REM: Classic or dud?

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.

We'll give them dud, for kicks.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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...

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

once they moved from dance clubs to theatres

Middle ground between what and what?

May I say that this is just an utterly DIRE portrait of the people that like their music?

The Klosterman thing is patronising, but it is true that REM had a certain arty liberal outsider appeal. They were a great band to be into when you're first discovering music. They and Nirvana were the first bands not in my parents' record collections I got into. Both were non-macho, arty rock bands and a great gateway drug into more esoteric pleasures.

So Classic! Despite the undeniable dudness of Reveal and Around the Bum.
(That said, Reveal had Beat A Drum, which is terrible on the album, but beautiful in its spare piano demo form).

i don't think people were saying the words were inaudible; just indecipherable. stipe didn't really start enunciating until lifes rich pageant, a rumored concession to their label.

That rant above is kind of ridiculous, though. R.E.M. were a power pop band who liked Gang of Four and Fairport Convention. If other bands were influenced by them in crap ways, it was their own fault.

Tell me they don't look more kick-fucking-arse here than at any point since pre BINGO HAND JOB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRVxOmu87MA

staring sideways at a laptop while singing pretty much removes all "kick-fucking-arse" from a performance

fuck is Stipe's problem? You don't see a goddamn music stand in front of Peter or Mike.

It is a good song, though.

I would be 'anticipating' Accelerate in this thread if only I could listen to their watermarked promo on my computer or in my car. I may need to borrow a discman.

L£ak£d.

So the weather in the UK has turned at last and out of the blue I have some strange and nostalgic feeling toward the first four or five REM albums. What gives?

You can see yourself at 30?

Ha, well I'm 38

I still haven't worked up the courage to listen to Accelerate, not to mention the two recent live albums either. Soon! I've been enjoying a lot of 80s-era REM bootlegs recently; "Baby I" is such a hot song.

yeah i'd say it's more "you can see youself at 40" for early REM nostalgia.

i get that feeling in early summer, too.

you know what sounds especially good as summer really begins to swelter? fables of the reconstruction.

Daniel, don't you live in Florida? It's always swelter there!

lol, yeah. we actually had a cool -- sometimes cold -- winter. but the swelter has returned now.

i used to have about five rem bootlegs on cassette. they had some of my favorite rem songs. i can't find them, and if i could find them, i couldn't play them (it's all discs and mp3s now, sadly).

and by "favorites," i mean unreleased stuff.

Lots of o/w unreleased material floats around out there, if you're inclined that way. The one I love the most is called So Much Younger Then, from 1981. Evidently there's a fuller version of that set, called Georgia Peaches—Ripe!, but I've never managed to track it down.

i had so much younger then! i can't begin to describe how much i adored that cassette. i wish they would somehow make these bootlegs available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXdrz1AHXJE

is that the set that so much younger then was taken from? i've heard the entire muti-video set on youtube. i think this is part one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq2kTRR1YJo&feature=related

Your link seems to be from a month later, but there shouldn't be any essential difference otherwise.

here's a bootleg list. i had so much younger then; bodycount; that beat; and maybe more, but all from around 1981.

just checked ebay and amazon. sadly, no sign of anyone selling the bootlegs (i realize you're not supposed to, but i took a chance).

I'll just say that it's trivial to get So Much Younger Then via your search engine of choice, and if you're willing to pay for a boot, this is just as sketchy & has the benefit of not having to pay a possibly shady dealer $20+ for it.

i'll look into it.

a different view, from the guy who hated most of miles davis' discs, i think. anyway:

On a foggy Monday in September, I hapt upon a miracle at the thrift store. In the dollar bin of cassette tapes filled with garbage and pish-posh rested a gentle TDK featuring the lilting handwriting of a young girl or "girly man," as popular political figure Hans and Franz might say. But this was no ordinary lilting TDK: this tape featured illicit tapings of two already illegal REM bootlegs -- which actually brings up a point I hadn't considered. We know bootlegging is wrong, but how about if you bootleg a BOOTLEG, as this enterprising human bean had done? Is it considered a good deed to take money out of the bootlegger's pocket? I don't know the answer. I can't even fathom how such a moral conundrum might be resolved. As our discussion continues, my mind is spinning with the possibilities, slowly tearing away at the delicate brainstem attachment. OW!

(*rests lazily in chair like Christopher Reeve*)

(*laughs uproariously at such a biting irreverent jab at a well-loved public figure*)

(*reads this week's obituaries; squirts intestinal bile out of nose*)

To cut to the quick chase, REM used to be a hellaciously rotten new wave/punk rock band. All the right instrumental elements were there from the beginning -- Peter Buck's clean jangly guitar tone, Michael Stipe's light Southern drawl, Mike Mills' excitable backup vocals and presumably bass playing of some sort, the drummer's peppy 4/4 beat later utilized in folk-punk classics like "Radio Free Europe" and "These Days" -- but one key element of the band's sound had yet to come to fruition. I'm speaking of course about the ability to compose anything remotely suggesting that the band members held even an ounce of collective common sense. Presumably they were going for some sort of Ramonesy beachpunk feel with the constant speedy 4/4 rhythm and simplistic chord sequences, but the "riffs" are just -- I mean, just TERRIBLE! Absolutely TERRIBLE! Straight out of 1958 A-E-D simplistic crap -- like the worst Buddy Holly outtakes of all time played fast on a clean guitar. It's not beachy, nor punky, nor Ramonesy in any other way, no matter how many times they rip off the "Blitzkrieg Bop" riff (which is PLENTY). It's just BAD! Even when they try to take a darker approach with minor chords and pessimistic lyrics, the songwriting remains clueless and the songs hookless. It's truly astonishing to think that this band would soon become one of the greatest songwriting teams in rock and roll history (I mean have you heard Reveal? It fuckin' TEARS!!!).

The bootleg was recorded at a live "gig" in 1980, and features the following tracks: Body Count (not an Ice-T cover), A Different Girl, Action (not a Paul Revere & The Raiders cover), Narrator For The Jacques Cousteau Show, She's Such A Pretty Girl, Baby I, Permanent Vacation (not an Aerosmith cover), Wait (not a White Lion cover), Scheherezade, Lisa Sez (probably a Lou Reed cover, though I didn't compare the two songs to check), Mystery To Me (not a Fleetwood Mac cover), I Don't Want You Anymore (not a Ramones cover), Little Girl (indeed a Syndicate Of Sound cover), Dangerous Times.

Do you recognize these rare REM songs? From b-sides, later album appearances, mixed artist compilations, rarities collections, box sets and any of the other many outlets that a band of REM's stature would naturally have for stray tracks? No, you don't. AND THERE'S A GOOD GODDAMNED REASON FOR THAT!!! Here I am all excited thinking I'm going to get this all-new collection of great REM tunes that nobody's ever heard, and what do I end up with but stereo speakers so filled with shit that everything I play now is completely muffled. Aside from the Syndicate of Sound cover, there is not a single good -- or even DECENT -- song on this bootleg. Okay, "A Different Girl" has a couple of good parts. But that is IT. REM's earliest material is shockingly bad. Horrifyingly bad. Dip your balls in a blender bad.

Oh, I'm sorry. Do you not generally dip your balls in a blender when you hear a bad record?

Wait, now I'm really confused. If I'm the only one who does this, where did all these "women" come from? THEY certainly must have dipped their balls in a blender after hearing a bad record at some point!

So basically what you're saying is that I'd might as well give up sending Billy Joel tapes to Steve Guttenberg. I knew it! I shall die alone!!!!

this enterprising human bean

"I mean have you heard Reveal? It fuckin' TEARS!!!"

lol

sadly, yes, i have heard reveal.

So Mark Prindle is now known as "the guy who hated most of miles davis' discs." LOL

should he be known as something else?

No, it's just interesting that those reviews have completely overshadowed the rest of his output. Well, that and his review of AC/DC's Ballbreaker.

http://victoriansquidmusic.blogspot.com/2010/04/rem-so-much-younger-then.html

yeah, i read that earlier. i liked that post. it's a bit overly-harsh on monster, which is an underrated disc (but by no means in the upper-tier of REM's discography).

i'm not a guy who thinks their post-college rock stuff is a waste of time, but I do just think of REM in the 80s being a different band than REM in the 90s.

i do agree that fables IS a perfect sweltering-summer type of record. in fact, it was the first proper REM record that i'd ever bought and it always takes me back to the summer when i first heard it (listening to it at my parents' vacation cabin in Vermont, during what passed as a "sweltering summer" by Vermont standards).

wendell gee: perfect summer, moody, southern gothic rock.

definitely going to get this:
R.E.M. will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their third album Fables of the Reconstruction with a double-disc reissue that pairs the complete digitally remastered original record with a second disc of demos and unreleased tracks from the era titled "The Athens Demos." The Fables reissue, due out July 13th, will also come with new liner notes written by R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck packaged in a lift-top box with a poster and four postcards. The reissue will also be available digitally and on 180-gram vinyl.

"It's a personal favorite," writes Buck of the album, which includes the band's classic "Driver 8," "and I'm really proud of how strange it is. Nobody but R.E.M. could have made that record. It took our four twisted personalities and the legendary Joe Boyd to make an album that character-filled and vibey."

