REM: Classic or dud?

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I've always wanted to ask a "classic or dud" question, and some recent posts have me curious about this one. I went to college in the States in the 1980s, so I'm required to love REM's first four albums (and I do so without reservation.) I started to lose interest around Document, however, and haven't heard the last 3 or 4 at all. So what do you think? Did they start strong and peter out? Were they always crap? Do you still love everything they put out and look forward to the new one?

― Mark Richardson, Wednesday, 17 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

R.E.M. slowly descending into dreaded dud status. Used to like them (hey my indie credentials are impeccable ;). I started to lose interest around "Automatic..." which still has a couple of great tracks, after that: whatever. In the end I think they only made one classic: Fables of the Reconstruction/etc.

― O. Munoz, Wednesday, 17 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Like everyone else - well, no, probably some people were too sensible - I used to like REM. I loved the idea of a band where you couldnt even hear the lyrics but I discovered pretty quickly that you could and they weren't that great anyway. Even so I was a big fan circa Green and a lukewarm fan circa OOT, and then thought they'd cracked it with Automatic but suddenly after a month or so of loving it had the Damascene revelation that it was terrible.

And I've honestly not really been able to listen to them since. Memory tells me that the first album or so is OK. The myth of REM, that they came along and saved American rock or something, always struck me as odd - did American rock need 'saving'? I'm not that up on my history of early 80s US rock, but the ecstatic reception of REM strikes me as being a kind of reaction to punk - OK the need for new music is appreciated, but does it have to be this noisy and nasty? Ah, here come some 'proper songs', good. A similar thing happened in the UK with the - perceived - difference between new wave and post- punk, maybe.

― Tom, Wednesday, 17 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not so much classic or dud as 'unimpressed.' Never really liked REM, except when Michael Stipe was on "Pete and Pete"

We'll give them dud, for kicks.

― JM, Wednesday, 17 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Very much "comfort zone" music, the choice of hip but unadventurous twentysomethings (now in early thirties) everywhere. Art made unobjectionable. But, uh, is that a bad thing? I can't decide, but Stipe's falsetto when he covers Femme Fatale is precious, so I say classic.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 17 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No band is good forever, so based on my favorite REM material I'd have to say classic. But it feels odd giving that designation to a band that's about as interesting as Matchbox 20 to me now (I'm sure Matchbox 20 is actually great to all you wannabe Chuck Eddys, but you know what I mean ;-)

Tom, I think the way college radio (and students) embraced REM in the 80s was more of a reaction against new wave than it was punk. Something about the Byrdsian harmonies/guitars was so firmly "rock" (and more specifically American rock) and yet also perceived as "different" (probably due to the muttered vocals and murky production.) That's a powerful combination when you're talking about an American pop music movement. I always felt like REM existed beside the punks pretty easily, touring w/ Husker Du and The Replacements and so on.

― Mark Richardson, Thursday, 18 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I read a comment recently in which one of REM claimed that what punk meant to them was the possibility of mixing everything up together, breaking the rules and so on--but what it transpired that he meant was that they could play folk music instead. Which has to mean DUD.

That said, having missed out on REM the first time round, about from the indie disco classics, I've been having a go at their early records. So in two months I may be a fan, but on current form, probably not...

― alex thomson, Friday, 19 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The strange thing with R.E.M. is that I always knew people who liked them so heard a lot of their music (at least, music from Out of Time, Automatic, and Monster), but never owned any myself. That said, with napster I've checked them out quite a bit, and while a lot of their stuff isn't bad, it's not particularly strong either... that is, except for one song, which I actually feel is one of the most haunting I've ever heard, and that's "E-Bow the Letter" off New Adventures in Hi-Fi. From the constant drone in the background to the lyrics to the amazingly good idea of having Patti Smith on back up vocals, the song just plain works, and is surprisingly powerful, at least to me.

