Best R.E.M. Album

John Paul Jones gets talked about a lot in relation to Automatic, but Mark Bingham did a bigger volume of work on Out of Time.

― timellison, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:30 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's because John Paul Jones is not only a much bigger name, but also because what work he did on Automatic for the People was superior! When the strings come in on 'Drive' it really gives that track an extra dimension, and his arrangement on 'Nightswimming' is gorgeous.

xp
LOL (They performed it on "Unplugged," too... they clearly liked it a lot)

And the Bingo Hand Job tape

Turrican, do you really imagine their thought process was "gee, this song sucks, let's put it at the beginning of the album"?

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:36 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, but I am saying that in the unlikely event that it was deliberately written to be a hit single, it would prove that they were really bad at trying to write hit singles.

Or maybe they were just kind of hit and miss

Doesn't it seem likely that they imagined a song called "Radio Song", that was released as a single, might actually get played on the radio?

Not that they had ever done anything similar before, either -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Song_89

(title/single-wise)

I love almost every song they made during this period (regardless of its intention or achievement) so add me to team "what exactly are we arguing about".

Thxbye

Yeah, I guess one reason I argue about this a lot is that I've never really loved Out of Time outside of a few tracks.

Radio Song was a reaction to the idea that they were primed to get huge with a radio hit. Stipe wasn't comfortable setting out to write a radio hit so he wrote a song about how radio songs suck. Then lmr took off and out of time hit #1 and he became an insufferable celebrity and didn't break up the band at the end of the millenium like they said that they would.

Listening to "Life's Rich Pageant" for the first time in yonks. This is my favorite IRS album, it's just so damn joyful (as well as tuneful)! I mean, "Underneath The Bunker" sounds like a ALL Of Voodoo track!

the flowers cover everything
they cover over everything

Xp Wall Of Voodoo, damn typo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_wFRLDo6OI

Turrican have you really been arguing about this for SIX HOURS?

― Matt DC, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 1:31 PM

Shh, he's making the board more intelligent.

Doesn't it seem likely that they imagined a song called "Radio Song", that was released as a single, might actually get played on the radio?

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not particularly - radio do not generally pay attention to the titles of songs, unless they're ridiculously long or offensive. They playlist according to quality, popularity and audience. Lyrically, it's anti-radio, which I'm sure would have helped its chances getting playlisted if it wasn't a shit song to begin with.

Yeah, I guess one reason I argue about this a lot is that I've never really loved Out of Time outside of a few tracks.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's down at the bottom of the pile for me in terms of Berry-era records, but it has nothing to do with thinking the band made a conscious attempt to "sell out", which is just silly.

No one said “sell out”; that’s the baggage you’re bringing to it.

If you click on the Document-era RS article above, you’ll find Peter Buck eeyore-ing about how it’s unlikely for the band to have a hit record “at this late date,” probably only his aunt will buy the new record, knock on wood, salt over his shoulder, etc.

This band wanted to be successful. They were psyched to be the biggest band in the world. And as you said, they did it “ok their own terms.” But just because they didn’t hire Mutt Lange and Diane Warren when they made Out of Time doesn’t mean they weren’t going for some big songs (the ones everyone keeps mentioning).

Go watch Tourfilm, and tell me this is a band that wanted to be boutique-y, indie darlings playing the club circuit.

It doesn't matter how you frame it, I am still very much an extremely long way from ever being convinced that 'Losing My Religion' was deliberately conceived to be a huge hit.

They hoped it would be.

It’s “Shiny Happy People” that (as Moodles said) was clearly intended to be a “Stand”-style hit.

Anyway, my initial point in all this was that it’s not wrong to call the album “slickly” produced, i.e. designed to sound as appealing as possible in a “commercial” sense (without compromising the essence of the band); which seems hard to deny considering that “Losing My Religion” has only somewhat less reverb on the drums than the top 3 singles of 1990.

"Stand" and "Shiny Happy People" are their absolute nadir for me. I couldn't stand "Green" when it came out, it felt like a total betrayal. But hindsight and life experience gives me the perspective that going in that direction allowed them to do lots of other things that I enjoy so more power to them.

I wouldn't say it felt like a "betrayal," but hearing the ending of "The One I Love" for the first time -- just those last three chords -- definitely felt like, welp, looks like they really wanna play arenas now (I can't remember if it was post-Document or post-LRP when they were on the cover of Spin with the caption, "Are we there yet?"). It seems like such a small thing in retrospect, but at the time it was really disorienting.

Yeah, I totally remember first hearing "The One I Love" on the radio (probably before the album was out because I surely bought that thing on the first day). I will say it did sound more generic to me than anything that had come before but then the album came out and it wasn't, really.

'Losing My Religion' was the first single, and the band's first video to have lip-sync.
They may not have thought they had a hit, but they put all their chips in on LMR.

LMR doesn't sound like it was written to be a hit, but once it was recorded, I imagine they knew what they had. That song and video got pushed hard right out the gate.

They apparently even had to push the label to release it (which I think was alluded to above) -- which IMO makes the band seem even more impressive, as their "ears" for a potential hit were better than the label's.

(Or push the label to release it as the lead single, at least. WB probably wanted to lead with "Shiny Happy"...)

That could almost be a thread--Bands Using Their Newfound Sales Power to Make the Label Release a Weird Lead Single

"E-Bow the Letter" definitely

Fleetwood Mac "Tusk"

Heck, you could look right to the next R.E.M. album, and “Drive.” That was a very unusual single.

Or, ah, WTFK.

I for one am glad that oh ffs never mind

Listening to Automatic For The People today. R.E.M. is such comfort food to me, so many memories attached.

One such memory is that when I was a kid I had no idea what Michael Stipe looked like, so I imagined the songs of R.E.M. being sung by Robin Williams

I'd love to hear an Ilxor-compiled best-of of their post-Up third-phase stuff. It can't be all bad, right?

Some of it is in fact the best? "Horse To Water" is the best rave-up of their career imo

Algorithm just suggested I watch a "Michael Stipe names his favourite R.E.M. album" video and so I clicked it, why not. He's talking about Hi-Fi and I'm like "yes, it is a great album, good choice", but then at the end he says "recently, however, Reveal has become tied for #1" and I'm like "I have never heard an opinion so wrong"

xxp “Houston” is an amazing avenue I wish they’d explored further

Historical interviews with individual members of REM consistently feature the most egregious use of statements along the lines of “hand on heart, I truly believe that [most recent album] is the best record we have ever made”

And that includes Around the Sun

If I were a working musician and I was convinced the best thing I ever did was the first thing I did in my 20s, I would quit being a working musician. If you don't love your most recent stuff the most then you're probably in crisis. Let the critics rank the early stuff.

I'd love to hear an Ilxor-compiled best-of of their post-Up third-phase stuff. It can't be all bad, right?

― your mom goes to limgrave (dog latin), Wednesday, March 27, 2024 8:19 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe a poll for this?

I made this reference disc for myself which I barely managed to squeeze on to one CD, but you could drop the three Up tracks and maybe replace them with "The Lifting" from Reveal and the aforementioned "Horse To Water"?

1 Lotus 04:31
2 At My Most Beautiful [radio mix] 03:33
3 Daysleeper [single edit] 03:31
4 The Great Beyond 05:07
5 I've Been High 03:26
6 All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be A Star) 04:43
7 Imitation Of Life 03:56
8 All The Right Friends 02:48
9 Bad Day 04:07
10 Leaving New York 04:49
11 Electron Blue 04:12
12 Living Well Is The Best Revenge 03:11
13 Man-Sized Wreath 02:33
14 Supernatural Superserious 03:23
15 Hollow Man 02:39
16 Houston 02:05
17 Discoverer 03:31
18 Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter 02:45
19 Überlin 04:14
20 Oh My Heart 03:20
21 It Happened Today 03:48
22 We All Go Back To Where We Belong 03:35

And “I’m Gonna DJ”!

I should go back and rework the one that was Monster and on to just this time period. I think “Reveal” was the one that I had the toughest time getting through. “Überlin” and “Discoverer” were another immediate ones I’d rank up there.

Thanks birdistheword

I tried to make a best of the post-Berry playlist last time we had a lot of thread activity. There’s definitely a worthwhile comp there but I never really finished the project…

Here's a Spotify playlist of birdistheword's compilation with the Up tracks replaced by those other ones mentioned. Looking forward to listening

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6iFoLsxrVLBaBIiYMwNQMf?si=02696cae024944c3