Fables of the Reconstruction found the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers leaving behind their native Athens, Georgia, and recording for the first time in London, though "The Athens Demos" captures the group's initial recordings in their hometown. In addition to all 11 Fables tracks in demo form, the second disc also features the debut of the fan-favorite unreleased track "Throw Those Trolls Away" plus the demo of B side "Bandwagon" and an early version of "Hyena," which would later appear on Lifes Rich Pageant.

R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction (25th Anniversary Edition)
Disc One: digitally remastered original album
1. "Feeling Gravity's Pull"
2. "Maps and Legends"
3. "Driver 8"
4. "Life and How To Live It"
5. "Old Man Kensey"
6. "Can't Get There From Here"
7. "Green Grow The Rushes"
8. "Kohoutek"
9. "Auctioneer (Another Engine)"
10. "Good Advices"
11. "Wendell Gee"

Disc Two: "The Athens Demos"
1. "Auctioneer (Another Engine) [demo version]"
2. "Bandwagon [demo version]" [final version was B side to "Can't Get There From Here"]
3. "Can't Get There From Here [demo version]"
4. "Driver 8 [demo version]"
5. "Feeling Gravity's Pull [demo version]"
6. "Good Advices [demo version]"
7. "Green Grow The Rushes [demo version]"
8. "Hyena [demo version]" [album version appeared on Lifes Rich Pageant]
9. "Kohoutek [demo version]"
10. "Life and How To Live It [demo version]"
11. "Maps and Legends [demo version]"
12. "Old Man Kensey [demo version]"
13. "Throw Those Trolls Away [demo version]" [previously unreleased]
14. "Wendell Gee [demo version]"

fables doesn't sound one bit like it was recorded in london.

by Joe Boyd (the same dude who produced Nick Drake) even ... wasn't until over a decade later (when i started listening to Nick Drake) that i realized the connection. and even later than that when i realized just WHY there might have been some tension b/w Boyd and the REM-mers during the recording of that record.

I stopped enjoying Wendell Gee when I realised it sounds alarmingly like Wind of Change by the Scorpions.

interesting that this is the firts of the 3 reissues so far without a live disc. i know they HATED making this album, and possibly hated touring it aswell? so that could be why.

there was a fucking killer interview from Melody Maker from the Fables era but it i can't find it online.

*first

well WTF the new album is really good. much better than anything since UP. Maybe better than that album too (depending on how you feel about that album).

mm definitely their best since Up. this is the thread where we say as much:
R.E.M. news - yay

Robot Hull on early R.E.M.:

http://www.rocksbackpagesblogs.com/2009/08/a-great-southern-voice-revisited-part-one/
http://www.rocksbackpagesblogs.com/2009/08/a-great-southern-voice-revisited-part-2/

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/44074-rem-break-up/

The band broke up years ago. R.E.M. has basically been three solo projects all at once.

Sad, though. End of an era.

And, and obviously: classic.

It's good they finally put themselves out of their misery - had they done this after Up they'd probably be triumphantly reuniting now like Pulp. They had a longer great run than most though, will be listening to Lifes Rich Pageant tonight.

while I can't imagine any doubt now that the only reason these guys stuck together is this mammoth-ass contract they signed after all the multi-platinum, I have to admire what a bizarre road they took while fulfilling it

http://www.svs.com/rem/news/wb.txt

R.E.M.,WARNER RECORDS SIGN $80 MILLION DEAL

GRAMMY-WINNING BAND WILL PRODUCE FIVE ALBUMS UNDER LARGEST RECORDING
CONTRACT EVER.

Here's the whole article: (very long)

R.E.M., the hottest free agent in the music business, signed a
five-album contract Saturday with Warner Bros. Records worth an estimated
$80 million--the largest recording contract ever awarded, sources said.
The Grammy-winning band's deal surpassed the $70-million mark
achieved seven months ago by pop diva Janet Jackson as well as other
mega-deals by such superstars as Michael Jackson and Madonna, whose
six-album pacts included film and joint venture record label components.
The signing was announced unexpectedly at the Anaheim Convention
Center on Saturday, where Warner Music executives were gathered for their
annual strategy summit. Delighted at the news, thousands of employees leaped
to their feet and broke into a standing ovation...

Artist Contract Company and Date
R.E.M. $80 million Warner Bros. 8/24/96
Janet Jackson $70 million Virgin Records 1/11/96
Metallica $60 million Elektra Records 1/10/95
Barbra Streisand $60 million Columbia Records 12/13/92
Madonna $60 million Warner Bros. 4/20/92
Michael Jackson $60 million Sony Music's Epic Records 3/20/91

The signing was announced unexpectedly at the Anaheim Convention
Center on Saturday, where Warner Music executives were gathered for their
annual strategy summit. Delighted at the news, thousands of employees leaped
to their feet and broke into a standing ovation...

this is such a bizarre image!

Oh no, what are all their fans going to do now?

well there's a new coldplay album with a goofy ass name coming out

Sing along!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DvVYwXqFEE

g-g-g-g-g-georgia!

Everything post-Automatic is crap, but you can't be a dud if you have 3-4 classic albums to your name.

What a weird line of demarcation.

listening to the life's rich pageant demos on spotify for the first time. not radically different, but kinda nice to hear these rawer versions. stipe humming through I believe, the big instro version of king of birds.

i actually liked these ^^^ demos far more than i thought i would.

I break with most fans in that I like some of their newer stuff. It's very different than their 1980s sound but occasionally still interesting. You could collect the best tracks from their post-Up (or Automatic or whatever) output and make a strong best-of album.

this band has been so boring for so long. I loved them in the 80s but when I revisit that stuff now it seems so flat and one-dimensional.

document and life's rich pagent seem especially boring to my ears these days.

I just find the unvarying sound of those 80s albums - clean electric guitar/bass/drums/vocals + occasionally backing vocals - with no overdubs or other instruments ever just really fucking boring

I view the breakup as akin to Jay Leno retiring: love the early 80s stuff, haven't had much of a reason to pay close attention since.

rem is ok but although i like pavement god damn they can be so arch it's gross. feel like stephen malkmus has got to be a smug asshole.

will still rep for Reckoning

what is my autographed copy of Chronic Town worth?

Noo! Cut down in their prime. They had so much to offer. R.I.P. R.E.M.

No overdubs on the 80s albums? There are like a million guitars all jangling away on Murmur and Reckoning. You can't get that lush ringing sound with one track. Not many other instruments, granted, but then it's what you do with them innit? And they were a fantastic band. Check those mid 80s live clips on youtube - they're on fire.

yeah i dunno, i'm always struck by how layered their early records are. in a subtle way i guess. but they were always a canny band in the studio, using bits of reverb, weird sounds, treated keyboards, etc.

Sad to see them quitting, even though they have been kind of uneven after "Automatic For The People". Everything from "Monster" onwards is pretty controversial, with people not being able to agree on which albums are good or not (well... OK .... everyone seems to agree that "Around The Sun" sucked monkey shit).

Still a great body of work behind them. Great until 1992. And, as you guys may know, I also like "Up" and "Reveal" a lot.

should've quit in 1983. /challopsing (but not really)

No, you're right. Major, major wrong turn for music almost from the beginning, on so many levels. I can't think of many other bands with a worse legacy.

"Stipe's penis: flaccid or wood?"

yeah i've found this band pretty hard to take the last 15 years. i don't mean the new releases from the last 15 years--i mean i found nearly all their music pretty hard to take for those years. prob mostly due to michael stipe. horrible singer.

I mean, in many ways their career was as if Disco Demolition Night had gone on for 30 years.

Please expand on this interesting theory about why nearly the entire career of R.E.M. was so damaging to all music everywhere.

ha what? rem, destroyers of disco?

This isn't sad, guys -- it's a relief. Enough with these mediocre records. Better to break up and start new projects. Like John Lennon said, we have the old records if we want to reminisce. What depressed me was the run of uninspired, redundant albums of the last thirteen years.

This piece actually does a nice (albeit inadvertant, I think) job of crystalizing everything they fucked up...

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2011/09/rem_breaks_up_the_athens_band.html

I read through paragraph after paragraph thinking, "Fuck, yeah,they did do that, didn't they. Fuck."

I dunno. Whatever else, Out of Time is "focused."

It also happens to be my favorite album of theirs at the moment.

I think you linked to the wrong article. Or else you just need to spell out your issues for us.

(xpost)

Nope, right article. Ha ha.

I haven't figured out why an album as perfect-in-its-own-way as AFTP has left me cold for almost fifteen years. I loved the thing in '92 yet now I can't be bothered; I'll reach for three other REM albums instead. I can't think of a single crippling thing wrong with it though.

for me it'd be "everybody hurts" -- i don't even hate it that much, but lord knows i never need to hear it again.

it's boring as hell except for like 2 songs

I think if "Automatic" almost as its own thing, and when I most recently took it out - last year? - I was struck by how, indeed, perfect in its own way it was.

Take the influenced acts or leave them, but both Radiohead and Pearl Jam wouldn't be the same without R.E.M., I'd suggest. It just shows how strong this band's impact was. Me, I think "Up" would have been a great swan song. Because whomever upthread said that had they called it quits after that album they'd be doing an awesome reunion tour this year was OTM.

hmmm yeah I can see the Pearl Jam connection. another band I have no use for.

