r.e.m.green.poll

the wallowing high tide

run a carbon-black test on my jaw

This easy - Orange Crush

Opening four-song run on this -- goddamn. No way to choose. At the time this came out I didn't appreciate "You Are The Everything," now I deem it the greatest slow number they ever wrote.

you feel such peace in absolute stillness that doesn't end but slowly drifts into sleep

world leader pretend or untitled, who knows why i'm immediately drawn to those but i am

This on the other hand is one of my least favourite REM albums. "Pop Song '89".

World Leader Pretend

I remember calling this my fave REM album for a while in the mid 00s. "World Leader Pretend" still stands out, and not just because it's the one with printed lyrics.

strange. never done?

actually their previous album Document contains a cover of it! you're welcome ;)

hey now little speedyhead

Dreams, they comPOLLcate my life: REM's "Green"

I honestly don't know what to choose. A weird album where all the songs are good, but none are truly great.

You Are The Everything.

This was the end of the truly great run imo and one of their very best albums, even Automatic.. didn’t top it for me.

wonderful, cohesive, thrilling, satisfying, fun. annoying (hey it's stipe) album. voted OC but many contenders, incl Untitled for sure

Good album, but the cracks are starting to show. The disco influence which had always been a huge part of their sound from the beginning is now pretty much gone, and while they still had enough fire in their bellies to belt out the energetic “Get Up” and “Stand” and “Pop Song 89” (my vote), they shouldn’t have covered them all up with “humorous” lyrics. Basically, Euler is OTM in the other thread. Plus this album marks the start of Stipe’s annoying vocal style on the ballads.

"hairshirt" was the one for me back then, but I am a weirdo with this band as this was the first album of their I liked & I still don't much care for all the ones everybody considers classics

Good album, but the cracks are starting to show

I disagree. The cracks started to show much later.

“This World Is Big” = untitled is my vote. I love Stipe in counselor mode and this is his best of those, just ahead of “Get Up”

Turrican otm. There aren’t too many cracks on this album. It’s not perfect but it’s a far more intimate record than Document, as if they trust each other and feel good about their label situation.

You Are the Everything. It would have fit right in on Automatic for the People

I Remember California. I saw them on this tour, they were great.

I did too. My father had to get me into the venue as it served beer and I was underaged, god bless his soul.

I saw them at both the beginning and end of this tour. They were a much better band in the first show. I think endless touring kind of wrecked them.

Hairshirt, or maybe World Leader Pretend, or Untitled, or Get Up.

Or The Wrong Child. I like a lot of the weirder songs.

I said I'm not supposed to be like this but IT'S OKAAAAAAAAAYYYEEEEEEEEE!!! OKAYYYYYYYY!?!

Voted for You Are the Everything but recently I've come to really love Get Up, particularly the music-box bridge where the whole song just drops away.

can't choose
each song holds too many memories and they all make me think about early adolescence and my mom
she loves this album
once she told me she had to pull over because she was crying to "you are the everything"

<3

<3

Stipe in counselor mode

Kudos for this otm-ness

i changed my mind -- i am voting for orange crush because that is why i bought the album in the first place
i kept hearing it on the radio and loving it. it was so different from everything else i heard on the radio + fun to sing to

great drums too

yeah I used to prefer “Turn You Inside Out” over “Orange Crush” but the latter is more fun to sing or better howl along with

also the Tourfilm version of Orange Crush is fab, with the “be all that you can be” lead into the drums ratating

'Orange Crush' is the one I voted for - I miraculously haven't burned out on that track yet.

I saw 'em a couple of times this tour, but the second time was hi-friggin'-larious b/c the person me and and my buddies gave money to for tix, left 'em at home three hours away from Alpine Valley, WI - he sucked it up and re-bought scalped tickets for everyone. Ended up being one of the better outdoor venue shows I've seen.

This is difficult. I got on the REM wagon with this record and possibly like it more than I should. Apart from "Turn You Inside Out" I could comfortably vote for just about everything. Maybe "I Remember California", "World Leader Pretend" or "The Wrong Child".

Let my machine talk to me.

Boy, they kicked ass on album openers these years, didn't they?

yo, turn to that station

Lol

I went to Sam Goody at the mall to buy Green and the guy at the register was like "don't buy this man, they're on a major label now" and I was like "but I walked all the way here and I want it". A few months later he had the same (ineffectual) advice about Disintegration. Later I would turn into him for a while.

