This is the Thread Where You Bash REM's Monster

*waits for a thread about Out of Time*

And btw, Geir Hongro thinks Reveal is the best REM album ever. I'll just note that so he doesn't have to.

And "Crush with Eyeliner" sucks, but I really like the video.

I've understood the love given to "Tongue." *yawn*

It does sound better now than it did in '94. That said, I think history will be less kind to REM than they deserve.

Basically true, but I think "E-Bow the Letter" is one of the finest things they've ever done. REM was officially over for me when I heard the new song they wrote for the Andy Kauffman movie -- the musical equivalent of a faked orgasm.

Wha' happened?

I also like New Adventures in Hi Fi, but moreso for individual songs than the whole shebang. There's half a dozen songs I program out when I listen to it. Definitely not the first six however.

I can understand to a degree why some may consider it a mediocre effort, but it wasn't even considered good enough for mediocre reviews - from what I gather, most reviews written after 1994 called this among the worst albums of alltime, and the biggest mistake REM has ever made. It's almost gotten to the point where bashing this album is the equivalent of praising Sgt Pepper.

I enjoy nearly every song, and it's certainly among my 3 favorite REM records.

Here Here, Keith!
(it's an injoke, folks.)

By the way, what's the injoke. I don't get it? Did I make it?

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.05.98/gifs/rem-9844.jpg
there

from

http://www.sem20.com/15-minute-interlude/rem.jpg
here

Monster got great hype before it came out. Don't they always? I can't recall ANY REM album ever getting a bad review, generally speaking, until, probably, Reveal (maybe UP too but I seem to remember the consensus generally being positive on that one too).

Crush With Eyeliner is particularly great as you get the sense that REM *knew* it was the one song that encapsulated everything they were trying to achieve on that record yet nonetheless spent the rest of the album chucking out pale Xeroxes of it.

Yeah, that's putting it well.

They should have just released "Kenneth"/"Eyeliner" as a single and been done with it!

That is one of the most powerful songs REM have done.

Songs = lyrics? Gier continutes to make claims that are just plain inscrutable.

This is still one of my favorite REM albums, and has aged better than "Up" or "Reveal."

plus, they redid Everybody hurts in Strange Currencies, only better!

i'll only excuse this comment under two circumstances: (1) you've never heard the song; or (2) you've never seen the movie. if neither of these apply, you're only other excuse is a complete lack of taste.

I think the surprising thing is how many of the songs on Monster I love, given the "different" nature of the album.

"Kenneth" has to be a classic. It's so straight-ahead, so rock-n-roll, but it's not plain. And that groove! Mike Mills rocks the melodic bass. And it's a song where Berry's work proves that drummers can be artists.

And another thing: ever notice how every single one of R.E.M.'s albums is both widely hated and widely loved? Seriously, for every Fables lover or Up apologist or OOT devotee, there is another person saying it's crap. Same for Monster. Is it like that for other artists whom I don't follow as closely?

Dude, he proved that on Murmur! (and so did Ringo, in 1963)

And another thing: ever notice how every single one of R.E.M.'s albums is both widely hated and widely loved? Seriously, for every Fables lover or Up apologist or OOT devotee, there is another person saying it's crap. Same for Monster.

R.E.M. are overrated and underrated. Their last few albums would force the haters to claim the former.

Well, I said it's *a* song. Not *the* song.

R.E.M. are overrated and underrated.

Is there another band comparable to R.E.M.'s under/overratedness?

Or is that a too-broad and dumb question? I can never tell on here.

http://product.ebay.com/Monster_UPC_093624574026_W0QQfvcsZ1226QQsoprZ3162438QQssPageNameZFavMerch_SO:BACK

Even though it's officially tied with Out of Time and Automatic for the People as R.E.M.'s best-selling U.S. title.

they've gone to shit lately, tho.

This is the part of the thread where Tim will try to convince us of the greatness of Around the Sun.

