Now that it's remasterd and everything lets do an R.E.M.'s Murmur poll

It's a toss-up for me between "Sitting Still", "9-9" and "West of the Fields".

i think i like side A better

had this on cassette and used to let it flip over and over and over again in the car. i voted Shaking Through because i wanted it to have at least 1 vote.

I used to like side A better, but I've come to really love the other side over the past few years.

the production on A is perfect.little less on B
both sides have great songwriting though. and Stipe's voice.

Pilgrimage

This is one of those albums where 6 or 7 songs (Radio, Pilgrimage, Talk, Moral, Perfect, Sitting, 9-9) have been my absolute favorite at one time or another. If I were to pull it out today and play only one song it would probably be "Talk About the Passion," but I voted for "Moral Kiosk."

<3 moral kiosk

Shaking Through, though I say that with some embarassment, and though the real answer is obviously Radio Free Europe. Why don't I own this record, or have any of these songs anywhere? It was the first "college rock" (or alternative or whatever we were calling it back then) record I ever really paid attention to. I loved it to DEATH, played it incessantly, hundreds of times on infinite reapeat until the tape sounded like deep sea diving, and it opened a lot of doors for me -- I'd previously been into, like, The Buggles and Dire Straits. By far the most beautiful, distinctive and cohesive record in R.E.M.'s catalog, though Reckoning comes close.

Came close to picking Moral Kiosk.

i chose Laughing cause of the zero mentions so fat

but R.F.E will win i guess

Toss up between "Radio Free Europe," "Perfect Circle," "Sitting Still," "9-9," and "West Of The Fields." Ended up voting for "Perfect Circle" even though the opening 30 seconds of "West Of The Fields" might just be my fave R.E.M. ever.

"9-9" live >>>>>> "9-9" studio

For my money they never came close to touching this again. Reckoning, life's rich pagean, etc. are all fine. Great, even. But Murmur and Chronic Town are pretty unfuckwithable as a mission statement(s).

Tepted by radio, but I know if I listened to it now I could easily be swayed

Kinda disappointing that, having made the statement, they ended up choosing an entirely different mission.

Passion is the best example for Easter and Dixon masterfull complex production:it's like a 4 different parts of productions (on the verse,chorus,bridge and instrumental) and playing style sticked together smoothly for 1 song.
other songs got it too,blending post punk and folk at the same song (Laughing for example) without sounding unpleasent.

9-9 (but I was pleased as punch when they dusted off West of the Fields at the show I saw this summer). Most of this record is better than Radio Free Europe. Waiting for someone to make a case for We Walk.

it's the only song will Bill Berry on the billiard table

with

Yeah, production really is incredible. I couldn't put a name to what they were doing at the time (this record being my introduction to "post-punk" music), but it blew me away. All the ambience, distance and textural obsession of Martin Hannett's Factory style, but softened, sweetened, blurred into a dreamy haze. That "chock chock" sound the chorus of Moral Kiosk...

^^^Damn right.

But WHAT??? YOU WANT ME TO PICK A FAVE TRACK ON THIS??? WHAT???? DOES. NOT. COMPUTE. &*()&$*()#)_@!+@ {{{{HEAD EXPLODES}}}}

"I couldn't put a name to what they were doing at the time "

hard to put a name for it even today i think.
there are some great examples of production layers, atmosphere and ideas (Eno,Buckingham), but not with influences like patti smith,modern lovers,byrds and gang of four on them

(sell also:Easter work with Scott Miller)

Contenderizer I just attempted to email you through the ILX webmail system. Look for it.

check

A great album throughout, but still has to be "Radio Free Europe".

this was already remastered by MFSL and sounded awesome, how does the new one sound? anyway still probably my favorite REM album by a hair, I have lots of these songs in my head all the time, it's kind of their catchiest album with the best tunes. I'llhave to think what I like best.

Catapult easily.

impossible

ooh yeah catapult

My vote could alternately go to RFH, Pilgrimage, Passion, P. Circle, Catapult, Sitting Still or Shaking Through. This is just one of those albums that's so good that you're all like "Ooh, this is my favorite song" and then the next one cues and you're all like "Waitaminnit, this one.."

An embarassment of riches.

*RFE

shaking through

^^^

Eno and Buckingham are accurate production touchstones. Even in the rather ashen original CD remaster, you can loads of shit on headphones: high-hats, an unmoored harmony, a tack piano.

Voted for "Catapult." The only song I don't care for is "We Walk," and I can't think of a good reason why.

Shaking Through, for so many reasons; to name just two: it has one of the best opening lines ever, and the 'wordless' middle 8 that has such an intensity

voted sitting still

Not sure if this needed a remaster, I haven't heard any but the original IRS LP & CD I own, and I like the muddy dynamics work for it. Also, my vote went to "Moral Kiosk".

