of the Fields”’ chorus, but the verse parts are great IMO, and it ends the album well.

"fireplace" is the worst for trying to shoehorn the e-street band (sax) into a song that didn't need it.

None of these songs are skips for me

and side two of Document is v underrated

King of Birds into Oddfellows is so good

Always loved Oddfellows 151. It’s unique, it’s got a funky beat, I can dance to it.

Campreverb,

West of the Fields (2) and Hairshit (1) are my only skips through Aftp.

That is the best typo I have seen in quite a while. Thank you.

Hairshitting
Deserves a quiet night
I'm not sure all these people understand

I forgot my shit at the water's edge

The moon is low tonight

Hairshitting

show me the .01% rem fan and i will do better

https://i.imgur.com/PKdaBab.jpg

I don't skip any REM songs on any albums until Stand and even that one I like half the time.

“Fireplace” is bonkers, I love it.

I wished I had done that on purpose! y'all I have had 5 eye surgeries and consider myself lucky to still read/type at all.

That doesn’t strike me as a very. Clarence Clemons-like solo?

Extensive new Stipe profile in the NYT. Paywalled, but you can probably figure out ways around that if you're so inclined.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/magazine/michael-stipe-solo-album.html

Here is a non pay walled gift link because I like you folks and I also like paying journalists

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/magazine/michael-stipe-solo-album.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DE0.05xD.UnkEOvxDho_Q&smid=url-share

Thanks.

Wow, thank you for that!

that's a great read

When Healy explained that, for years, he’s been nursing a renegade theory that R.E.M. was the first true emo band

Absolutely fucking not

“I was on crutches, and I remember Huey Lewis carried my watermelon for me, and I thought that was really sweet.”

read this like it was an alternate version of the Maria Callas portion of E-Bow

haha

The dire wolf part is funny.

Had never heard that blind for eight days while on tour story!

I was familiar w/that story (just saying that matter-of-factly, not flaunting my R.E.M. knowledge); though I didn't know it happened again a few years later, I wish they had elaborated on that a bit....

boygenius by proxy of Phoebe Bridgers getting who'd by Stipe was funny.

The dire wolf part is funny.

but who cares if the Dead had a song by that name, do another one

Curious if he will ever finish an album’s worth of lyrics and what he singing them all with synths and programming but no or few guitars will sound like.

i'd imagine it will sound like the two tracks he's already put out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4blc0Sm1s88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luoE63wUKAE

So... he makes solo Up

that's pretty much what i'm expecting

funny thing is that the dire wolf’s main prey was an ancestor of modern day flightless birds

poll

Dire wolves, lower

Dire wolves eat parakeets, iirc

Watching the Hansa videos this morning and getting a little choked up!

but will the new Stipe solo album be as good as Tanzplagen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq9-gNxaQOc

analyzed data has shown i am a 0.1% level rem fan but i get a little exhausted reading interviews with him or listening to him. i love the guy, i know shit has been nuts for him but really dislike the Face and The Voice stuff, even if it's at a distance and it started with something someone else said, and of all the people in the universe it really is like stipe and maybe a few other hundred people who are that well known.

Biggest surprise for me in that piece -- Michael Stipe was friends with Ray Liotta?

Yeah that also stood out for me

i like Stipe but its one of those profiles where my main takeaway is just "gosh, it sure does sound nice to be rich". When he says “I’ve taken overwhelmed to new weights and heights” in reference to deciding which home he wants to write his new album in, its like please lord let me someday be lucky enough to enjoy that kind of "overwhelmed"

it's funny to read interviews w/him like that NYT one where he's obv. comfortable being famous and then contrast it with the Musician article (https://www.reddit.com/r/rem/comments/174psip/rems_double_visionaries_conversation_between/)

where he claims he's a "weirdo" who can predict earthquakes and comes off as not liking being famous. he probably changed the most as they got bigger and bigger