From what I understand, there were just a ton of these pressed and it didn't end up selling that well.
Even though it's officially tied with Out of Time and Automatic for the People as R.E.M.'s best-selling U.S. title.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, June 15, 2006 10:52 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not to mention the fact that it's a far better album than either of those two.
― Si.C@rter (SiC@rter), Thursday, June 15, 2006 11:06 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

It's definitely their best 90's album.. I agree that it's aged well.

I pretty sure this album did continue to sell over the course of the following year, as there were at least 6 MTV videos / radio singles pulled.. record companies don't usually do this unless there's good sales momentum to begin with. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the order was Kenneth, Bang And Blame, Star 69, Crush With Eyeliner, Strange Currencies.. and I'm almost positive Tongue was a single, but I'm not sure when it would have been released.. Strange Currencies was promoted over summer 95 which was nearly a year after Monster's release date)

I think it's one of the biggest used bin fillers of all time in part because it did sell pretty well, people just didn't like it much once they bought it for the most part.

Also I'd say this is at most their 3rd or 4th best 90's album, and I don't even hate it.

i liked it a lot at the time, and still like it now, but 4th best is about right. Star 69 wasn't a single. i bought all the singles from this album for some reason. i think this was maybe the album where all of the b-sides were designed to be put together to form a live album? REM were always a shitty band for b-sides.

I remember laughing out loud, literally, when I read the title of this album for the first time (it was in a British weekly). It just seemed like so goofy, totally out of character.

REM were always a shitty band for b-sides.

i dunno, Dead Letter Office is one of their best, I think

"Star 69" didn't have a physical single but it was a fairly big hit on U.S. rock radio.

xpost

yeah a crap b sides band. but then a lot of american bands generally are. talking heads for example *simply never did them* and i think it's fair to say the same of steely dan.

i remember being disappointed by monster, but then i saw them live in 99 and all the monster tunes suddenly made sense in that context

Let Me In is still amazing.

Found myself listening to this a few times over the summer. It's stood the test of time well. I don't think the "return to rock" campaign did them any favours. It misrepresented the album. At the time it was talked up as their grunge album. But it's nothing of the sort. Much of the album remakes REM as a ironic queer glam rockers. And there are all the oddball non-rock tracks like Tongue and King Of Comedy, both of which I love. KOC is a far more successful stab at industrial disco rock than anything U2 attempted. Unlike Bongo, Stipe actually has a sense of humour, and his sly, sleazy persona is quite a bold one for a mainstream rock artist to adopt, particularly one often, if erroneously, characterised as painfully sincere.
I Don't Sleep I Dream is a really gorgeous, even sexy, song. And Buck's guitar sounds on Circus Envy are utterly filthly, the sound of fuzz pedals running low on batteries. You is really strong.
I agree that it's better than Hi-Fi, even though I didn't think so at the time. While Hi-Fi has some great songs, it's also got an awful lot of filler and is much more earnest than Monster. Indeed, one of the mistakes REM have made since Monster is to be overly earnest. The new album is a prime example of that. Maybe the irony of Monster doesn't suit these times, but I miss the goofy, kitschy artwork and photos of the Monster era. It was like REM were doing a major label, LA take on the underground styles of the time. And they did it pretty well. It's far preferable to the po-faced serious rock band pose of today.

But it's nothing of the sort. Much of the album remakes REM as a ironic queer glam rockers.

Yeah, this, which is why the tour sucked: it turned the songs into non-ironic hetero arena thumpers ("Crush With Eyeliner" sounded like STP's "Sex Type Thing").

True dat. I was 14 at the time and got caught up in the excitement of the whole thing, but when I saw the concert film a year later...oh dear.
What was even more criminal was making a beautiful song like Try Not To Breath sound like Pearl Jam trying to be the Waterboys. Grim.
It's the only stadium gig I've ever been to. It was a weird experience, and not one I'm likely to repeat. REM were much better on the Up tour. Stirling Castle, a beautiful sunset, and airings of Pilgrimage, Cuyahoga and Pretty Persuasion. Plus Stereolab as a support act. Some guy in a Gun t-shirt in front of me: "This is fuckin' pish!".