It's getting to be the time of year when Automatic sounds best.

No consensus exists about which album was the most appropriate swan song, fortunately.

I mean, in many ways their career was as if Disco Demolition Night had gone on for 30 years.

Still trying to get my head around this.

although I sensed real danger when Michael Stipe danced in a sarong to the rhythmless "Airportman" at the '98 Tibetan Freedom Concert.

No consensus exists about which album was the most appropriate swan song, fortunately.

probably because they never really made a "perfect" album besides Murmur

I was never a huge fan, liked some stuff, bored by other stuff (especially after they signed to Warners,) but I found this complete concert from 1982; a great trip down memory lane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPE-l-tfN0I

Their epic peak!

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

I'm still hoping dlp can explain why R.E.M. was such a destructive force. I mean, linking to a relatively praising obit for the band doesn't really help.

A good obit.

When Green was printed with the number "4" in the tracklisting replaced by "R," they rolled with it.

I thought the whole idea was that the 'R' on the cover had a transparent '4' printed over it and so therefore the '4' on the disc etc.

singing 'midnight blue' at the rem memorial karaoke tonight, might do 'harborcoat' also.

I just find the unvarying sound of those 80s albums - clean electric guitar/bass/drums/vocals + occasionally backing vocals - with no overdubs or other instruments ever just really fucking boring

Uh this is not even accurate regarding Murmur let alone any of the other records. I mean you quite literally are 100% wrong.

Cripes, by Fables they're using horns and string quartets and everything. By Green they're already starting with the mandolins, and p sure the SMASH HIT Stand has a damned farfisa on it If you're gonna troll, troll harder.

"occasionally backing vocals"

Yeah, like, on every occasion!

and the worst backing vocalist in the history of rock too. that's nothing to sneeze at.

Yeah, man. All that singing.

What depressed me was the run of uninspired, redundant albums of the last thirteen years.

Most R.E.M. albums from the past thirteen years are better than what they did in the mid 90s. "Monster" was horrible and "New Adventures In Hi-Fi" was not much better. It was sort of a relief when they did "Up" and "Reveal", realising they were never meant to be a rock band.

and the worst backing vocalist in the history of rock too. that's nothing to sneeze at.

Mills or Berry? Either way you're wrong, but I'm just curious.

xpost I like the idea of that, those albums being the sound of a group realizing they were never meant to rock.

probably because they never really made a "perfect" album besides Murmur

"Automatic For The People" was perfect. And also the one R.E.M. album that always performs best at surveys of the best 100 albums ever made. Sure, if you don't like acoustic 12 string guitars, mandolins, accordions and strings, it may not be your cup of tea. But it is generally considered to be their best (well, maybe besides "Murmur").

A group realizing they were never meant to rock, as middle aged men, which is why they should have broken up before they recorded them. They should have just released the occasional awesome single. Hell, most bands should do this.

the twerpy dude who played bass. his voice. ugh. makes yoko sound like mario lanza. as far as backing vocalists go.

x-post

"Murmur" is almost like an accidental masterpiece, the honor accorded after the fact. "Automatic" showed the band could do it on purpose.

perfect albums feh

itt people who are deaf

A group realizing they were never meant to rock, as middle aged men, which is why they should have broken up before they recorded them.

They weren't a rock band to begin with either. Those first two albums were jangle pop. They tried rocking on "Document", some liked that, I did not. Otherwise, they have done best when they were more mellow.

All complains about horrible backing vocals are very much OTM though.

complaints even.

i liked begin the begin! that's a good song. john cougar stipe.

Mike Mills was certainly a terrible dresser.

i mean its a good rock song. not many jangly bands went for a drum sound like that back then. they should have though.

rem twerp is the sister twerp to u2's doofus bass player. they both dressed in the dark.

Aw, I really liked Mills' backing vocals.

I'm really weird though because Monster is one of their albums that holds up best for me. Probably my favourite of the major-label years, not that I've heard anything since Up.

Didn't even clue in as to why there were two or three R.E.M. threads near the top today--I just heard the news from Amerindie icon Wolf Blitzer! I stopped following them album by album very early, around #4 or #5, but the rest of the way they'd regularly catch me by surprise with a song I really liked (enough so that they topped one of my year-ends with "Man on the Moon," and again came close with "The Great Beyond"). Even when I'd find a cheap CD from the 2000s, there'd be one or two good ones. I was lucky enough to see them in a club their first time through Toronto, July 9, '83, $10.

Just downloaded LRP. I haven't listened to this in ages. My cassette is at my parents'. Sounds pretty great.

I hated everything from Lifes Rich Pageant onward, so fuck these guys for not staying together so I can keep pointing and laffing at them.

Not even Automatic for the People?

more like fartomatic for poophole

R.I.P.

you were a good band most of the time

...in the '80s.

Uh this is not even accurate regarding Murmur let alone any of the other records

yr right I forgot that one song on Murmur with the piano. how exciting

christ in hindsight that jokey NYE 99 split would have been amazing

In reality, the '03 best of would have been a good way to do it. Seen a couple of great shows in Brixton Academy in support, like it was 1987 or something

RIP Berry Buck Mills Stipe

I just find the unvarying sound of those 60s John Coltrane albums - tenor saxophone/bass/drums/piano - with no overdubs or other instruments ever just really fucking boring

Looking forward to post-band endeavours, though. Peter Buck mezcal, Michael Stipe publishing house... Mike Mills Navajo jumpsuits

any Michael Stipe solo 'project' is going to be the worst thing mankind's produced

never mind the fucking 'guest appearances'

I just find the unvarying sound of those 60s John Coltrane albums - tenor saxophone/bass/drums/piano - with no overdubs or other instruments ever just really fucking boring

LOOOOOOOL at comparing any of the guys in REM to Coltrane's classic quartet

rock and jazz, the same thing!

Didn't make any such comparison between the two groups, just pointing out the silliness of singling out instrumentation in and of itself as the source of a band's successes or failures.

Always liked them! Always! Every album had something that pulled me in, something that moved me.

RIP!

rem twerp is the sister twerp to u2's doofus bass player. they both dressed in the dark.

mike mills/adam clayton should form a band: sister doofus twerp.

X-Post Even "Around The Sun"? :)

(Well, OK, "Leaving New York" was a great song)

Squaring off the two behemoths of '80s mushheadedness, I'd take R.E.M. a thousand times over U2.

Yes, I quite like Around the Sun. On the whole, I think it and the most recent one are my two favorite post-Bill Berry albums.

Any excuse to watch this is a good one. (Tho it's from '83 not '85.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmWW8pZS7ys

Murmur is, i think, one of the better rock albums of the 80s. love it so, so much.

also, New Adventures in Hi-Fi is my personal cut-off line. "New Test Leper" and "E-Bow the Letter" are rather good, especially the production on the former.

but yeah after that eh

Like them as far as "Up" ('daysleeper' is a great song). "Around the sun" was pretty wretched but even those songs didnt sound too bad live tbf. A little dissapointed at the level of hate towards them here......

I had no idea what "Carnival of Sorts" was actually about, but not yet out of school and still living in a small town at the time, it meant leaving. Great, great song.

yeah, the clip tipsy posted is nice. i also checked-out a 1984 performance of driver 8 and carnival of sorts, and some really, really early demos, including a high-pitched version of the lion sleeps tonight that i've always loved.

the 80s were a long time ago.

i have to admit: i was obsessed with REM when i was about 15 years old, in 2000-2001. don't really understand why that happened, but nonetheless, really can't understand the hate for them. they WERE a great band and released some amazing records... jesus, i was even in a band that COVERED some REM songs. Cello, stand-up bass, and acoustic guitar version of "Try Not to Breathe" was a show-stopper.

i was older than 15, i realize. *sigh*

They were an important band for me, saw em on each tour for the first 5 albums or so. Including once the night after the circus left Madison Sq Garden, peeeeeeeeeeyuuuuuuuuu.

Seen REM several times over the years... First was an amazing show at the Pomona Valley Auditorium soon after Murmur was released. Maybe about 20 people there.

Haven't seen them live since the LRP tour - always thought that REM quality was proportional to length of Stipe's hair.

I wish Warren Zevon was still around so they could do another Hindu Love Gods album.

i'd say r.e.m. were pretty great through up. been dead to me since then tbh.

i was both late to them and (slightly) early to leave. but they were certainly great for 15 years.

aftp has more than a couple skippable tracks but drive and try not to breathe among others are peerless.

always thought that -- on AFTP -- find the river was a better sappy ballad than either (the cloying) everybody hurts or even nightswimming.

everybody hurts sux, nightswimming rules

"Ignoreland" describes itself.

I wonder if they'd have relegated it to a b-side if they'd known that Clinton would beat Bush that year.

they needed a rocker

that's for sure

http://www.thegoodtimber.com/FinalPics/rockingChair.jpg

the secret jam on aftp is monty got a raw deal--that song rules

maybe they should have put circus envy on AFTP.

but yeah, "Find The River" is a keeper. I love how it goes from its sweet lament into menace with its closing line, "all of this is coming your way".