Anyway, You Are The Everything.

I keep asking myself why does "The Wong Child" feel like it was the last song.

Because it was the last song on Side A!

I think each side of the record/tape had its own title, didn't it? Can't remember when they started (or stopped) that

yo, turn to that station

― mookieproof, Thursday, February 1, 2018

I liked that one too!

Stipe's haircut from that tour has held up better than anyone would have expected.

(haha i don't actually hate radio song but nor would i say it kicked ass)

Yeah this impossible. I love half these songs more than I love my children (which is a lot).

Pop Song 89 is pretty good, Stand is pretty great, World Leader Pretend is awesome. You Are the Everything is sublime. Orange Crush is slammin.

I am Sophie ergo this poll is a Nazi.

"Get Up" is solid kiddie pop

I think I voted for You Are the Everything because a month ago I drunkenly played it on mandolin at a New Year's Eve party, and a half-dozen drunk 40somethings sang along; it was a magical moment.

Air and Metal sides iirc

"You Are The Everything" is an interesting winner, a very pretty song that pointed in the direction they would go on subsequent albums, more personal and emotional, greater clarity. "World Leader Pretend" is one of my least favorite tracks on Green, it's a bit too heavy-handed for my taste.

Missed this but would’ve gone with the winner.

Every song got a vote!

Not a big fan of this album even though it's the only one I own on vinyl. I find it strange that people cite Out Of Time as a 'drop-off' album when really their careers were consistent with Green being the only real dip until after Up. World Leader Pretend is astonishing though. I'd put it on any best of mix.

Wrong Child (also think it's their worst song), World Leader and Turn you Inside Out have too many votes on this.

Hmm. Realistically, they dipped no less than three times in the Bill Berry years, even if these dips are only slight. Firstly, with Fables of the Reconstruction (which is slightly less good than the two before and after it), then with Out of Time (big album for them commercially, but quality-wise a huge gulf between the best and worst tracks) and then Monster. The biggest dip would come after Berry left, with Around the Sun.

'The Wrong Child' is great!

where did this thought come from

how is monster a dip (i’m aware of its reputation, its reputation is wrong)

also why are we using the word dip like this

i have a lot of questions!

I'm one of the You Are the Everything voters but am mad now that Stand, Pop Song, and Get Up came so low

Also why was this not called "Sometimes I feel like I can't even POLL"

I was about to vote for You are the Everything, but then I wanted to stan for Stand.

No accident that the mandolin-led tunes are so polarising between best and worst

Monster is underrated

I should have stanned in the place where I live

lol

Turn You Inside Out is great, wtf

on The Wrong Child, Stipe does things w his voice that he’d not done before, maybe you think he shouldn’t have done them at all but it’s very affecting to me

I just relistened. I think the imagery with that arrangement has always felt creepy to me. The melody is fine.

Green's one of my favourites actually, probably second fave right after New Adventures In Hi-Fi.

That whole run from Green to Hi-Fi is the golden age of R.E.M. for me. I certainly like what came before. Up's got great stuff as well - I especially love final track Falls To Climb - but overall I do like it less than the preceding five.
I agree that Monster is underrated/undeserving of (as it seems to me) a bad rep, IMO it's just the least good of that Green - Hi-Fi run, but it's still good.

Reveal's okay. Around The Sun is the only one that I find pretty bad. I do think pretty highly again of the final two albums.

get up 6
pop song '89 5
stand 5

rockists!

I love the audible mistake on The Wrong Child which they never bothered to fix; Stipe coming in early not once but twice on
"Hey those kids...".

eephus, why not POLL in the place where you live?

That whole run from Green to Hi-Fi is the golden age of R.E.M. for me

Now this I can't relate to at all. The IRS albums are so much better.

Agreed but Green and Out of Time made a bunch of people go backwards into the catalog to hear Fables and Murmur and DLO etc. They were gateway drugs (if you will allow me that metaphor on April 20 of all days).

My friends and I had heard Fables first, so when newcomers were bopping along to Stand or Orange Crush or Shiny Happy People on the radio, people like me could be the worst kind of assholes and go "huh, welcome to the party, N0000bz. I was into REM before they were popular." I cringe to think of it now, but it felt like a fresh take if you were in ninth grade.