Not a bad track on this record but come on, people, it's "Pilgrimage."

If you haven't found their 1983 performance of RFE on Letterman... well, what are you waiting for??

:-( I was really looking forward to doing this poll!

But, anyway, fucking amazing album that I've maybe worn out a bit, but it still sounds great every time. Hard to really have original words about it at this point. In a really hyperbolic web review ("unique churn and mumble") I once wrote this about Stipe's voice:

On this record, it's a complete smokescreen, protecting meaning within a layer of armor on top of the loopy semi-sense of the lyrics themselves.

and this stuff:

But listening to the album, I can't put my finger on just what gives me this overwhelming sense of specialness and magic. Certainly a few songs are key: the loopy "9-9" is perhaps the album's unacknowledged masterpiece, sliding all over the place like it's about to bust its gearbox as Stipe repeats, mantra-like, strange and fearful words [...] The album would also feel far more pedestrian without the upsy-daisy "We Walk," which is so friendly it's sinister, and of course the muffled, driving kickoff, "Radio Free Europe," which seems to have about as much to do with Radio Free Europe as "9-9" does with the number 9.

Of course, don't let all this talk of mystery and hidden treasure let you think that this is some quiet, introspective album. It's full of wonderful nooks and crannies, but it is at heart a rock and roll barnstormer - check out "Moral Kiosk," and "Catapult," two out-of-control trains about to jump the tracks.

So, yeah. When I first got into this album it would have been "9-9" easy, and that's still the best rock song on here, the most Chronic Town thing in the bunch - but it's "Laughing" that I picture when I think of listening to this album, on a cassette walkman wandering around Oxford on study abroad, having no particularly deep appreciation for anything around me but totally digging on flowers, sunshine, and the way the whole world seemed to open up ahead when you have music on headphones and Stipe intoning "Lighted, lighted..." I'm falling back on the same hyperbolic tone as before, which is enough to smother the song I'm afraid. Anyway it gets my vote.

REM - "Pilgrmage"

moral kiosk is the enduring favourite, though i like all the tracks on this album immensely

I'll bet "Talk about the Passion" doesn't get a vote.

no idea what to vote for, since i like all the songs but i also like them all best in context with each other. lots of great intros on this record: the opening of "r.f.e," obviously, but also the way "laughing" starts out all stark and bass-y before turning pretty, stipe's voice drifting in from some dark corner on "pilgrimage," the big chiming picked chords on "talk about the passion," the nervous hihat on "shaking through." they knew how to start a song.

the big chiming picked chords on "talk about the passion"

And the arpeggios!

One of my favorite noodly warmup things on an acoustic. And the reason I voted for it :-)

there is really so much good shit on this album. i'm lovin it

xpost haha that first bit made no sense... edit failure :o

When I was in high school, I assumed a "moral kiosk" was one of those four-sided bulletin board things (with little roofs to keep the flyers dry) you see on college campuses... because R.E.M. was a "college band"

combien, combien, combien du temps

Michael Stipe and I were in the same Elementary French class in 1980; he sat very quietly in the back and seemed to be hiding under his long hair. While I was struggling with pop quizzes, he was probably writing cool lyrics.

somehow gets better every time i listen to it

it’s an incredible album, there’s nothing else quite like it

I always imagine Lucy in her booth, dispensing advice to Charlie Brown, whenever I think of the phrase “Moral Kiosk”.

Brad C., that’s awesome!

Minty breath, minty mouth
It’s Gumby in reaction
Minty breath, minty mouth
Talk about the passion
Gumby in
Gumby in
Gumby into town

Lol

he was probably looking out the window murmuring “combien de temps?”

I remember our TA very sweetly congratulating him on a story in the student paper about his band

from early 1980 to the release of Murmur was a long time in R.E.M. years

It must have been astonishing to watch their trajectory after that. And the B52s of course.

we were such tiny children we took it for granted

the B-52s were the only frame of reference and they were rarely in Athens by that time

Just looked up official lyrics to Shaking Through, and concluded that the ones I made up in my head over many years are much better. I had forgotten how great Laughing is precisely because he sings something like 'Largeing' or logic?, so I never can put title to tune. It you can't be a great lyricist, be an ambiguous one. Wonderful instrumental work in 9-9 - in fact right through the album. The song that hit me most emotionally was Perfect Circle. It's the way that depressed, wallowing verse transforms into an upbeat country jangle, always got me there.

i always knew he was saying “lighted” in “laughing” but for decades i have been assuming “Laocoön” was “your rocker mom”

Michael Stipe and I were in the same Elementary French class in 1980

this isn't quite as impressive, but as i was traveling yesterday i stopped in a collinsville, IL for gas and a filet of fish value meal at mcdonalds. turns out Collinsville is where michael stipe graduated from high school!!!!!!!!!

You cannot fuck with this album.