"Circus Envy" is one of my favorite REM songs: as snotty as they ever got?

maybe they should have put circus envy on AFTP.

― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, September 21, 2011 9:16 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol oh man, circus envy. i listened to that shit a couple weeks ago for the first time in probably a dozen years.

monster had its production flaws, but it had a lot of very strong (if somewhat bland, for rem) songs, and circus envy is a corker.

yeah, snotty as they ever got. it almost snarled.

what's the frequency kenneth is a total classic but i'm honestly not sure what else i would save from monster.

i like to imagine that R.E.M. had been privately lobbying Lou Reed for years to make an album with them, and when he picked Metallica instead it just broke their spirits

Pitchfork is reporting that the R.E.M. website is announcing the break-up of the band.

Stipe's comments about knowing when to leave the party are a bit laughable as the dried vomit has already been scraped off the floor and the lampshade hat has been returned to its proper perch.

I didn't care for much they did after Document; still, enough to be a bonafide classic.

of monster, i'd save the following:

• what's the frequency, kenneth
• i don't sleep, i dream
• circus envy
• i took your name

Monster's got good stuff on it--"Crush w/Eyeliner" "I Took Your Name". Love Buck's guitar sound falling between garage & glam.

x-post

i really like some songs on Monster, it's just kind of deadening as a whole. makes for good compilation highlights.

The best part of Monster IS the production -- so damn perverse. They reified glam with several removes of vocal and aesthetic filters, but left the sex in.

Idea of Monster was better than the songwriting but the idea was enough, after Green/OOT/AFTP and lot and lots of mandolins.

Berry even then would have walked if they hadn't made it

I prefer the underbelly of R.E.M. - so I'm listening to the bonus disc that came with the "And I Feel Fine" IRS-years comp.

For me, the most perfect song on Automatic is "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1."

Here's a clip from the second show I saw, a year later, in a much bigger venue; also an interview with Mills (the interviewer is Mordeci Richler's son). I hadn't seen this since it first aired, and was hoping I'd turn up in the front row...no luck.

"New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" is so beautiful

^yeah!

Also OTM:

always thought that -- on AFTP -- find the river was a better sappy ballad than either (the cloying) everybody hurts or even nightswimming.

While we're talking about 90s REM, I want to say that while Stipe's singing largely left me cold post-Monster because of his retreat to that talk-sing you hear on "I Took Your Name", "E-Bow The Letter", &c &c &c, he lets it rip on "Leave" & that song's a real keeper; dig the Bomb Squad-style production on that track too.

R.E.M. News - boo

Favorite nineties REM songs:

Half a World Away
Near Wild Heaven (lovely melody, lovely Mills vocal; glad he didn't get too many)
Leave
Bittersweet Me (my favorite of their nineties second singles)
Tongue
Monty Got a Raw Deal
Texarkana
Me in Honey (effective use of Kate Pierson)

alfred otm

my first kiss was to Leave. thanks REM!

thread needs more awesome live REM videos like tipsy posted upthread. everyone's seen this one, but still it's a classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykp0Vq77IBw

yeah to alfred's list. i'd add new test leper, which works really well despite being kind of bland, and electrolite.

Alfred, I was gonna post something about how much i adore "Near Wild Heaven."

"Bittersweet Me" was great. I used to hear one of the other NAiH-F singles, "Electrolite" alot in grocery & drug stores. It made shopping pleasant.

That's a great list.

"Band and Blame" is my favorite second REM single of the 90s; Stipe's vocal is uncharacteristically tender & as Alfred said earlier, it exudes sexuality: open, vulnerable, wanting, "dares to cross your threshold".

ack "Bang & Blame", way to miss the point, self.

electrolite gets a bad rap because it's played a lot in grocery and drug-stores.

but the hook and melody makes it an unforgettable earworm.

i hate band and blame with the heat of a thousand suns.

yeah "Electrolite" has had an unexpected second life as Muzak; I hear it far more than the other NAIHF singles.

"Bang & Blame" is kind of interminable, imo everything it does well is done better by "I Don't Sleep, I Dream"

"Do you give good head?"

and that terrific strummed electric hook.

My favourite '90s song, with my favourite R.E.M. lyric ever: "You know, there's talk of time/Talk is fine."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_JnCWT-_O8

I adore Out of Time, which still doesn't get much love because It's The Big One. The marvel for me, as I wrote in my own obit, is how "Losing My Religion" sounded a hundred times more ambiguous with each radio play. I've never gotten tired of it.

And the record has all kinds of crinkles and filigrees. "Near Wild Heaven" I mentioned, but what about the loping "Endgame"? Those flutes!

i don't know if it's naive to hope for any fruitful side/solo projects at this point but i feel like one thing about the breakup is that practically any of them is more likely to make a really good record in the future outside of REM than they would have with the band

bang and blame made me wish michael stipe's lyrics went back to being unintelligible.

And the record has all kinds of crinkles and filigrees.

yeah, this is kind of true. there's a mumblecore-type song on this disc that i liked. belong, maybe?

I listened to Out of Time today when I got the news. It's my favorite REM album. "Radio Song" gets hate here but I think the opening is thrilling: Buck strums a gorgeous riff, then Mills comes in with clear notes, then Stipe with lovely mystic nonsense.

i hate radio song with the heat of a hundred suns.

it was around out of time's release that i realized i didn't love every song on every one of r.e.m.'s discs anymore.

Out Of Time has aged very very poorly for me and is probably my least favorite of the 90s albums but i love that goofy old "Radio Song"

Green has some grisly stuff, and it's the first one I ever owned.

the whole 90s period was so . . . okay but generic.

i come to celebrate fables of the reconstruction

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

i will join your celebration. i like bits and pieces of 90s REM. i started with late-period REM and worked my way back. the first REM song i ever heard was actually Airportman (yeah, including Everybody Hurts and Losing My Religion and...well, i think i may have heard Stand in a supermarket when I was a kid). i had a strange upbringing, musically. but anyway, since i started with Up, and then worked backwards to New Adventures and AFTP, i used to be a big big fan of 90s REM. at some point i decided to see what 80s REM was like, and Murmur blew me away to such an extent that i can barely listen to the 90s stuff anymore. their first 4 albums are just unstoppable

"generic" isn't really a word i would use to describe 90s REM. there were times when they were relatively in step with the times but they never sounded anonymous.

they became shape-shifting genre tourists, veering away from their distinctive jangle-y gothic southern rock sound.

just heard this but i think i prefer it to the album version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zgh0y9vTgY

they never struck me as Elvis Costello-style pastiche masters even at their most dilettantish, though. everything still went through a pretty heavy REM filter (or at least Stipe filter).

beginning of the end was the speak-sing stuff

never noticed or was bothered by speak singing much beyond hating E-Bow

oh man, that's way better than the album version.

stipe picks up a guitar and i thought, "does he know how to play any instruments"?

(i actually kind of liked e-bow, but i couldn't tell you why)

i love e-bow

and i'm not afraid to admit it

a track that got lotsa love on our big REM poll here was "Country Feedback", & it's a good song (lots better than "E-Bow", who love here I also don't get), but I think I hear the first version of the annoying speak-sing thing we're talking about on that song.

and yeah, e-bow was speak-singing, but it was the Beginning of the end, see, so it was still R.E.M. near the top of their game

E-Bow made me go back & reconsider why I dug Patti Smith.

e-bow is great!

Though E-Bow, I'll take you over "How The West Was whatever"

that rockville clip reminds me that mid-80s stipe and late-80s slash and anytime-ever howard stern would have made an ideal hair-metal band -- or ramones cover band.

never really a fan, even though they should have been right up my alley. i think i bought one of their WB albums and liked a few songs over the years. so i really have no reaction to this news.

'90s R.E.M. - or at least "Green" and beyond R.E.M. - is full of albums with 1/3 I hate, 1/3 I think are OK, and 1/3 I love. Which always makes listening to things like "Out of Time" a thrill; the dives and dips between high and low keep me on my toes. Like, "Radio Song," boo! "Near Wild Heaven," awesome! "Shiny Happy People," nah. "Country Feedback," yeah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CERhzm6t7I

yeah, Country Feedback still kind of haunts me in this weird way. just the way "IT'S CRAZY WHAT YOU COULD HAVE HAD" begins to turn in on itself or something.

it's taken me a while to realize that new adventures in hi-fi and monster are my favorite r.e.m. records but there you go

"e-bow" is so gorgeous, for a while it was my favorite r.e.m. song.

"E-Bow The Letter" was awful and horrible. Absolutely despise so-called "speak singing" no matter who does it.

I adore Out of Time, which still doesn't get much love because It's The Big One. The marvel for me, as I wrote in my own obit, is how "Losing My Religion" sounded a hundred times more ambiguous with each radio play. I've never gotten tired of it.

"Losing My Religion" is awesome, but as an album, "Out Of Time" is much more uneven than "Automatic For The People", which doesn't contain a single bad track.

monster had its production flaws, but it had a lot of very strong (if somewhat bland, for rem) songs

It does. I have no idea as I have never heard those songs. They are drowned in the production. The vocals are mixed way too low on that album, hardly possible to hear at all.