― Sean Patrick O'Toole, Tuesday, 23 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark: Touring with the Replacements and Husker Du doesn't really mean anything in and of itself (certainly nothing to do with punk rock) given that both bands were probably trying to be REM by that point in their careers ('mats should've quit after Hootenanny, and Husker Du should've quit after Zen Arcade, or probably Metal Circus to tell the truth). REM was a pathogen; they killed American punk rock by pointing many novel and hopeless bands/labels into saleable (so they thought!) half- assed college rock directions (look at SST records for example...starts out with some seemingly decent aesthetic principles, puts out some outstanding Black Flag and Minutemen stuff, and ends up vomiting forth coffeehouse jangle- nothings like Trotsky Icepick, Angst, later Minutemen etc.) Cosloy goes from GG Allins band(!) to Matador records (the best release on which is the La Peste retrospective which is a better link between REM-culture and punk rock since La Peste were an actual punk rock band and yeah, obviously this is much later but REM created the climate for this whole indie rock thing, where "alternative music" somehow becomes the only music worth listening to). Even the Angry Samoans (who I'm sure hated REM) got kind of boring! Not counting metal (broadly defined to include everything from Testament to Union Carbide Productions to Celtic Frost to Cinderella, all of whom were excellent) and Sonic Youth, there was basically no good American rock music at all in the late 80s, was there? Halo of Flies?!? And now you've got all this alt-roots junk, which is also REM's fault probably, and I blame REM for sanctimonious junk like Live and Creed as well.

Basically REM sucks eggs. "Real World" by Matchbox 20 is a lot better than any REM song. The best thing about REM is that they still show "My Breakfast with Blassie" sometimes on TV.

― Kris P., Tuesday, 23 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

their best album for me is still "reckoning", which was released in, what, 1984? best song--'camera'.

― geeta dayal, Tuesday, 6 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh classic, probably, I think...er....I used to love 'Automatic..' when I was 14, and though interest has petered out over the intervening years, they still hold a place in my heart. Now, like most people, I prefer their earlier stuff, and though I found much of 'Monster' and 'New Adventures..' dull and insipid, on their last album, 'Up', they still managed to pull some gems from their now slightly more ample behinds. There aren't many bands in their mid forties who are still any good at all. In fact I can't think of any. So I salute them.

― Ally C, Friday, 9 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I would tend to distinguish between 80s and 90s REM. 80s REM has an engaging sense of being genuinely offbeat (vocally and lyrically - but musically very easy to get along with), whereas 90s REM has an air of strain, lack of inspiration, grandstanding, being 'so humble we're arrogant', 'so ironic we're compassionate', and other atmospheres that I can't do a very good job of putting into words.

I like everything pre-Green - I think that LRP and Document may be the masterpieces, for all their US80srock flourishes. The repetitive jangle of things like 'Cuyahoga', 'Welcome To The Occupation' or 'Heron House' is the sort of predictable thing I like (but I could never have predicted it). I must admit, I do like a lot of the 90s material too: I liked Out Of Time when it came out, recognize that there are good tracks on Automatic (but it got so grotesquely overrated), even have a soft spot for Monster ('I Don't Sleep, I Dream' is splendidly large, thudding and echoing), despite its lack of melodic quality. The real clunker, in my book, is New Adventures In Hi-Fi - BY FAR the worst REM record ever. After that, Up could only be a move up, and it has its moments (none better than 'Daysleeper', as far as I recall). Still, by the mid-90s there was something sadly insufferable about the tone, the image, the projected persona(e) of REM.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 13 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They just left me...cold, somehow. I like a few of their songs on an intellectual level, but the playing, lyrics, and _especially_ the singing seem utterly rote and passionless. Still, like I said, on an intellectual level (chords and notes n' stuff) I like a lot of their stuff. My single favorite song of theirs is "Electro Light," I never hear that one mentioned.

― Jack Redelfs, Wednesday, 21 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was surprised and interested by that last entry that said 'on an intellectual level (chords and notes and stuff)' REM were OK. I am interested in chords and notes and stuff - but from an utterly amateur, non-musicological perspective - and I would be interested to hear what is meant here - cos REM strike me as being really relatively uninteresting from that particular POV.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 22 February 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

If ever there was a band that should have been called "The Emperor's New Clothes," REM was it. This is what they were: a lead singer/songwriter with nothing to say, taking it to the point of making nothing to say a "style"; and a halfassed backup band that never met a cliche it couldn't use. This is a band that goes around bragging about how hard they don't work on their music -- it just comes out of the air, it only takes twenty minutes for them to write a song. Well, gee, imagine that. And here I thought it only took them ten minutes to write them.

Rock and roll is deader than jazz, anyway. The answer to all your questions is, yes, REM really does suck as much as it seems, now that you've emerged from your childhood. Christ, I'd rather hear the Cowsills on any given day than those smarmy assholes.

Just my humble opinion...

