It's time I had some time to POLL: REM's Best Background Vocals Through Out of Time.

Letter Never Sent gets my vote with Mills singing a whole chorus worth of alternate lyrics in the background, they wouldn't all fit in the poll option text.

my first thought is this is totally "Fall On Me"

If this covered post-OOT I'd vote the "ahhhh-aahhhh" parts in Electrolite

Don’t want to be that guy, but ‘Find the River’ is a huge omission.

Though just noticed you stopped at OOT.

this makes me want to listen to them all again. i think they're probably most crucial in "orange crush." "fall on me" and "harborcoat" are also amazing, and yeah it's obvious but the backing vocals and lyrics to "it's the end of the world" add a whole new dimension to the song

"fall on me" for the way the three vocal lines wrap around each other and turn the chorus into something new and beautiful that a single voice could never even suggest.

"me in honey" for the shinmer and transcendence of a single vocal line.

may i have two votes please?

*shimmer*

Yeah, Michael & Kate together take Me & Honey over the top but the fact that she's not in the band & it's a mostly a harmony of the lead instead of a different line took it down a notch in my ranking.

Kate Pierson would own this if Mike Mills didn't exist.

the fact that she's not in the band & it's a mostly a harmony of the lead

if anything, i'd disqualify her because the line of hers that's being polled here ("ah ah ahhh oh oh ohhhh") *is* the lead.

(but it's also a "background vocal" in the way almost everyone understands background vocals, so i am not in fact disqualifying her)

Near Wild Heaven, easy

write-in: "Superman"

First one that popped into my head was "Go away, go away" in Binky the Doormat, but that's for another poll.

Mills' BGV are the MVP of many an REM song.

This is very difficult. Probably just gonna go for Near Wild Heaven though.

And yeah on Orange Crush they're lead backing vocals, err

Pilgrimage

Want to acknowledge that assembling this poll shows lots of love for REM

Have to vote for a Mills track, not sure which one yet

Moral Kiosk for the cumulative effect. Agreed very difficult.

love stipe on "texarkana." more like a vocal guitar solo thank background vox though.

ok his harmonies throughout are great too. just had to re-listen.

Exhuming McCartney

More evidence that 'Paul is Dead'?

lots of great ones here: Love is All Around, Orange Crush/Get Up/Turn You Inside Out (despite not being among my favorites of theirs), Maps and Legends, Catapult. almost voted for Driver 8, but yeah, it's Fall on Me.

sleeve otm has to be near wild heaven

spooky...I'm bored on a bus, read this thread, then opened up Instagram and first on my feed was this
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJkPCQrId88/?igsh=MTQyMmwyMTdpOGh6aA==

(it's a page from a 90s magazine with a makeup feature titled Orange Crush)

the multiple vocal lines on "harborcoat" are one of my favourite things in all of music

Near Wild Heaven was the first thing I thought of before opening the thread - I'm so used to hearing Mills do the backing vocals that Near Wild Heaven always sounds to me like it's all backing vocals, somehow.

was going to complain that the 'I've been there, I know the way' bit from Can't Get There From Here was missing, but it is there, just misattributed to Driver 8

brilliant poll idea and great compilation work. kind of impossible to choose --- having them all stacked up like this, you realize HOW essential these parts are to their sound and to the hooky genius of the songs. it's like picking the best drum part or guitar riff, they're basically there on every great R.E.M. song, and often you can't imagine the song without them.

I guess I can let "Me In Honey" go because the part I really think of is in the "Rockville" category, harmonizing with Stipe word-for-word. But that would probably be my pick otherwise.