It does?, I mean

also smh @ the "mike mills is the worst backing vocalist" stuff upthread

i first heard automatic for the people when i was really young and that's necessarily going to alter how i hear it now, but i'm still completely affected by his work in "try not to breathe"

i am under the impression that the vocals are mixed decently high on monster except for "let me in" but whatev

still love how "what's the frequency, kenneth" is this kind of harder but still traditional r.e.m. song and the rest of the record is unhinged glam. one of my favorite red herring singles.

also strange currencies > everybody hurts

So, are they doing the big farewell, or not?

Big Tour, Final Album, Valedictory Glastonbury Ending?

If so, that's gonna take 2 years...

haha losing my religion is a fucking huge benchmark for middlebrow pop pretension. can't stomach that shit. anymore.

'Let Me In' is my favourite on Monster - it manages to feel mysterious and beautiful in a way they've rarely managed before or since. Also the whole sound of the thing - I was so happy when the last Neil Young album came so close to that sound.

I know it's seen as a bit of a death knell, but I really love Out Of Time - I mean, I like a lot of REM, but Out Of Time was kind of my entry point. Shiny Happy People was the first song I heard by the band, so for a while when I was 11 y/o I was under the impression they were this wacky B52s-style pop band.

Out Of Time is so epic and graceful though. I used to listen to it loads on long family trips through France on the way to visit family in the South. I'll forever associate it with blazing sunshine and undulating sunflowers.

Country Feedback, so sweeping and fragile - maybe Stipe's best delivery - "I was central/I had control/I lost my...head/I need this.../I need this...". And on the other side you have Near Wild Heaven, a wonderful Beach Boys homage that gives me goosebumps and makes me wanna jump around like a loon.

I have a lot of time for "Bang & Blame" and "You" off of Monster.

still love how "what's the frequency, kenneth" is this kind of harder but still traditional r.e.m. song and the rest of the record is unhinged glam. one of my favorite red herring singles.

I don't really understand this... How is WTFK? that much different to Bang & Blame? I don't really get the glam thing either.. Unless you mean Stipe's eyeliner fetishism which crept in from time to time on every album onwards...?

"Crush with eyeliner" is a heckofa glam title.

Bang & Blame is kind of the point when Stipe stopped bothering to write songs in favour of the 'Bark. One. Word. One. Note. At. A. Time' vocal style he'd adopt with increasing frequency for the rest of his career.

Actually I might be confusing it with I Took Your Name. I've not listened to that album in years.

Bang & Blame was a fairly big hit. The one that starts "If you could see yourself now baby/It's not my fault/You used to be so in control" (or something along those lines). It's this shivery Johnny Kidd & the Pirates type thing with a big big rockin' chorus.

I hear/understand the glam thing now - I was thinking "Glam" as in Roy Wood, not glam as in the whole of Monster sounds like it's been recorded in an ice-blue dressing room booth, lightbulbs around the mirrors and feather boas hanging on the wall. Weirdly incongruous next to the rugged Americana that is their surface sound.

My problem with latterday REM is not only with the music but also with Stipe's persona. He was always this enigmatic figure who didn't often do interviews (press chores used to be handled mostly by Buck and Mills). Then around Up he seemed to lose most of that mystique and became this media-friendly interviewee. The lyrics got printed on the sleeve for the first time with that album as well. He just seemed to become a more straightforward and less complex person.

I dunno, he always seemed to be a nice bloke.

I had problems with early REM, in a way..

Their first Tube appearance, they sounded so much like the band I was in, it reminded me of "work"...

I find REM's strike rate throughout their career very impressive, considering The Rolling Stones were putting out stuff like 'Voodoo Lounge' around 31 years in their career.

No love for 'World Leader Pretend'? Man, I love that song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKDrhf-OgrA

Rob O'Connor had a good album-by-album farewell yesterday:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/listoftheday/141512/remthe-final-grades-are-in/

I also always thought Fables was a little underrated. Rob's final grade for "Effort" reminded me of the Kool Moe Dee scorecard that came with that one album; I think he should have also graded them for "Sticking to Themes," "Innovating Rhymes," and "Articulation" (on the first few albums, not so good there).

I love "World Leader Pretend." That's one of the 1/3rd of that album that really gives me a lot of pleasure when I hear it. "World Leader Pretend," "You are the Everything," a few more of the deep cuts. Seem like clear precursors to "Out of Time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwgKo0D1FyQ

i admired the way they handled success, with about as much grace as is possible in the music industry

yeah an i disagree about them being genre tourists, REM always sounded like REM to me, even with the changes in styles they went through

Stylistic mish-mash was always there. Look at what they covered: Roger Miller, VU, Wire, their roots were always more complicated than they seemed. (Which is probably the real way they were like the Byrds, who they never actually covered afaik.)

Also, these are fun. The first-ever write-ups from the UGA student paper:

http://redandblack.com/2011/09/21/the-first-article-written-about-r-e-m-may-8-1980/

If you go to that old Mike Mills interview I posted last night, he talks about (and essentially brushes off) the Byrds comparisons everyone was making early on.

REM were the first band I remember seriously discussing with friends, and in fact forming friendships because of being into them / music in general. This was around 1991, when I was starting secondary school. I got interested after hearing Losing My Religion on the radio, then I taped Document (which I really really loved) and Green off a guy in my class and bought my own copy of Out of Time (also on cassette).

I bought AFTP the day it came out, I didn't really get it at the time but it's my favourite REM album now. An Irish radio station organised a "listening party" about a week before the release but I wasn't allowed to go - mostly I think cos my mum couldn't understand what the point of that would be, and I couldn't adequately explain it myself.

Bought Monster on CD and went to see them play at Slane Castle in 1995. That was truly memorable. During "Let Me In" everyone in the crowd (maybe 80,000 people) started throwing paper cups in the air, they turned the stage lights onto them all falling like rain and it made a big impression.

Stopped paying attention after that, altho I definitely rate a few of the later singles with their best stuff (Daysleeper, Imitation of Life, Leaving NY, The Great Beyond). No sadness at them breaking up now, I'm sure they're relieved at having fulfilled their contractual obligations. They all seem pretty good at finding creative outlets outside REM so I'm sure that will continue, not anticipating any reunion tours...

tl;dr version: good sometimes great band, very important at certain times in my life, they had a good innings!

they always talked about how they were aping the soft boys, not the byrds. still . . . anxiety of influence?

xpost

I love that the first article ever published about R.E.M. says "This was dance music impossible to resist."

I hate the "Green/Out of Time was the beginning of the end..." argument. In what way was Automatic not a peak? Maybe not THE peak, but still...

That's what I especially love about the "Carnival of Sorts" clip posted last night--all that great dancing!

My problem with latterday REM is not only with the music but also with Stipe's persona. He was always this enigmatic figure who didn't often do interviews (press chores used to be handled mostly by Buck and Mills). Then around Up he seemed to lose most of that mystique and became this media-friendly interviewee. The lyrics got printed on the sleeve for the first time with that album as well. He just seemed to become a more straightforward and less complex person.

I disagree with this, surely it's just imagined complexity rather than complexity itself? Dunno, in later Stipe interviews he just seems much more comfortable with himself as a person... you can't really fault him for not being the same person as he was 15 years before, or for not wanting to continue to portray that image.

Automatic certainly was a peak, the beginning of the end was Monster.

xp

I agree with Matt. I see Murmur to Automatic as an unimprovably elegant arc, each two albums marking a different phase, with two very different masterpieces bookending it. After that it becomes more difficult and diffuse but people who have problems with Document through Automatic I guess just aren't interested in bands above a certain level, however well they make the transition.

Musical redundancy and occasional clangers also obscure the fact that Stipe continued to write some great lyrics till the end.

every album with Berry was above a certain baseline of quality, and every album without Berry was below a certain baseline of quality, so i'm inclined to give him credit as the x factor and figure that the beginning of the end was him leaving.

you can't really fault him for not being the same person as he was 15 years before, or for not wanting to continue to portray that image

Not trying to fault him at all, just saying that it's a part of what made me lose interest in the band.

In what way was Automatic not a peak?

It was on a major label. For a lot of people, that matters more than the music...

every album with Berry was above a certain baseline of quality

Not "Monster" and "New Adventures", no. Both horrible and the worst they've ever done. At that stage, they might as well have broken up when Berry left, because their then last albums were rubbish with hardly any value at all. A once wonderful melodic pop band trying to play alternative rock. Ugh!

and every album without Berry was below a certain baseline of quality

"Up" and "Reveal" were both great albums. The songs were better om "Murmur" and "Automatic For The People", but the production on those two albums (and "Around The Sun", which still sucked because they songs did) was the best of their entire output. The glossy and sophisticated production fitted them perfectly.

Bringing in Patti Smith was also a bad, bad, bad, bad idea. That woman has never ever made a decent record. She can't sing, she has no sense of tune. No value at all. And Stipe's own Sonic Youth-influenced speak-singing on "E-Bow The Letter" added to the disgrace that was R.E.M's worst ever single.

Wait, who upthread called these guys genre tourists? Everything they did fit pretty comfortably within the world they created, I think, and R.E.M. from one extreme was not terribly different or unrecognizable from R.E.M. at the other extreme. And like the best band, the personalities of the principals never failed to shine through in any context. Which is why there was such a drop off when Berry left.

geir bomb

They have revisited every single one of their genre exercises later in their career, except for their early jangle pop. Which is a shame in the latter case, really.