― Douglas Fletcher, Friday, 6 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

FYI: Cee-Fax one-line review —

REM "reveal" melodic side once more

There seems to be an awful lot of hatred quietly sedimented into those otherwise meaningless claw-quotes, or am I just projecting?

― mark s, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom's R.E.M.-success-as-reaction-against-punk theory up there sounds pretty unlikely to me. From a mainstream regular-person non-music-freak point of view, punk did not exist in the U.S. back then. It had no exposure whatsoever. It certainly couldn't have been perceived in any way, shape or form as such a threat that people would need to rally around the first jangly guitar band that comes along.

― Patrick, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

More like cynicism / sarcasm, I think, Mark.

― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

REM/U2 etc. - the best worst bands or the worst best bands ?

― geordie racer, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The reation against punk threory makes sense in the limited realm of college-radio where REM grew from. It could perhaps be more said that REM's sound allowed it uniquely to hold an underground base while also climing the charts.

― Sterling Clover, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One of those bands I'd like to like, seeing as almost everyone else in the entire world does (possibly an exaggeration), but they're just...well...boring. Sorry.

― DG, Sunday, 13 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Anybody got "Reveal" yet? Thoughts?

― Dr. C, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

utterly shit on TOTP last night, along with RADIOHEAD, fuxache this type of bollux i ask ya !!!

― geordie racer, Saturday, 26 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lost interest sometime around 'Automatic', but 'Fables of the Reconstruction' is still lovely. At least Stripe has finally come out, good man.

― Stevo, Saturday, 26 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, TOTP...he was using an autocue!

― DG, Saturday, 26 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've only very recently picked up a few REM albums and really have no sentimental attachment. The first few albums still sound pretty fresh, I think, although I can't put my finger on what's really interesting about them. My favourite at the moment is Up; there's clearly a fair amount of filler but Suspicion, Sad Professor, Daysleeper and Lotus still affect me, however underwritten they might be.

As opposed to apparently every critic around the world, I'm quite disappointed by Reveal. The last thing we need now is another apathetic 'Hey, everything will be alright' album. The tunes are pretty enough but I can't hear anything with the passion of Murmur or Lifes Rich Pageant. Maybe the computers just took it out of them a little.

― John Davey, Monday, 28 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

I too was in college in the 80's and at that time, REM was without a doubt my favourite band. Document made me think they were going the way of U2, but the band remained on my "buy without hearing list". I can't even remember which was my last. It was the one with Texarkana on it. Anyway, there are two REMs. All albums after LRP just aren't any good even though good songs can be found there. Murmer, Reckoning, Reconstruction and LRP are about as good of a 4-set as you will find in history,IMHO. The simplicity should be acclaimed, not criticized. I suppose for me, the deathblow was Buck's experiments with the mandolin. When the guitar left, so did I, and I haven't heared a reason to go back.

― Paul M Lafleur, Thursday, 5 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two weeks pass...

Stop press. I am very sceptical of any REM after about 1991. Imagine my surprise to find myself thinking: cor - this Reveal record is pretty good!

― the pinefox, Saturday, 21 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

pinefox - Is Reveal the first record you like of the zero decade? Except Lloyd Cole of course who is doing quite well on his latest actually!

― alex in mainhattan, Sunday, 22 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't want to overrate Reveal. It's not that great - just a slightly pleasant surprise.

Records I like in the zero decade include: Lloyd, The Negatives; 6ths, Hyacinths & Thistles; Costello / Mutter, For The Stars; B&S, FYHCYWLAP. Of these, I think Lloyd's is the best. EC does what he does. 6ths and B&S are patchy by their authors' standards. I can't think of many others.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 22 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three months pass...

Pinefox, I was the one who professed to enjoying R.E.M on a intellectual level, "chords and notes and stuff." I think what I mean is that they sound to me like a GM midi file: No matter the tempo or style, the band just plods along professionally, without any surprises or sudden jolts. They're just not very dynamic. ESPECIALLY Stipe. That said, the actual content of there songs can be quite good, and I really enjoy what I've heard of _Reveal_.

― Jack Redelfs, Monday, 22 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

five months pass...

Ugh. I am on of thsoe mid-30's people who luckily caught on to REM fairly early on (about '84). I don't recall them to be claiming punk/new wave/ post-pop/college/alterna....they were just a breath of fresh air when pop music wsa dominated by total shite.