I'll also drop "Belong," "Wolves, Lower," "Turn You Inside Out," "Letter Never Sent," "Orange Crush," "Can't Get There From Here"... where the backing vocals really are the lead, or are in such a leading role (response-and-call) that anybody signing along to the song would just sing both parts.

and that still leaves a lot of great contenders, but c'mon.... It's "Fall On Me," for all the reasons already given. very possibly their best song, i mean EVERYBODY is doing exactly the right things for this track... but I truly can't imagine it at all without the backing vox. the chorus, the bridge, even the added texture in the verses. if Stipe sounds genuinely convinced that the sky might fall, Mills and Berry create enough cushion that you understand why he thinks his prayer might just work.

P.S. always thought Mills was singing "Blow your horn!" on Finest Worksong. huh.

Yeah another boring "Fall on Me" vote from me — one of their best songs, and one where the intertwining of the voices and vocal parts is absolutely central to the experience of it.

I feel like a lot of the Byrds comparisons in early years centered around the bright guitar and folk-rockiness of it all, but the harmonies and backing vox are maybe really their Byrdsiest attributes.

absolutely loving this poll. sounds like "Fall on Me" is going to do just fine in this poll, so I will direct my vote to "Harborcoat," which has the beautiful cascading chorus vocals of that tune and others like "Moral Kiosk" (great call on that pick psychocandles) with great background vox throughout the verses to boot. Would also like to tip my hat to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" - far from an REM favorite for me but the backing vocal is so fantastic and really elevates it out of novelty status.

"Shaking Through" also has lovely harmonies, albeit traditional ones.

I will prob be only vote for Carnival of Sorts. Love the song and helps set the template on how important the background vocals are to their sound

another "fall on me" boy here

near wild heaven

me in honey

It's gotta be "End of the World"

As soon as "time I had some time alone" appears in the song I continue singing that instead of the chorus

I listened to "Radio Song" on Spotify the other day and there was female backing vocals on the "yo ho ho" and "DJ sucks!" lines in Radio Song I hadn't heard before. Which'll be because they aren't, on the CD or on YouTube uploads. Where did they come from?

the 12" mix I think?

feat. KRS-One

I was just kicking myself for leaving krs one out of the poll. But the one most stuck in my head since I compiled them is "that's my folly" from old man Kinsey.

Near Wild Heaven

mills’ “ahhhhhhhhs” during parts of the “end of world” verses are totally sublime

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I voted

For the favorite

Half a world away, duh

Conjuring these fragments in my head, without relistening, makes Out of Time seem like the best thing ever. Almost. (Instead of a bit of a mess.)

tbf it was actually good

Bandwagon, runner up Maps and Legends

Out Of Time was good at the time, I admit I rejected it initially but came around in 1993 when I heard "Me In Honey"

I would argue that out of all their albums, OOT has the most distinctive/effective backing vox

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

A worthy winner and a brilliant poll. Who’s gonna do the legwork for the sequel???

agreed, good turnout too!

Voted LNS, but Pilgrimage is a close second

I believe I was one of the somewhat boring votes for "End of the World" in the end, if only for the sheer number of times Mills gets to express that one self-contained sentiment lol.

Never ceases to amaze me that anyone likes "Near Wild Heaven"

prob my single favorite song of theirs, lol

As the sole voter for "Love is all Around", I have to confess that it probably wouldn't make it into my list of top 25 REM tracks. But the background vocal is the hook on that one (especially on the 3rd verse), so it got my vote.

NWH in the sweet spot of being catchy but somehow not too obvious or cloying, for me at least.

I don't think I ever even played it at the time but somehow listening to NWH now is one of the most intensely nostalgic vibes

I don't remember if I ended up voting for "Wolves, Lower". There's something uncanny or alien about how the call-and-response works in the chorus, especially since it's also almost the very start of their career.
Mike Mills just doesn't work as a lead vocalist for me, he's devoid of feeling.

I personally find NWH fairly cloying… it also may be the worst video of their Big Album era (VH1 Classic plays it a lot, for some reason)

It's my favourite R.E.M. song

And nostalgia doesn't even cover it

Or rather yes, deep nostalgia, but that still undersells how deep

mills in the far background of 'orange crush' is amazing