Bringing in Patti Smith was also a bad, bad, bad, bad idea. That woman has never ever made a decent record.

coulda sworn she'd done some cover you'd be down with

New Adventures is terrific but it feels very much like a band that isn't quite sure where to go next and is almost self-consciously recording a greatest hits full of new songs.

Up is patchy but at least an interesting direction and they manage the transition to synths well without looking like twats, some great songs on there as well - You're In The Air, Parakeet, Falls To Climb, a handful more.

From then on it's mostly awful - Accelerate has its moments but feels like a band on complete autopilot.

Think my favourite REM moment was seeing them play Cuyahoga at Glastonbury 99 and thinking "of course!"

"Acellerate" was a huge step in the right direction after two way-below-par albums. A lot of it sounds like "Automatic For The People", which is not the worst thing to sound like.

They totally revisited jangle pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pd0Qq_kRU4

But if you meant jangle-pop minus the post-punk jitters, than sure.

Then.

"Acellerate" was a huge step in the right direction after two way-below-par albums. A lot of it sounds like "Automatic For The People", which is not the worst thing to sound like.

Have you actually listened to it? At least the first half of Accelerate is one big slab of New Adventures Style Rock, admittedly with 80s REM songs underneath.

I'm sure Geir would like "Because the Night"...

New Adventures is terrific but it feels very much like a band that isn't quite sure where to go next and is almost self-consciously recording a greatest hits full of new songs.

Yep. I like nearly all the songs on it, but even at the time it felt like REM were sort of losing their grip. It didn't feel like the sort of album "statement" that was Automatic For The People, or even Monster. And yet the quality was VERY high.

Imitation Of Life was the point where I felt they just started to get pretty annoying.
E-Bow The Letter wrote the rulebook for releasing the 'experimental' first single, a la 'Pyramid Song', because the band assumes they just can. The actual music itself is nice enough, but both vocal parts from Stipe & Smith make me cringe. Unbelievably, they attempted an 'E-Bow II' with the closing track of their last album.

I still like Electrolite, At My Most Beautiful, Tongue, Nightswimming etc - they all teeter a little close to the saccharine, but I just ignore that.

I liked "Man on the moon" until I discovered it was basically a list of Andy Kaufman's catchprases.

and "Answers from the great beyond" was more of the same.

"Imitation" was pretty good.

Dunno, did I ever buy an REM record? Lemme.....

I got the 7" book edition of "Reveal" cheap in Fopp back when it opened, not actually felt moved to play it. And a CD single that had a "wonder what that sounds like?" cover version on it.

I've talked about this before, but I came to R.E.M. through a totally different path than most itt seem to have taken. I was too young for the IRS years and completely turned off by the novelty type songs that pop radio latched on to in the latter half of the 80s. I mean, I understand its my fault for not grasping context, but I thought of them as a silly band that did stuff like "Superman", "Stand", and "Shiny Happy People" all the time. Retroactively fell in love with Automatic via a tape stuck in the pizza delivery vehicle I drove the summer of 94. So Monster was the first R.E.M. album that seemed like any kind of event for me and I loved it. I still think its unfairly regarded, I think it was an interesting (if oft-flawed) take on glammed-up grunge and alt-rock radio anthems. New Adventures quickly became, and remains, my favorite R.E.M. album, just love the breadth and chance-taking.

What was the one about pushing an elephant up the stairs? That was a shark-jump moment in my eyes.

Night Swimming puts me in mind of an evening our family had with a friend of my dad's family, drinking and swimming on a very warm evening at their huge place. Totally brilliant evening.

6 months later, the father had died in very mysterious circumstances. The next time I saw them was the funeral, and shortly afterwards the rest of the family went to live in scotland.

Sometime, truth resembles some sort of fiction.

Anyway, back to the jollity...

I used to tape highlights of music TV onto VHS, onr of the last ones I did had REM on TOTP for the first time with "Orange Crush". The presenter fed out of the performance with "Very refreshing on a hot day, that was REM with "Orange Crush"....

Bring back DLT, we all said.

Heres my challopsy ranking:

New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Automatic for the People
Monster
Murmur
Fables
Up
Lifes Rich Pageant
Accelerate
Document
Reckoning
Out of Time
Collapse Into Now
Green
Reveal
Around the Sun

Mine of the albums I've heard:

Out of Time
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Murmur
Automatic for the People
Monster
Fables
Up
Green

Goes to show, I'm missing a big chunk of essential stuff despite having listened to this band since I was about 14.

I like the development in the lyric writing on the last three albums a lot and don't think there was any drop-off in musical quality. Of course, the very early albums are a different matter and Out of Time/Automatic for the People are very strong pieces of music. As far as the late-IRS records, Green, Monster, New Adventures, Up - I don't see how the more recent albums are not at least on par with any of these.

Really?

Apparently for some, R.E.M. are rock's Obama. ;)

Yeah, very much so. Like I was listening to Accelerate last night and thinking about this thread. As pieces of music, it's a very similar record to Monster. VERY similar. I don't see what the distinction is and, as I said, I like Stipe's more recent lyric writing a lot.

As a teenager in the mid to late 90s, new REM albums were events for me. Monster is great. I always maintain that it's not really a grunge album, but their queer glam rock record. Love the video for Crush With Eyeline - like early Wong War Kei. Much prefer it to New Adventures, where the rockers are stadium built and much less odd as a result. There are a handful of great songs on that album though.
I really like Up - their last really good album. You're In The Air is gorgeous, and I really like Hope and Suspicion. Shame they didn't really continue in that mildly experimental direction. The subsequent tour was great too. They came to my home town of Stirling in Scotland, which is the stuff dreams are made of.
Reveal has some good songs, but they were smothered in over-production: The Lifting, I've Been High, Beachball, and most of all, Beat a Drum, which was ruined on the album but in its demo form is beautiful. However, it also has some of their worst - I'll Take The Rain is dreadful, as if they were trying to do a U2 style arena ballad. Ick.
The first four albums are my favourites, then maybe Automatic, Up, Document, Out of Time, Monster, Green, New Adventures etc
The last two albums are ok, but they make sense as the 'end', a confident, if unadventurous, update of their late 80s sound.
A dignified exit then, for a band that mean a lot to me.

I'm rather fond of the last two - they're enjoyable in an undemanding way. To get this far with only one full-scale dud (Around the Sun) and one bore (Reveal) isn't bad. New Adventures and Up both have a lot to recommend them, and Monster has grown on me.

What was with their titular theme of levitation and dissolving. It's almost as though by their latter days REM wanted to turn into a sort of gas, a jet stream: Up, You're In The Air, Airportman, I've Been High, Accelerate, Around The Sun, The Lifting, Diminished - there are more.

Is this a thing, do you think?

It's fun to see that 1980 review again. I remember the Brains as being pretty good that night too.

It's somewhat lost to history that R.E.M. was originally a dance-oriented band, or what passed for one in Athens in the immediate aftermath of the B-52's. Their early sets were mostly covers ("Shakin' All Over," "Secret Agent Man," and "Stepping Stone," mentioned in the article, were well-worn by the time the band retired them), and they relied heavily on the Berry/Mills rhythm section while Stipe and Buck were figuring things out. Gradually originals took over (the Chronic Town material first), but the shows still involved a lot of uptempo jumping around. Murmur came as a bit of a shock because it was so low-key and all of a moody piece. Mandolin etc. on Reckoning felt like even more of a departure.

I still enjoy all the IRS albums (well, maybe not Dead Letter Office). None of the Warners material did as much for me -- I remember Green and its singles as a big disappointment. I appreciate Automatic and Hi-Fi better now than I did at the time. Monster is fun and underrated compared to the other Warners material. None of the albums made after Berry left seems essential.

From what I've observed, they are all decent guys who continue to do a lot of good things in Athens and elsewhere and who have handled their long career with more taste and style than a lot of their peers.

You were there for that show? Fantastic.

I had the greatest time at school this morning. We started with double-art, so after I got the kids going on their assignment, we ran R.E.M. videos on the LCD for a whole hour. Our ISSP teacher wandered in, and she wanted to see the "Stand" video, which led to the opening credits from "Get a Life," which led to something else, etc., etc. Played the live "Carnival of Sorts" for them too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-7pgeD__qU&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

(It's grade 6, so uh-oh--I'd forgotten about the woman at the end.)

E-Bow is the best REM song

I have loads of challops involving them that I don't feel like getting into, plus some glaring blindspots (need to hear Reckoning) but I def want to speak out against some of the trash talk against "E-Bow" and 90s REM in general.

click on this youtube and you'll hear this song for the rest of the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syCxUN6Lx0Q

E-Bow is great, the snaking guitar line that runs through it is so so gorgeous, and I like the candence of Stipe's vocal throughout.

Other great road not taken = How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us, which is such an odd song even before you get to the piano solo.

I can only remember E-Bow as a kind of pleasant impressionistic song - not really single material, but not bad all the same. Love How The West Was Won - something really satisfying about it.