I'll admit, I got into them very late, I think shortly before their breakup even (never got to see them live), and I started with their middle stuff: exactly those albums I named 'my golden age of R.E.M.. I'm probably the kind of fan that fans from the early days could easily hate.

I certainly enjoy those IRS albums a lot and there are many highlights on those - These Days from Life's Rich Pageant is a particular favourite of mine - but looking at those albums in their entirety I've never been able to get into them as much as with the albums following Green.

Anyway, I would really only think of Around The Sun as a fairly bad album, the rest are all good to great IMO.

I started with Out of Time when I was 13 and they became my favorite band right away. I bought one older album a week until I had them all. I greatly prefer the IRS years.

I prefer lo-fi jangly. It's a style thing.

If it weren't for "It's the End of the World" I might never have heard "Seven Chinese Brothers."

I can equally imagine people for whom if it weren't for "Losing My Religion" they might never have heard "So Central Rain."

In the opposite direction (forward through time) I can imagine some grizzled indie-old-timer who clings to a rare import 7" of "Camera" being suddenly struck by how great the oboe solo in "Nightswimming" is.

I embrace and celebrate all the paths.

i wanna karaoke Rockville tonite

did you never call?

looking at your watch, good time, standing in a station?

I made a short road trip once to Rockville when I was in college. It was super boring, we never got out of the car.

Don't go back there then.

(It does have the graves of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald tho)

Monster is underrated

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Friday, April 20, 2018 1:15 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, and I came around to it eventually - the LP's that came directly before and after it are stronger, though. Automatic For The People is a stronger collection of songs and a stone cold classic, and New Adventures In Hi-Fi benefits from more variety in the guitar sounds, not to mention it's a better document of R.E.M. in rock mode than Monster is during the moments it does rock.

I feel like Monster gets a bad lookback because we all have memories of it being a permanent resident in the used album bin.

A lot of people had jumped on board with Out of Time and Automatic for the People and were expecting more of the same for the follow-up. They weren't expecting Monster, or the change in image that went with it. Hardcore fans were probably more kinder to the record, though.

New Adventures is the one I've never been able to connect with. I'm mystified by the love it gets here.

I was a pretty hardcore fan, but I hated Monster then and can't imagine I'd have much love for it now (not that I've heard it in the last 20 years). Part of the turn-off was how the band talked it up - "this is our punk record" etc. I found the rock poses wholly unconvincing, either interpreted as genuine or "ironic". Most of the tunes didn't do much for me, and the production was off-putting too - there's something harsh and flat about it I can't bear.

With New Adventures my expectations were low and I was surprised how much I liked it.

Monster also had that huge arena tour. It was just a weird phase in general.

I was trying to pinpoint when exactly Stipe started appearing out with a shaved head but then I got distracted and started looking at eyeliner instead.

The Monster era was the first appearance of out-and-proud baldy Stipe. He started to go bald after Green and hid it under a hat during 1990-1993.

I Remember California is great and should have had more votes imo.

I would've put I Remember CA ahead of World Leader, Orange Crush and Turn You.

I was trying to pinpoint when exactly Stipe started appearing out with a shaved head but then I got distracted and started looking at eyeliner instead.

― Yerac, Friday, April 20, 2018 10:29 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf so did he

Part of the turn-off was how the band talked it up - "this is our punk record" etc.

well, it's a glam rock record, probably a generous reading of "punk"

I voted for "Get Up" because dreams, they complicate my life.

I Remember California is great and should have had more votes imo.

I hope I voted for it in the end. That endless churning guitar and bass plus the eerie synth (?) that creeps in, and then "the lowest ebb and highest tide"; it all makes for one their gloomiest constructions, no? That there California seems rather menacing.

That whole period between Green and Automatic I called The Gap (store)- StipeWear.

Gave this a fresh listen tonight. I still think it's one of their weakest records but there are some great songs. The untitled track is probably my favorite besides "You Are The Everything" - really pretty, loopy, gentle, vocals kind of dancing around in a circle. Berry's choices probably most crucial to its success, as with the similar kinds of songs on Out of Time.

New Adventures is the one I've never been able to connect with. I'm mystified by the love it gets here.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Friday, April 20, 2018 5:21 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My favourite album of theirs without a doubt.