Yeh, anything after 'document' or even 'lifes rich pageant' for that matter is supsect but ya kind of had o be there to understand the significance at the time.....

I but them at this time at of sentimentality

― Michael D, Sunday, 31 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

There are nowhere near enough "classic"s on this thread, so... CLASSIC!! No matter how terrible their new records get, they're still one of the best bands ever. How many great albums have they made? Ten?

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Saturday, 30 April 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

Well, it's no secret that I think they are classic and are still a pretty good band even though they seem to be in decline. I'm sure they will continue to write quality songs and play good live shows.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Saturday, 30 April 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

classic, but they bore the shit out of me and always have.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Saturday, 30 April 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

Haven't made an album that isn't really good yet!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, 30 April 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

classic, of course. but really, i'm only posting to point out that kris p.'s post from 2001 is the most ridiculous thing i've ever read on ILM.

xpost:
tim, i think that post could cut both ways...

― john'n'chicago, Saturday, 30 April 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

If they had broken up after Hi-Fi I could be so much more unreserved in my fanship. Hard to believe THAT album is almost a decade old.

― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 30 April 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

i would stretch anthony's comment to UP and think they would've been fine. monster turned 10 and that record was thrilling to me as a high schooler.

still classic, even if i hardly ever take these discs off the shelf any more. i used to debate the merits of gardening at night with my trig teacher.

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Saturday, 30 April 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

I think that Reveal and Around The Sun are below average in terms of their back catalog, but still have some really great songs on them. I fault R.E.M. for making albums that are only half-good but I give lesser bands a lot of credit for making albums that only have two or three good songs. So grading on a curve really hurts them.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:08 (twenty years ago)

I think that when Michael Stipe when from being completely introverted to Courtney Loving it up, it was a real trap for the band's overall feel. Shiny Happy People seemed like such an aberration, and then Automatic was a slickly produced return to form of sorts, even if it opened the floodgates further. Monster didn't bother me as much as some folks, and I really like(d) New Adventures and Up. But Reveal was the first album that I found completely ridiculous and middle-agey, even New Age-y. Around the Sun I've never even heard.

I thought The Great Beyond was a lovely single, as was Imitation of Life (even Bad Day fits into this category), but those seem more like lucky accidents than an indication that they could record an entire album as consistent as those 15 years ago.

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

And let's not underestimate the impact Bill Berry's departure had on the band's chemistry. He was more than just the ugly drummer; he wrote quite a few songs. Moreover, when you lose a drummer as solid as Berry, your band's gonna be awful slack in the rhythm department. That's how the remaining members justified their boring "electronic" direction to the press (all those gratuitous allusions to Eno, etc).

If "Hi-Fi" had ended with "Be Mine," it'd be classic REM, probably in my top four or five.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

Reveal was definitely the heartbreaker for me, esp. since "Imitation Of Life" was the best song they'd made since frikkin' who knows. Stuck out like a silver thumb and made the rest of the shit seem downright willfully awful. Ending with Hi-Fi would have a) allowed them to maintain that we-four-are-REM beauty (R=4!) and made "Electrolite" their curtain call. "I'm not scared, I'm out of here"!

― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)

Classic in the 80s, semi classic through the 90s, shit since 'Reveal'.

― I.M. (I.M.), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

They're definitely one of those bands where little flaws have become so crippling that it taints previous albums because I can see how little mistakes would evolve into tragedies. Stuff that would be forgivable if that's as far as they'd take it are now offensive.

― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:41 (twenty years ago)

i've argued with matt perpetua elsewhere about this, but i agree with anthony here - i can't listen to automatic anymore because i think it's so poorly paced. i know there are folks who'd disagree, and i love "side 2" but it's just such a jarring side 1.

having missed the monster tour - which would've been awesome as a high schooler - i was equally thrilled to see them on the UP tour as a college senior. they were ecstatic and did their best to include some older stuff...that the crowd booed!

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Saturday, 30 April 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

The warner bros. four-piece years are so tied up with my youth that I find it really hard to judge them critically - the idea of explaining what makes them 'good' is fucked because the appeal was so much less concrete at the time I memorized every melody (if not lyric). If I try to imagine how these albums come off to the unfamiliar I have to assume they're all patchwork nonsense. I'd probably throw Chronic thru Fables at an arty newbie as the early stuff has dance beats and Gehman-Litt haven't brought in the whole awkward arena element.

― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 30 April 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

PC Zeppelin really. Should have broke up when the drummer died.

― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 30 April 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

PC Zeppelin really

once they moved from dance clubs to theatres

― miccio (miccio), Saturday, 30 April 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

It's as impossible to explain REM's allure to neophytes as it is to explain the Beatles. ("But they wrote really GOOD songs!")

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 30 April 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 2496 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

My friend Dag (plays guitar in the band, lifer) shared this fun pic of him and Stipe last night.

― paisley got boring (Eazy),

I can't tell them apart!

― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 12 February 2024 17:57 (one year ago)

nice, I was just watching that REM-in-Jersey show a week or so ago. really kicking myself for not going to the Michael Shannon thing in Chapel Hill (pretty sure it was reading an interview with Shannon that prompted me to watch that old REM show).

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Monday, 12 February 2024 19:11 (one year ago)

four months pass...

Love seeing the four of them together again

Bill almost breaking up caught me off guard tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1qjo0Oz1qw

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 13 June 2024 15:34 (eleven months ago)

awww bill

― he/him hoo-hah (map), Thursday, 13 June 2024 17:06 (eleven months ago)

I'm crying too, biiiillllll <3

― fpsa, Thursday, 13 June 2024 17:38 (eleven months ago)

loved seeing the four of them together, didn't even make me feel (very) old

Buck with the reunion truth bomb: "It wouldn't be as good"

― Brad C., Thursday, 13 June 2024 18:00 (eleven months ago)

is it wrong that i want the four CBS morning people to start an REM cover band

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 13 June 2024 18:13 (eleven months ago)

lol

― Billion Year Polyphonic Spree (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 13 June 2024 18:49 (eleven months ago)

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

― paisley got boring (Eazy), Thursday, 13 June 2024 18:53 (eleven months ago)

I did not expect that to make me tear up a little bit. <3 these guys still and that was such refreshingly honest interview. Like clearly still some feelings, but they all seem able to appreciate the bigger picture.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 13 June 2024 19:04 (eleven months ago)

Gosh. There was a charm and unexpected sadness to that.

― djh, Thursday, 13 June 2024 21:06 (eleven months ago)

Ah man. I was at that Glastonbury show in the video!

― kinder, Thursday, 13 June 2024 23:13 (eleven months ago)

the all-time champs of Band Dynamics

― alpine static, Thursday, 13 June 2024 23:25 (eleven months ago)

CBS' Sunday morning show has consistently the best interviews.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 14 June 2024 00:15 (eleven months ago)

yeah, Mason is clearly a mega-music fan ... with exactly the taste you would expect, but still. at least they're making time for music.

― alpine static, Friday, 14 June 2024 00:21 (eleven months ago)

― timellison, Friday, 14 June 2024 00:39 (eleven months ago)

that was really cool and honest

― call all destroyer, Friday, 14 June 2024 02:43 (eleven months ago)

Well well well

https://www.facebook.com/REMhq/posts/pfbid031VDjWwKEGKMTJGZgLWn7k4y4SSvRZ38AKVkjRsn8XsCVuRqaDDh3eZtTPCb4ebVNl

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 14 June 2024 03:04 (eleven months ago)

Me just now: "I wonder if setlist.fm has been updated."

And of course:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/rem/2024/marriott-marquee-hotel-new-york-ny-3b57a878.html

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 14 June 2024 03:22 (eleven months ago)

It’s funny how the CBS anchor refers to them as “the iconic indie-rock group R.E.M.”

― Energy wrong, I log off (morrisp), Friday, 14 June 2024 05:25 (eleven months ago)

i did laugh at the fact they played just about every REM song most REM fans have no interest in hearing again.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Friday, 14 June 2024 07:16 (eleven months ago)

Really? I would have thought that for most REM fans that would be their #1 choice for them to play. It's certainly my favourite of all the songs they've ever done.

― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram), Friday, 14 June 2024 07:26 (eleven months ago)

"oh wow, they're playing "Shiny Happy People" / "Its the end of the world" / "Wolves, Lower" "

― Mark G, Friday, 14 June 2024 09:19 (eleven months ago)

I still love Losing my Religion

they sounded fantastic, very impressed

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 14 June 2024 11:59 (eleven months ago)

jeez, talk about ambushed by unexpected emotion, i'm filling up here

shared the interview with my dad - rem were one of the few bands we could agree on when i was a teenager

wild to realise the four of them haven't been interviewed together in 30 years

― katy perry (prison service) (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 14 June 2024 12:26 (eleven months ago)

losing my religion casts a spell that makes it totally resilient in the face of being massively overplayed, it never gets tired for me. i wouldn't have asked them to play any other song and i couldn't have asked them to sound any better playing it now, i found it moving

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 14 June 2024 13:47 (eleven months ago)

the Youtube above is US only, but i can play CBS's own video in Canada (41min): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/r-e-m-discusses-surprise-reunion-at-songwriters-hall-of-fame-reveals-why-there-wont-be-another/

not sure where the performance is on their site though

― maf you one two (maffew12), Friday, 14 June 2024 14:05 (eleven months ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATHHACcw3Q4

I'm in the UK and this link to the full 41m works for me

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Friday, 14 June 2024 14:24 (eleven months ago)

no performance in that video

― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Friday, 14 June 2024 14:28 (eleven months ago)

i googled "rem songwriters hall of fame performance" and a recording by someone in the crowd that's on youtube came up

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 14 June 2024 14:36 (eleven months ago)

Same

― Billion Year Polyphonic Spree (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 June 2024 15:30 (eleven months ago)

sheesh what a song

― he/him hoo-hah (map), Friday, 14 June 2024 15:40 (eleven months ago)

so nice to see bill just floating along on the hand percussion

― he/him hoo-hah (map), Friday, 14 June 2024 15:41 (eleven months ago)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8MbXgutzbT/?igsh=bjl3MDFkeXh2dnN6

― curmudgeon, Friday, 14 June 2024 15:52 (eleven months ago)

Stipe still sounds great

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 14 June 2024 15:54 (eleven months ago)

xp michael sounds amazing. lyrics still a rich enigma 40 years later. i loved how they described it as a "bumblebee" as in it shouldn't fly at all but it did.

― he/him hoo-hah (map), Friday, 14 June 2024 15:55 (eleven months ago)

the song gains something from the frailty of age. its shot through with the decrepitude of southern gothicism, so a patina of time and loss does it good

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 14 June 2024 16:01 (eleven months ago)

is that Clive Davis in the audience? That guy will never die.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 14 June 2024 16:01 (eleven months ago)

repeating from upthread for anyone who missed it: if you love this band or these people or the song "Losing My Religion" you should watch the Song Exploder episode on it. it's on Netflix and it's like 15 or 20 minutes long, as i recall? some great detail about the song, some great Bill Berry stuff and some of the love, respect, admiration and emotional resonance you get from that CBS interview.

― alpine static, Friday, 14 June 2024 16:11 (eleven months ago)

watching through the longer interview now :) love these guys

stipe is one of my favorite interviews ever, he's just so funny, would love to interview him myself one day

― ivy., Friday, 14 June 2024 16:34 (eleven months ago)

He has the most original timbre.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 14 June 2024 16:42 (eleven months ago)

Alex In NYC has a nice story on his blog
https://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2024/06/busy-week.html

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 15 June 2024 07:32 (eleven months ago)

this long Mike Mills interview with ILM fav Rick Beato digs deeper than the CBS interview into the band's music, how it was made, and how they handled their business:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRfhX-XAIiY

― Brad C., Monday, 17 June 2024 00:57 (eleven months ago)

Great interview thx for posting

― that's not my post, Monday, 17 June 2024 04:17 (eleven months ago)

Yep, very good

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Monday, 17 June 2024 21:10 (eleven months ago)

three months pass...

Harris/Walz doing full court press for the Gen X/college rock vote by trotting out Michael Stipe in Athens, GA to sing "Wendell Gee" for the first time since 1985 https://t.co/Chyu35CDk0 pic.twitter.com/Gen6PMb1Tw
— Matt Sebastian (@mattsebastian) October 11, 2024

― bratwurst autumn (Eazy), Friday, 11 October 2024 23:16 (seven months ago)

Not crying

― timellison, Friday, 11 October 2024 23:43 (seven months ago)

Lol “My dad loves you”

― There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Saturday, 12 October 2024 18:20 (seven months ago)

two weeks pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ftacKGmn6Q

― timellison, Wednesday, 30 October 2024 22:04 (seven months ago)

love it

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Wednesday, 30 October 2024 22:13 (seven months ago)

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