I love how that album sounds and feels and WAS largely recorded on the road.

Like, even though a lot of it was recorded close to the time of Monster, it feels so much more open than that album which is very cupboardy, claustrophobic even.

I like how for all his obvious weirdness and years of rumors about assorted excesses, Stipe managed to keep his shit together enough to never be any kind of casualty. Overall I think they did the big-rock-band thing about as sanely as anyone has.

Monster feels really sculpted as far as the SOUND of it goes. Both Accelerate and New Adventures have a much more live sound.

By calling Monster "cupboardy", that's not a diss, it's just how I feel about it. It feels like a, well, like a monster under the stairs. When they rock out and Stipe crows his heart out it sounds like he's been locked in his dressing room and is going out of his mind. By comparison, Out Of Time and Hi Fi sound almost infinitely spacial, like REM are playing in some enormous cornfield. Automatic For The People sounds like it was recorded in an elegant stately home - grand pianos and works of art and infinity pools and stuff... I guess a lot of the album art/video imagery helps to sustain a lot of this, which is strange as I always considered them to be one of the worst bands for album covers in the world.

A fair assessment of the sound. I think that 'cupboardy' or sculpted sound suits the paranoid and perverse mood of Monster though. The open, live sound of NA is refreshing though - it's just that the rockers are lesser songs.
The airiness motif is interesting... a comment on the band's gradual dissolution, or a broader interest in the experience of (post)modernity - all that is solid melts into air... Maybe a bit of both.

To be honest though, I'm kind of pissed that they will be tossing in even more obligatory new songs on this forthcoming hits comp.

Does this break-up mean the band won't be putting any more effort into its reissue series?

kind of imagine more effort will be put into it? wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of career spanning set in the works.

There is, partially anyway, they are putting out a best of set that spans both IRS and WB eras of the band.

I've been spending too much time on this concert chronology site this morning:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~darryl74/index.html

Looking at old tour dates, the first time I saw them (below) was about a month after Chronic Town was released. My memory was that it was more circa Reckoning, but by then they were playing bigger theater shows. Also saw an outdoor festival in '83, and then never again.

22 September 1982 - First Avenue Club, Minneapolis, MN
supporting: The Hypstrz
set: Gardening At Night / 9-9 / Pilgrimage / Wolves, Lower / There She Goes Again / Sitting Still / Romance / 1,000,000 / Pretty Persuasion / Catapult / Moral Kiosk / West Of The Fields / Radio Free Europe
encore 1: Perfect Circle / White Tornado / Ages Of You / Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)
encore 2: Skank

That site makes me feel old, old, old.

This was a good one:

24 April 1981 - B&L Warehouse, Athens, GA
supporting: XTC

"E-Bow the Letter" as first single probably did more harm to R.E.M.'s cred with Warner Bros than anything else.

22 September 1982 - First Avenue Club, Minneapolis, MN
supporting: The Hypstrz

God those guys are EVERYWHERE

i posted a little thing about R.E.M. breaking up on facebook, and then my sister replied with:

"My former boss was an original member of the early band when they were here in St. Louis area. He decided to leave and go to med school. Soon after they started gaining notice and then made it big. I made fun of him all the time for that."

is there any way that this is possible? i mean...the boss is either full of shit or somehow mixing up r.e.m. with another band (O.A.R.?), right?

maybe he was in Oh OK with Matthew Sweet and Stipe's sister

Since when were REM ever based out of the St. Louis area?

Never. Even Stipe, who moved around a lot as an army brat, was never in St. Louis afaik.

O.A.R are from Columbus, Ohio, so that's not it either.

other possibility, maybe the boss meant that he was an original member of the band in Athens, and my sister remembered that as St. Louis?

I guess the real question is, were there original members of R.E.M. other than Stipe/Mills/Buck/Berry?

I remember reading that Mills and Berry had been playing together before meeting up with Stipe and Buck, maybe they had a previous band this dude jammed with? Still don't get the St. Louis thing though.

"God, why does she think i was in REM!? I was in REO Speedwagon!"

I'd love to see a list of all the bands that shared bills with REM. XTC, obviously, is a keeper. How often, it at all, was REM the opener on bigger bills?

Saw Radiohead (promoting The Bends) open for REM on the Monster tour in Baton Rouge. Radiohead were much, much better than REM.

Has anybody linked the Salon article?

http://www.salon.com/news/music/index.html?story=/ent/music/2011/09/21/remembering_r_e_m

"I congratulate R.E.M. on breaking up; that's what bands are supposed to do."

"God, why does she think i was in REM!? I was in REO Speedwagon!"

lol, but watch it, University of Illinois in Champaign lays claim to those guys, no St. Louis

Who comes from St. Louis?

Nelly

The Urge

Miles Davis.

Z S's sister's boss was in them all

iirc Michael Stipe went to high school partially in Collinsville, IL (where I went a few years of high school, and which is just 25 min away from STL), and hated it so much that he denied ever having been there. At least that was the constantly repeated rumor among the goths and stoners I ended up running with sophomore year.

t.s. eliot is from st. louis--maybe he meant that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvG6LeGWU2g

Uncle Tupelo comes from St. Louis, more or less, and they have direct connection to R.E.M.

I seem to recall Mills and Berry played together in bands in Macon before moving to Athens.

So boss either played with Stipe with a band in high school in Illinois (if Stipe was in any bands in high school, he's erased the history) or commuted 638 mi to Macon to jam with REM's rhythm section in the late 70s, is what we've got so far.

Saw Radiohead (promoting The Bends) open for REM on the Monster tour in Baton Rouge. Radiohead were much, much better than REM.

― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, September 22, 2011 5:55 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

Saw that tour too, in Nashville, thought both bands were pretty great. But I was more surprised by Radiohead, since I hadn't heard The Bends yet and didn't know what to expect.

First time I saw R.E.M., on the Document tour, 10,000 Maniacs opened. They had just released In My Tribe, and were really good. So I give R.E.M. high marks on the opening-band front.

Here's a good page for checking such details (sorry if it's already been linked):

http://www.remtimeline.com/

I checked back on those two early shows I saw--nobody opening in '83, the Dream Syndicate in '84. I liked the Dream Syndicate back then, but I swear I have no recollection whatsoever of having seen them.

didn't the Go-Betweens open for them on some dates of the '88 tour?

i believe the minutemen were set to open on a big REM tour right when D. Boon died :(

btw listening to reckoning right now, this holds up amazingly well

seems like they always had good taste in openers in the 80s -- feelies, minutemen, go-betweens.
when i saw them on the monster tour luscious jackson opened.

ugh – Radiohead opened for them in mid '95.

then Thom Yorke sang Patti Smith's bit in "E Bow The Letter" and added harmonies to "Be Mine" at the Tibetan Freedom Concert.

i think i saw them in mid-95. we had bought tix for the show w/ sonic youth listed as the opener, but the aneurysm thing happened and the show was postponed. and SY were out by then -- and LJ was in!

Looking at those '80 shows, they opened a few for Gang of Four. That's a classic mismatch for me, although I'm sure R.E.M. themselves were big fans.

IIRC, Wilco & Mercury Rev opened on the Up tour.

Never got to see them live. The time I cared most was the post-Monster tour and all three Chicago shows sold out almost instantly, I got shut out back in those olden days of calling the local Ticketmaster outlet.

from that REM timeline --
1 November 1995 - The Forum, Los Angeles, CA
support: Luscious Jackson
set: I Took Your Name / What's The Frequency, Kenneth? / Crush With Eyeliner / Drive / Try Not To Breathe / Binky The Doormat / Wake-Up Bomb / Losing My Religion / Bang And Blame / Undertow / Strange Currencies / Revolution / Tongue / Man On The Moon / Country Feedback / The One I Love / Pop Song 89 / Get Up / Star 69
encore: Let Me In / Everybody Hurts / So. Central Rain / Departure / Driftaway / It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
notes: Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac playes guitar on Everybody Hurts

toootally forgot about lindsey buckingham! weird.

Saw them once on the Green tour, and Indigo Girls opened.

notes: Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac playes guitar on Everybody Hurts

ok waht

it's LA, baby! that kind of thing happens all the time.

xpost Early R.E.M. and Gang of Four are not totally unlike one another. I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKVCwP486I&feature=related

Or especially:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y675-eb3QOU&feature=related

yeah was gonna say, them opening for the police is a bit more of a stretch.

General R.E.M. question here... how worthwhile is the bonus material on the Deluxe reissues? I've been staying away from these so far, but I'm wondering if its time to fill in a few of my gaps from the IRS years.

Buckingham is not on the album, btw. But I guess he did sit in live once. This is some Mac forum tale I dug up about talking to Scott M. at a Baseball Project gig:

"Preshow, I could chat with Scott and I took the opportunity to ask him if he was there in (I believe) 1999 when Lindsey played on the live gig with REM to provide the solo on Everybody Hurts . He said he was there and that he totally enjoyed playing with him especially because he could witness Lindsey’s special guitar technique, apart from his modest but charismatic persona.Of course I asked him: “What was the story behind this collaboration?” And he answered that as far as his knowledge Peter Buck, who apparently is a big Lindsey fan, had ran into him in LA and invited Lindsey to have dinner preshow with the band. Lindsey accepted and they got along so well during diner that Peter asked Lindsey “why don’t you play with us tonight?” He simply said OK, and went on stage with them.

After the Baseballproject show ( which rocked bigtime!), I talked to Scott some more and he said that he went to the same college as Lindsey and Stevie, and that there was a photograph of The Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band in his yearbook. He also had good memories of seeing B/N opening for Ike and Tina Turner and he saw Lindsey on tour in ’93."

did pete let lindsey take the arpeggio or did lindsey just wild out on the climax? xpost question answered!

xp i've been listening to some of the deluxe stuff on spotify. as far as the live recordings go, i'm not sure why they chose them -- feel like there are better bootlegs. Still good. Demo stuff sounds interesting, don't know how much I'd listen to it, though?

By the way, the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band? Stevie Nicks in '67, ladies and gentlemen:

http://cubberley68.com/images/cubberley-stevienicks.jpg

Thanks tyler, I'm thinking I'm just going to dl the remastered albums proper from iTunes or wherever, much cheaper.

Jon via Chi, the remastering is so good on the first couple, which alone is a reason to buy these records. "Murmur" especially I heard all sorts of stuff I'd never noticed before.

yeah, that's true, murmur does sound great on the reish.

xp Not according to Shakey, you didn't.

rock on, ancient queen!

i wonder if the production on those early records made a big difference in REM's success -- you listen to most amerindie bands from that era and the production is so cruddy. Sometimes in a good way, I guess. BUt like the replacements, husker du, etc...

I was at this show at the long-gone Capitol Theater in Passaic NJ on 6/9/84:

Performance for 'Rock Influences: Folk Rock' on MTV. Roger McGuinn guests on 'So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star' and 'Gloria'. John Sebastian guests on 'Do You Believe In Magic' and 'Gloria'. First performances of Driver 8, Old Man Kensey and Hyena. The performance was broadcast on 17 July

The Smiths served much the same purpose overseas, no? Clean guitars, clean production ...

(xxpost) Plus the distribution that came with being on IRS wasn't the same as being on Twin/Tone or Reflex.

It's been a long while since I've listened to anything from Murmur beyond "Radio Free Europe"--played it constantly when it came out--but yes, I can definitely hear the Gang of Four in the jaggedness of the tracks posted above. Not so much in the vocals, though; for me, R.E.M. still come out of an Everlys/Byrds tradition of harmony, which would explain why I connected with Murmur immediately while the Gang of Four left me cold way back when.

The LRP reissue with All The Right Friends is worth picking up.

When the reunited Gang of Four played in Athens a few years ago, Stipe was there and acting all excited. He and Vanessa from Pylon sang backup on "I Love a Man in a Uniform."

Oh, boy - should I be afraid to read ur-rockist Bill Wyman's career assessment in Slate, titled "R.E.M.'s Revolution: How a post-punk band from Georgia changed rock 'n' roll forever?"

Yeah, couldn't make much sense of the piece. Like:

Still, in the overheated industry of the period, the band's sales were middling, and it wasn't as though the Replacements were moving product either. It took a few more years, until the rise of a band with a leader who plainly looked to R.E.M. for career if not musical inspiration, before the Amerindie movement could truly assault the industry. After Nirvana's Nevermind, everything changed ...

But this makes no sense, since R.E.M. was selling millions before "Nevermind," and millions of weirder records, at that. I wouldn't link the concurrent success of "Nevermind" and "Automatic" at all. They're almost opposites of one another in nearly every sense.

yeah that's just wrong.
and even if cobain professed to be an REM fan, it did not show in his music.

well, Document broke them to a Top 40 audience and OOT made them superstars, six months before the release of Nevermind. No wonder writers conflate REM and Nirvana's successes.

except Out of Time was released in April and Nevermind that fall, and didn't get big until that next spring

But he's saying it was "Nevermind" that changed everything, when if you go by R.E.M.'s success, it was R.E.M. that changed things for Nirvana. But again, I don't see the connection.

check out this insane picture

http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2066611/2281252/2303818/110922_MB_REMBand_EX.jpg

document (and the one i love) both made the top 10 iirc

I think ppl aren't picking up on Alfred's blatant sarcasm...?

yeah srsly guys

Now, per the writer's odd, rushed thesis, there is an obvious case for "Nevermind" making good on the failed promise of the Replacements and Husker Du, for sure. But in terms of breaking down the doors, R.E.M. was in the big leagues already.

rip sarcasm, rem

R.I.P.

RIP
an interesting thing about the our band could be your life book was how REM, to most of the bands of the time, were godlike rock stars, even from the early days. at least relatively speaking. from their perspective REM led some kind of charmed existence.

there's that quote from Cobain's last RS interview in which he praises'em for behaving "like saints" during their period of mass success.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1671211/r-e-m-michael-stipe-nirvana-kurt-cobain.jhtml

So looking back, I guess R.E.M. was already playing arenas by '89.

Might be covered in that article buzza linked, but weren't there tons of rumors flying around about a Cobain/Stipe collaboration around the time of Cobain's death?

Stipe used the project as an excuse to check on Cobain, Stipe said.

REM were def playing arenas in 1989, at least in the southeast. I still regret not going to the last show on the Green tour, at the Omni in Atlanta.

yeah, the tourfilm doc shows them playing a pretty large space.

I do think it odd that there was never any creative overlap between the Smiths and R.E.M. Contemporary peers, (broadly) similar sounds, (broadly) Marr/Buck guitar style, Stipe/Morrissey, all obvious analogs. Even now Marr and Buck live in the same city. But never the tween shall meet, I guess.

[2-disc grrrrrreatest hits coming out in Nov: Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011]

buck and marr both appear on robyn hitchcock's last album.

I saw them at Mud Island, a fairly large amphitheatre, in 1986.

when did stipe become bill murray?

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Michael+Stipe+2011+Can+Awards+Dinner+FWNewDHpoE4l.jpg
http://beardporn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/bill-murray-475x289.jpg

You know, there's a good case to be made that Metallica actually deserves credit setting the stage for Nirvana.

R.E.M. basically followed U2's trajectory, albeit on a lag, and with a more wayward approach. People forget they didn't even tour behind "Out of Time" and "Automatic," their two biggest records!

That's why the Monster tour was so huge with multiple nights at big arenas that sold out so quickly.

Smiths & REM: I lived in Atlanta in the late 80s, & when Strangeways the buzz in my hs was that Stipe & Morrissey were regularly seen in Athens holding hands, & that the end of "Unhappy Birthday" ("the one you left behind") was a sly note to Stipe. I don't know if it's true! But that was the word from kids going back & forth to Athens (I was too young to drive at that point).

when Strangeways came out, I meant

can't write today, trying to do too much at once

You know, there's a good case to be made that Metallica actually deserves credit setting the stage for Nirvana.
i think this is true ime. in 7th grade, during lunch hours on fridays, they let kids play music over the PA at my school. first it was the black album, and then it was nirvana. this seems like pretty hard evidence, i know.

R.E.M. certainly were like the American kings of having all sorts of crazy rumors flying around!

Mozz and Stipe used to be pen pals, I believe.

Stipe also befriended Morrissey in the early nineties; he had a Mother Hen instinct for stars-in-need.

Was Morrissey really a star-in-need at that point though? Iirc that was when he was doing really well (relatively) with his solo singles

Kill Uncle?

mozzz could always use a hug.

Okay fair point, but to be fair most of his 1990-1992 singles charted higher in the U.S. than any of the late 80s stuff did.

i saw 10ooomaniaks open for them in arena. that sucked. but saw feelies open up for them and arena rock feelies was heavennnnnz.

Time For a Witness is a great record.

10ooomaniaks

Is this another one of those goddamn ghostwave bands?

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

Busted out Monster from storage and am listening for the first time in yoinks...forgot Thurston Moore did backing vox on "Crush W/Eyeliner".

Michael Stipe played with a punk/new wave band called Bad Habits who were from St Louis, before moving to Georgia

The Minutemen were already on the REM tour and had completed it when D Boon died.

Bands I saw open for R.E.M. in early days - dbs (twice), Three O'Clock and True West, Guadalcanal Diary.

guadalcanal diary were pretty good iirc.

Circling back to the Wyman/Nevermind thing, as somebody who followed R.E.M. from pretty much the beginning, their success to me seemed gradual and linear (and totally unrelated to Nirvana). By the time Reckoning came out, they were already getting a little play on the mainstream rock station in my city -- I remember hearing "So. Central Rain" -- and then "Can't Get There From Here" and "Driver 8" both got some spins too, and "Fall On Me" was in regular rotation. (That was when some of my non-college-radio-listening friends started really noticing them.) So the success of "The One I Love" and "End of the World" seemed to follow logically. By Document they were playing 5,000-seat halls at least, maybe bigger. And Green was bigger again, and then OOT. It was a long, steady build.

ack, I just remembered that the closing show of the Green tour was at the Fox, not at the Omni. Still, they played the Omni on the Green tour, since it's one of the Tourfilm sites I think.

I wrote at the time (and still think) that they had Nirvana in mind when they wrote "Drive." It's kind of an oblique reaction, but I think it's there. (Love Guadalcanal's "Gilbert Takes the Wheel.")