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, December 15, 2008 6:38 PM (ten years ago)

I can remember the exact moment I first heard the 7" version of "Radio Free Europe" on my friend's mom's car radio, they stood out right from the start

'we walk' is probably objectively the least-good song on here, but that hasn't stopped me from singing it in my head every single time i walk up more than one flight of stairs.

thinking about stipe in a college classroom really reminds me one of the amazing and distinctive things about them - maybe sometimes aided by not always being able to hear clearly - which is how stipe's lyrics and delivery managed to convey a ton of maturity and wisdom or at least lived experience from people who were actually quite young at the time. the earnestly political stand-taking songs, and a handful of over-reaching or too-literary metaphors, are the only ones that really jump out to me as "young man's" lyrics, and in that vein they're way less distracting than most. mostly it's this great and confident scramble of half-remembered college course stuff (Lessing's Laocoön essay, "the consul a horse," etc.), folk tales or things that feel like folk tales, and weird southern idiom overheard by an arty California transplant .... and it ends up being poetry, where either of those things by themselves would feel affected at length.

wonderful post Dr C

It is still a pretty astonishing debut album; I can't think of anything quite like it.

If I started an R.E.M. cover band, I'd call it "Dreams of Elysian"

Seem to recall that I had a cassette dub of a bootleg with this on it, but with considerably worse fidelity. Pretty amazing to hear. I think the difference in the guitar sound is as almost as significant as the presence of the dreaded synthesizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUv4tn3zGj0

do not like

that makes me sort of queasy

imagine if every song on Murmur sounded like that

boy that's missing a lot of momentum. not sure if it's the performance or the mix or what. the rhythm section doesn't feel locked in. stipe's vocals are dangerously easy to make out. mills's have echo on them which loses the reedy, byrdsy texture that's so key to the IRS-era records.

the synth isn't horrible imo but it's hard to add an element to a super familiar song and it does make them sound less unique. like without the murk and the kudzu they sound a lot closer to their obvious post-punk peers, like early U2 or idk The Teardrop Explodes...? it's weird. i dunno this recording works better for me as it goes on, but they so obviously made the right choice with Easter that even before i looked up the full backstory on this i was like "the hell, how would you record Chronic Town and then get amped up that your next record should sound like this? well, they didn't.

OMG

😳

Even the arrangement of the song is worse — the omission of the initial “Oooooooh....”s; the backing vocal lines coming right on top of each other in the chorus, with no breathing room...

Er I like this more than the studio version. But I would, considering how much I prefer U2 and the Church and similar groups to REM. Super curious to hear any other tracks Hague did for them.

I don't really mind it either. Though "less unique" is OTM.

Dunno if this has ever been posted on ILX but man, check this out. I had no idea there was evera recording of it made. Kind of a fabled gig in Rem history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq3zzeA40Q8

set 1: (Murmur) Radio Free Europe / Pilgrimage / Laughing / Talk About The Passion / Moral Kiosk / Perfect Circle / Catapult / Sitting Still / 9-9 / Shaking Through / We Walk / West Of The Fields

set 2: (Green) Pop Song 89 / Get Up 1 / You Are The Everything / Stand /
We Live As We Dream, Alone - World Leader Pretend / The Wrong Child /
Orange Crush / Turn You Inside-Out / Hairshirt / I Remember California / Untitled

encore 1: Get Up 2 / Wild Thing / Fall On Me
encore 2: Low / Finest Worksong

yo what

THANKING YOU

i am still such a murmur stan, so this is a dream setlist. i love green too (i love all of them, pretty much)

Seem to remember a thread on here somewhere about bands who peaked on the first track on their first album - Radio Free Europe is a good candidate for this

I mean, they topped it with “Pilgrimage”

it's gained momentum!

My dad maintains that they peaked even earlier, on "Carnival of Sorts."

yes, also Wolves Lower and especially Gardening At Night

They peaked with I Can’t Control Myself (Troggs Cover)

Wow

recent interview with mitch easter about his work with r.e.m.: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2021/08/10/mitch-easter-the-aquarium-drunkard-interview

Going back to Oct 1982 this is a great show with surprisingly ok audio and video. A mix of Chronic Town and Murmur. Stipe pretty loose, having fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sBVX9kRmBE

love that video

lol at Stipe's Tri Sigma sorority shirt

Watching that reminds me how spot-on Fred Armisen is, talking about Bill's drumming style (starts at 1'40")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoUWmZo_t1s

That Mitch Easter interview was interesting. I didn’t know Peter Holsapple originally hooked the guys up with him.

Seems weird - https://news.yahoo.com/michael-shannon-jason-narducy-perform-163000856.html

Michael Shannon seems to always be doing these kinds of tributes. He did one for The Blue Mask, I believe.

Or at least participated in it.

They were a really fun live band up until around the time Green came out.

inside the cold dark fire twilight