"Circus Envy" is so great: the guitar tone, that riff, Stipe's exhausted vocal. It's worth buying the album in a cut-out bin for that song alone.

I agree on "yay irony"; the album sags heavily at "Strange Currencies" which sounded like "Everybody Hurts Part 2". And "I Took Your Name" is totally unnecessary on an album with "King Of Comedy" and "Crush With Eyeliner". It would have been a better b-side than the ones we got.

Heh at Gun guy xp. I lost interest in REM just before Monster, and it's a pleasure rediscovering them slowly. I still always admired them for being so prolific at a time when other big bands would release two albums a decade and tour them into the ground. This thread reads almost like they should've done that instead

re: b-sides, I think they were much better in the IRS era, or maybe there just hasn't been an affordable/available/convenient b-sides collection since Dead Letter Office. Certainly this has to do with the CD-single as a format and the pressure to fill the things out with more than one additional track - all the live cuts are a bit off-putting though. I bet this period, properly cherry-picked, has some decent material.

The guitars are generally mixed too high, and with the same exaggerated overdrive level that would later be a problem about Oasis' sound. This means that the vocals are getting far too low in the sound, and unlike Liam Gallagher, Michael Stipe doesn't have the kind of voice to get through that either.

However, "What's The Frequency Kenneth" is a great song that might have been one of the best R.E.M. singles ever had Michael Stipe been more in the front of the mix.

yeah, I'd love them to do a new Dead Letter Office, or even just collect all the b-sides, live cuts and all. For instance, I think the acoustic version of "Pop Song 89" on---I think it's on the "Pop Song 89" single?---tops the original version. It would be great to give that a wider release.

The problem is that most of the latter day original b-sides are instrumentals, and R.E.M.'s instrumentals all sound like something they didn't bother finishing because it wasn't good enough.

I love "Endgame" (speaking of instrumentals, I mean)

New Orleans instrumental no. 1 or whatever it was called made a REALLY good soundtrqack for BBC footage of drowned New Orleans. Never cared about the track before.

REM were always a shitty band for b-sides.

i dunno, Dead Letter Office is one of their best, I think

― Mr. Que,
Side 1 is great. It falls off after the flip, though.

...unless you have the version that has Chronic Town tacked onto the end!

this album is SOOOOO good!
that is all.

Yeah, love this album. My second favorite of their 90s output behind New Adventures. Also, this was my gateway drug to deeper R.E.M. love. Never understood the hate, though I can see why fans of the early years might be put off.

i think the pretty bad arena show I saw during the Monster tour kinda put a sour taste in my mouth as far as this record is concerned. But I listened to it not that long ago and liked it. Still dread "Strange Currencies" though. And was never a huge fan of "Bang and Blame" ...

apparently one of the least-wanted cds on earth:
http://product.ebay.com/Monster_UPC_093624574026_W0QQfvcsZ1226QQsoprZ3162438QQssPageNameZFavMerch_SO:BACK

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, June 15, 2006 3:37 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

wow, that link is still priceless... in a manner of speaking...

one dude is trying to sell it for $18.35 plus shipping

"NEW/SEALED & Perfect 4 Gift Giving - ADD TO CART ~~~ and Make Someone's Day"

Yeah, 290 results for that and only 267 for Hootie's big album.

rem blow

monster blows. it's by rem

i think the pretty bad arena show I saw during the Monster tour kinda put a sour taste in my mouth as far as this record is concerned

Yup. A minor band named Radiohead also opened.

rem = i'm playing some chords. i have a scalp tattoo. my sweat reeks.

a friend clued me in to playing the album tracks in reverse order and it opens up into a weird, beautiful little album. it's like stepping out of a rover onto Mars. "You" and "Circus Envy" are possibly the best songs this band ever recorded. Amazing how much of an effect the garish artwork has on the music itself. Replace the orange and cartoons with some blurry photograph in earthy tones and suddenly you can see the thread that runs from Automatic's "Star Me Kitten" through "Tongue" all the way to the follow-up's "How the West Was Won". The hype around Monster definitely worked to its detriment. What someone said upthread about Monster being a parody of a major-label version of an underground album is dead on. The similarity between "Strange Currencies" and "Everybody Hurts" is downright comical, and I believe it was meant to be comical. A sense of humor certainly helps with this album in general.

yeah? maybe it just blows

Matt P on the money

I thought he was on the blow.

Yup. A minor band named Radiohead also opened.
opener for my show was ... Luscious Jackson. Though I had bought the tix when Sonic Youth was scheduled to open, but the aneurysm thing caused a delay ...

johnnyblo

uh-oh. school's out...

alice cooper, now there's someone who doesn't BLOW

agreed

Yup. A minor band named Radiohead also opened.
opener for my show was ... Luscious Jackson. Though I had bought the tix when Sonic Youth was scheduled to open, but the aneurysm thing caused a delay ...

― tylerw, Tuesday, March 9, 2010 2:21 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me too. i saw their chicago show. group of adults in front of me were doing charades to song lyrics. not a good show.

Maybe I should be glad that I got shut out of that show! The Chicago show was my freshman year of college and was to be the first major arena show I was to see, but tickets sold out before we could get them. At the time, I was honestly more excited to see Sonic Youth though.

i went with two high school friends

i don't think i have spoken to them or even heard their name uttered in 15 years

"Kenneth" is pretty classic -- still sounds good on the radio.

I need to rescreen this one ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGWW8KOQio

god i hate REM for not breaking up after adventures

group of adults in front of me were doing charades to song lyrics

this really cracks me up. it's like something out of catcher in the rye.

My second favorite of their 90s output behind New Adventures.

totally agree with this

this was easily my favorite r.e.m. album of 1994

Their worst album. But, as I said upthread, it is possible there may be some good songs there. But I can't hear them. I just hear guitar noise.

why are you still on geirbot v. 2.6 when everybody else has already installed geirbot 2010? i'm surprised that you can even play CDs on that thing.

god i hate REM for not breaking up after adventures automatic for the people

But I can't hear them. I just hear guitar noise.

Geir manages to make the album sound ever more awesome to those who haven't heard it.

XP If R.E.M. were to break up after Adventures they might as well have broken up after "Automatic For The People", yes. "Monster" and "Adventures" were their two worst albums, after all. They got better again later.

some of the songs were AMAZING live though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60IBPy1wiBM&feature=player_embedded

agreed! i saw them live after my senior year in HS and all the songs they played off MONSTER were great

Oh, yeah. I was at the Chicago show, too. It ruined the band for me. In retrospect, knowing how much of New Adventures in HiFi (which I came to love years later) came from that tour, I wonder whether I was in the wrong -- expecting "Superman" or whatever when they'd moved on. Wonder if there's a decent bootleg from that tour out there...

This is R.E.M's best post-"Automatic For The People" moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKbBiR89KSo

man i hate that song. and i used to love r.e.m.

and i like melody, too.

I wonder how much, if any, of this was an unconscious nod to Achtung/Zooropa/Zoo TV U2 - it previewed REM's biggest tour to date and although I'd assume the band had given up/stopped caring about the 'biggest band in the world' mantle once Bono etc were back. For all the 'return to rock' it doesn't sound like Document or any of their other rockier albums although I think they admitted as such at the time. I like the way 'You' and 'Circus Envy' seem to follow that REM tradition ('I Remember California', 'Oddfellows') of discordant oddball songs, the kinda thing Peter Buck talked up before recording 'Document' but it was almost as if they couldn't help themselves and consciously dropped those songs towards the end.

I'd be curious to know the order in which songs were recorded for Monster. I remember reading a Rolling Stone article around the time. The sessions were apparently difficult, with lots of stops and location changes. By the time the following year's tour commenced they were already playing a batch of new songs, some of which made it onto New Adventures. These songs were, for the most part, pretty bland and awful - "Revolution" (a crowd favorite, supposedly, which never made it onto New Adventures), "Departure", "Undertow"...terrible terrible songs. Maybe "Tongue", "I Don't Sleep", "You", "Circus Envy" were the first batch of new songs they had after Automatic for the People, as these were the bulk of the quality material. Maybe one day they started fooling around with "Crush With Eyeliner" and decided to take the album in the direction it went.

Sucked then. Sucks now.

liking good music is boring.

Departure", "Undertow"...terrible terrible songs.

suggest ban

^^^^^

what's so good about those songs?

"Departure" has a good riff and Stipe delivery; it goes on too long, maybe.

i was never a fan of stipe's Dylan Phase, where he just rattles all stream-a-consciousness-like. "Undertow" is the best of that bunch. they're always the songs i skip on New Adventures though. i don't think they stack up to "How the West Was Won" and "Electrolyte".

of course, none of those songs are as bad as "Wake Up" bomb...maybe the worst REM song?

there are, from what i can remember, 5 - 6 really good songs on here. the attack may have been a bit miscalculated, but the tunes are still there.

but i'm the guy who's ok w/ Green so wtf do i know

but i'm also the guy (tho i doubt 'm the only one) who would have been a-ok had they not done a single thing post-LRP

i like Green. do people not like that?

Their worst album. But, as I said upthread, it is possible there may be some good songs there. But I can't hear them. I just hear guitar noise.

Geir, kindly stop listening to Loveless and give Monster another shot.

geir you have a vagina for a heart and a mellotron for a dick

Reclaiming 'Monster': Reflecting on R.E.M.'s Most Misunderstood Album with Michael Stipe

Obv it was true of monster before most but basically any multi platinum cd is easy to find cheap now. Every rem cd is in the clearance bin at amoeba.

Monster rules.

Thanks for that interview link. Yeah, Monster is great.

I'll take a youtube clip of the live version of Let Me In over everything on the cd.

great album

Only REM record I listen to on a semi-regular basis.

geir you have a vagina for a heart and a mellotron for a dick

― snorgfaced germans (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, March 17, 2010 7:57 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it wrong to think of this album as REM's Zooropa?

Love it.

I'm gonna listen to "Circus Envy" now.

xpost depends on what you make of zooropa right?

Atypical album that is more arch and ironic and less earnest than the group's typical fare that if not quite a match for their early heights may end up with less burnout factor and more staying power.

Eh it's really an achtung move with new adventures the zooropa

Only "strange currencies" wasn't their "one"

zooropa was also partially recorded on tour iirc

both albums = maybe get some traction from non-fans who want an album or two from each band, usually their taste is nothing like typical REM/U2

REM has casual non-fans in 2014?

In teh 90s

REM casual non-fan in 2014 = Someone with just "The One I Love", "It's The End of...", and "Losing My Religion" on their iPod.

If you were to list the very biggest acts from 1980- with any sort of longevity, I would imagine REM would be near the bottom of casual non-fans at this stage.

Atypical album that is more arch and ironic and less earnest than the group's typical fare that if not quite a match for their early heights may end up with less burnout factor and more staying power.

― Dear Catastrophe Theory Waitress (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, September 26, 2014 9:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

r.e.m. doesn't really do arch and ironic very well, though.

Monster's maybe my favorite RE
M album, it's so glammy.

Obv. didn't mean the space between RE and M, damn bus

Eh it's really an achtung move with new adventures the zooropa

And yes, arch and ironic poor choice of words, "glammy" much better.

why bash a classic? the only way they could imrpove this is by upgrading the audio quality to 24 bits/192kps or at least remaster it to pono quality. but even then, you're only converting a 9.5 into a full 10. just my 2 cents

Never really thought about it until now but with zooropa and pop tracking pretty neatly critically/commercially with new adventures and up, I don't think the relative difference in respect given to achtung and monster comes down to their handling of "irony" so much as novelty/zeitgeist (U2 got to sunglasses and glampop first) and more importantly big popular power ballads - as the film purple rain taught us, they are the key to immortality.

Imagining "Strange Currencies" taking off like "One" did is like imagining a nineties with Poppy Bush reelected.

"Strange Currencies" is the only dud on the album.

"Bang and blame" is as close to a dud as it gets for me

But the album sounded more charming than ever when I put it on last week. Nostalgia for the era helps.

Knew there was some sort of comparison to be made, just was waiting for da croupier to rake it in.

Euler, what? Your philosophical logic has temporarily deserted you. As punishment you will have to walk through the Old Town of Königsberg crossing each bridge once and only once.

with "Circus Envy" on my Walkman

Ha sorry to railroad you redd - wouldn't have come up with that on my own

re B&B: I like the verses and the mixing decision to let the riff fade at the end of each bar, but the chorus is a serious letdown.

I love the chorus; the "guitar solo" is pretty hilarious, but I like Berry's attempt at funky drummer

If there's YouTube of one of this tour's better performances, I'd love to watch it. From my pov much of the backlash came from watching them try to do these flash/"ironic" moves onstage and flailing in a gawky and self-conscious way; all they needed was "Pop Music" and Golden Arches to foreshadow POP Mart.

my first time watching REM too. Radiohead opened and they killed (I'm not a fan).

Berry is kind of a funky drummer in his own writeright. Not of the Clyde or Jabo variety, but in the sense of guy who plays in a rock band and is creative but not studio pro slick.

So Monster = Achtung Baby? I'm good with that, Achtung's also my favorite U2 album.

I like Monster now more than I ever did in the '90s, and find myself enjoying most of it these days. If there's a dud on this album for me, it's definitely 'King of Comedy'. Overall, I prefer New Adventures In Hi-Fi though, which I rank up there as one of their all-time best.

I always liked this album. It's my favourite of their major label albums, probably. I'm glad that it seems to be getting a reappraisal, at least here. Nice guitar tones and production. I'm not really sure what makes this 'arch and ironic' in a way that Document or Green are not, tbh. I never thought 80s REM was earnest in the way that 80s U2 was: if anything, obliqueness was part of their schtick.

Let's not forget 'Everybody Hurts', though!

arch ironic earnest

Sorry, still trying to think of new words. Maybe "self-aware" or "self-reflexive" as opposed to just sort of tunneling forward?

Something too fey or twee or weak about certain tracks on Green. Something too oblique about Document.

Although maybe Life's Rich Pageant was sort of a similar move, but without the dark sunglasses and eyeliner.

My Crush With (Dark Sunglasses and) Eyeliner

This is a very good and somewhat overlooked documentary based around the Monster tour rehearsals, broadcast originally in the UK at exactly the same time as 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times', duh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYG7nNhzpN0

I'd love to know what Stipe regrets about "King Of Comedy", I think that's a spectacular track.

he's not commodity

I gave up around Green, when they decided to stick with "plodding and deliberate" as an instrumental approach. Based on advance word, I thought Monster would be different, but if anything, it was worse. I always found it overwhelmingly bland and faceless. But it got them on the road, and their renewed joy in playing live at least resulted in a decent studio record (Hi-Fi), so it wasn't all for naught.

Is that doc the one in which the two Michaels look at the sheet music for "Galveston"?

Yep.

I strongly suspect that Automatic-Monster-Hi Fi is their secret creative peak (I am definitely a non-fan)

i mean i would agree but i always thought that was because i was an impressionable teen at the time

I think this is the album where you look to Berry when people talk of his 'restraint' - like in the Pavement tribute song.

He could have been all over this album, given the fact that it was him who seemed to make most noise over the 'return to rock' - but it's not heavy on fills or overplaying at all. Having said that that was pretty much his approach for the duration of the band.

I loved this record, but probably because I was 18.

no recall of ever flipping through this. somebody on here must have one?

http://eil.com/images/main/REM+-+Monster+-+Book+Pack+Sealed+-+CD+ALBUM-549992.jpg

holy fuck i had no idea about this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsCsv996bZw

i remember seeing that special edition.

in retrospect this album isn't nearly as bad as I remember. I like more than almost anything that came after by them.

As a whole, this album doesn't work at all, although some individual songs (like Kenneth) and some individual moments in songs (the chord change on Circus Envy, the throbbing noise in You) are pretty great.

Having said that, I saw them live in '95, aged 17, and was SO EXCITED (and NB also totally high) that it remains, in my memory at least, the best gig I've ever been to.

And Bang and Blame is the first really flat-out irredeemably boring REM song.

i don't think i ever got over the way we heard the album for the first time; over an outdoor PA on a Sunday morning, as we queued up for tickets to the (ultimately cancelled) Birmingham arena gig. it was played at about 8 a.m. and it sounded really thin and tinny over that shitty PA. didn't help that we'd been up all night driving from Manchester to get there i suppose. UP and New Adventures.. wipe the floor with it.

Its the best 'let's run this guitar sound into the ground' album ever

http://i.imgur.com/8XuufQK.jpg

Ha - Piscesx, I heard the record the same way queuing up at Wembley Arena, stuck behind two guys talking about Dark Side of the Moon for three hours. Ugh. Did not sound good.

I was quite a fan before this shabbiness

That three note guitar riff, following the turgid, ploddy 4 chord strumming on Kenneth - its all just flaccid grunge cock

Quite the opposite. They want you to suck their cock.

If I may... http://thequietus.com/articles/16426-rem-monster-review-anniversary

I think this is one of REM's most interesting albums, not least down to Stipe writing some really strong lyrics - dark and ambiguous character studies, plenty of genderfucking.

Their best album.

Good write up

6 Discs on the reissue, but still no room for the best REM doc, which is from the same tour! Maybe they don't liek it. There's a vague Let It Be vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBby0SCGLmk

This album sucks, sorry bros

Crush with eyeliner is some boring ass shit

it's good, not in the top 5 but good

20+ years later and i still can't get over how much of a misstep it felt at the time!

And as it remains
They should have called it quits with Green, they’d be legendary by now, a hundred college bands imitating them
I

No no no way before green

This is a good album, though

why did they sing the verse of "losing my religion" when they were singing "bang and blame ?
b and b has a great hook/chorus.
― kenneth jnr, Monday, May 16, 2005 10:00 AM (fourteen years ago)

this always bugs me too, i can't unhear it

I’m gonna bash the fact that the 2-disc version of the anniversary set consists of the original album + remixed album, and not the outtake disc (which you need to buy the 6-disc set to hear).

Who needs two mixes of the same album — especially when the OG version (if you don’t already own it) costs a few bucks in any record store? If the 2CD set was remix + outtakes, there’d be a reason to buy it.

I’m checking out the 25th Anniversary editions of the previous two albums that they’ve been releasing via Craft/Concord... I admit they’re tempting.

Everyone’s got their *jumping off point* with this consistently great band. Monster is a great record, but not my fave sonically.

Appreciate your angle, Alfred. For me, R.E.M. we’re sexiest in the mid-‘80s, when I think they were the most feminine. An attractive veil of artifice and earthy/no-nonsense at the same time.

i haven't heard the remix yet but the remaster itself sounds great, very crisp with a lot of detail i never caught before in the denser tracks cf. "king of comedy"

also this is such a great album, so fun and sexy and weird and creepy

I probably have "I don't sleep, I dream" as my own #1 or #2 track on this, to me it bridges the band's past and present effortlessly.

Pretty sure I just saw the spine of Monster in the CD racks belonging to McNulty in his office cubicle in the first series of The Wire.

It and a Pogues album are the only ones he owns.

I’m gonna bash the fact that the 2-disc version of the anniversary set consists of the original album + remixed album, and not the outtake disc (which you need to buy the 6-disc set to hear).

Exactly, I'm really annoyed by this move. