REM album poll- The 1980s

1990s and 2000s albums polls to follow if there is enough interest.

Reckoning

Reckoning

not Reckoning, Murmur or LRP for me.

Reckoning

what about Dead Letter Office?

Reckoning

Reckoning gets my vote, but Dead Letter Office is my favorite

Pageant in a heartbeat.

I loved the first four at the time. I'll vote for Murmur, no special reason.

What Evan R said. I like everything (except It's the end of the world..) through Document.

LRP without even thinking about it.

lrp rec mur fab ... doc gre

Time After Time was my least favorite song

Pageant in a heartbeat.

Ditto. I listened to it recently and it still has this pull that draws me in.

Green.

I wanna say Murmur but LRP was the revelation cuz I came to it a few years into my REM fandom. Thoughts here:

TS: R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageant" vs "Document"

I'm probably going to be the only vote for Document but what can I say? I like enunciating Stipe more than mumbly Stipe.

At different times it's LRP, Murmur, Document, but I decided a long time ago that I was just going to settle on Pageant as my answer to this important question so there it is. Would never vote for Green in this but I'm glad it's getting a vote because it's often forgotten and underrated but is in fact great.

I've only heard Murmur, Fables, Document...of those, Fables is the runaway winner

if you go a million miles away i'll track you down Drugs

Lifes Rich Pageant is probably the most immediately enjoyable one for me, although on another day it could be Murmur. Reckoning is the only one of these that I've never completely connected with.

To me Murmurs and Fables are the most consistent.

Some of the others are pretty patchy (theme being - great first side..second..not so sure..)

I honestly think you could have a hard time conjuring up a great album with the second sides of a lot of these albums....theres a lot of forgettable muck in there

Fables > Murmur > Pagaent > Reckoning >>> Document >>>>>>> Green

actually that's kind of a kneejerk list from 20 years ago, haven't listened properly to any of those albums for much too long.

tbh I'm a much bigger fan of Document's second side than its first, a lot of my problem with 80s REM is that they get trumpeted as some super-atmospheric and poetic and mysterious folk-punk and then when I listen to the albums, on the whole, they kind of comes across as a slightly constipated version of the Tragically Hip or something...

I've vented my misgivings in other threads, but I will say this: Murmur was one of the biggest disappointments in my rock-nerd-dom

also: Chronic Town wd get my vote easy

good! no consensus

Lifes Rich Pageant for me, just for that incredible run of four songs at the beginning. Such a perfect point between the mysteriousness of their early work and the bright colour of their mid-period run.

Poll the 90s albums on their own IMO. No one's going to vote for anything post-2000.

Fables for me. Still the one that yields unexpected pleasures. Reckoning was always my least favourite of the IRS albums, though never quite sure why.

I used to prefer Green to Document, but their positions have really reversed themselves for me over the years. I think maybe because Green was the "wow now everyone is listening to my favorite band" album, but Document is just stronger overall.

Reckoning

Reckoning

I find that over time, Document has become more "mysterious" for me. I think it's because I listen to more classic rock lately.

Dead Letter Office!
My vote goes to the pure tenor quality of the Voice of Harold over 7 Chinese Brothers any day,

I do like this counter-reading of the supposed murk and mystery... but Murmur still delivers those goods for me. Chronic Town is witchier (and should be here, at least in Dead Letter Office form) but Murmur still has this certain....fog? Softness? There's this texture to it that's really evocative even or especially on the songs where I have no idea what the subject matter is, and you can just get folded up in the sign. It may not be a missive from a hidden Southern Gothic fortress buried deep in kudzu but it's a great thing. For all that, I think I played it one too many times a few years back, and have to pick Fables now for having fewer songs that I just don't ever want to hear again (Perfect Circle especially).

Fables still the most bleh of the early albums to me, as I confirmed a few days ago.

i wish R.E.M. albums contained actual mysteries, like Michael Stipe gets into character as a fedora-wearing private eye and investigates a murder

"It's a Man Ray kind of sky. I'm Michael Stipe, private investigator."

Fables, closely followed by Reckoning. The album unfolds magnificently with Feeling Gravity's Pull and from there on just flows beautifully

bahhhhha, REM albums rewritten as Athens-based musique noir would be amazing.

"it wasn't seven chinese brothers after all, but just one man who had seven different hats he wore on different occasions"

"But how did Driver Eight fit in? I needed a stiff drink and a long talk, and Old Man Kensey wasn't good for either one."

Voted for Reckoning also. Awesome that a sort of back to basics album could top the baroque grandiosity of Murmur and obviously I think it does.

"Police demanded an autopsy, but I saw no point in exhuming McCarthy."

I wonder about Don Dixon's role on the sound of Reckoning in particular. The album is like this stunning proof that vintage/retro could sound as contemporary as anything else, but I wonder if he hidden element in that was how much it relied on like hard rock engineering techniques.

I used to have a bit about how the progression from Fables to LRP to Document was an expression of the Hegelian dialectic. Never wrote it down, though, which is probably just as well.

It's the basis for my vote for Document, though. R.E.M. becomes a traditional rock band, but from a unique path.

I kind of feel like REM didn't figure out how to make an entire album until Out of Time

I would posit that no album prior to Out of Time featured such disastrous filler as "Low" and "End Game," nor such a lapse in judgment as "Radio Song," but that's just me.

"Swan Swan H," "Can't Get There..." and "I Remember California" are lapses in judgment

I'd vote for "Endgame" in an OOT poll, probably already did

Low is a bit dreary, but hardly disastrous. Endgame is a nice wee pastoral instrumental. Filler perhaps, but rather lovely filler. I'm very fond of OOT partly for nostalgic reasons, as it was one of my first REM albums, but while I can see why some might not like it - and even I have trouble with Radio Song - I think it represented a necessary chamber pop left turn from the sometimes over-earnest liberal arena rock sound of the Document/Green away.

I tend to think Document and Green are the patchiest and most dated of REM's Berry-era albums. The production doesn't always help, either - compare the massive Neil Young guitar snarl Buck gets on the In Time live version of Turn You Inside Out to the studio version - or the slightly thin sound of Document.

That said, I don't really mind that REM started to be less consistent by the late 80s. Failed experiments can still be interesting.

And there are still some great songs and strong experiments on those albums. I even like the goofier songs on Green and Untitled is really delightful.

I always say Murmur is my favourite - a very special, mysterious album that will always remain magical - but Reckoning, LRP and Fables are glorious too.

"Swan Swan H" is the opposite of a lapse in judgment.

You're right: no judgmetn.

swan swan h for presidetn

danm

I would posit that no album prior to Out of Time featured such disastrous filler as "Low" and "End Game," nor such a lapse in judgment as "Radio Song," but that's just me.

― Driver 8, Wednesday, 23 October 2013 21:35 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Out Of Time is probably my least favourite of the Berry-era albums. I actually like 'Endgame', although absolutely with you on 'Low' and 'Radio Song', which rank as two of my least favourite R.E.M. tracks overall.

'document' is the one i heard the most, but 'murmur' is the one i go back to most frequently nowadays. love 'fables...' too. never connected that much with 'reckoning' and 'lrp', dunno why...

don't really remember 'green' tbh

I'm not a big fan of Out of Time either. High highs but low lows too. I think it's one of their most inconsistent, of any era. (That said, highs and lows is better than consistently mediocre the whole way through, as some of the later ones are.) But I actually don't despise "Radio Song" - the guitar line is lovely, most of Stipe's melodies are nice, and 20+ years later KRS One's bit is just kinda funny and goofy. Now "The Outsiders" from Around the Sun - THAT is a disaster.

I'm actually surprised to see so much consensus on Document being the worst of this era. I think every song from "Finest Worksong" through "The One I Love" is classic. I'm not crazy about "Fireplace," "Lightnin' Hopkins," and "King of Birds," but then the album recovers with "Oddfellows Local 151." That's eight out of eleven songs I'd rank as five stars.

I still like "Radio Song" too, but my tolerance for rappers turning up in unusual places in that era - like Miles' "Doo Bop" - is pretty high.

There are people who aren't crazy about "King of Birds"?

"The One I Love" and "Strange" are dirgey i think

TS: Michael Stipe's horrible guest rap on Neneh Cherry's "Trout" VS. KRS-One's horrible guest rap on REM's "Radio Song?"

I agree that Document/Green are my least favorite and do seem a 'pair' to me (moreso than Green/OOT anyway) but would rank Document higher, as I like its weird Side B material better. I used to rate it really high, when I was first getting into the band, but I think it sort of exhausts itself after a while on the ears...just not enough to discover or sink teeth into. A real step down from LRP in that sense.

has to be murmur or pageant imo any other outcome is a travesty

it's totally going to be Reckoning

Document's an awesome album imo, but then i've always been a big defender of Mike Mills slap bass

would be kind of pleasantly surprised if Reckoning won this poll, since Murmur absolutely crushed it in this: Now this is how it started: THE ILX 1980s ALBUM POLL RESULTS!!

I like LRP lots but it's the 80s REM album I'm least to put on as a whole; first eight songs are good to great, but the rest is a slog ("Superman" is ok to good)

i think murmur or lrp also, but would be ok with reckoning.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Seemed like the most appropriate place to post this. No use for non-UK folk, but REM is the first contestant's specialist subject on Mastermind. Questions were fairly easy. I did better than the guy on the show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03fmt80/Mastermind_2013_2014_Episode_11/

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

Document wuz robbed!

Well, based on the comments on this thread I thought Reckoning was going to take it. I'm just glad seven other people agreed with me that Document is tops. I'm not totally alone on that.

xp

happy to see Fables get a bit of kicking.

rude

Trying to think of any other band whose first one or two albums were so enshrined by critics but then went on to have popular success with album five or six. How many people who discovered REM in the "One I Love" through "Everybody Hurts" years went back to check out Murmur and Reckoning?

Trying to think of any other band whose first one or two albums were so enshrined by critics but then went on to have popular success with album five or six.

Pavement. Their best selling album is widely agreed to be their worst... and was recorded by REM fave Mitch Easter!

I did!

xp

uh BTC was late in Pavement's career. WTF?

xp yeah I did too but I'm talking new fanbase not music nerds. How many newcomers to REM in the getting big phase actually bout the pre-87 albums?

my first awareness of rem was finding stipe's voice annoying as fuc on 'the one i love'. missed 'stand' and somehow totally connected with 'out of time' -- 'belong' was my first favorite song. then i went back

voted pageant for more or less sentimental reasons and am okay with the results except that document > green

lol btc meets none of the criteria there

Trying to think of any other band whose first one or two albums were so enshrined by critics but then went on to have popular success with album five or six

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Their best selling album is widely agreed to be their worst

uhhh no

Most popular album surely Crooked Rain? That's the one w the 'hits'

lol Pavement "popular success"

Happy with those results except I like Green more than most people, by the looks of things

Talking Heads fit the bill; critically celebrated from the jump, didn't become platinum-selling radio staples until albums 5 and 6.

good one

wd've voted Reckoning

Depeche Mode to a degree, but not critically beloved.

yeah i think for it to be like 'first two albums were top 10 pazz & jop' level of critical enshrinement, would make a pretty small club.

Would make a good thread maybe? After the New Jersey negotiations I don't think I'd have the stomach for it, myself, but it could be fun and anyway might be a bit of an overlooked pendant/anchor on this thread...

I adore "Endgame" too, if I'm correctly remembering it as the instrumental with light vocals but no lyrics. Gorgeous.

Yeah, that's the one. I love that chord progression!

conversation fear!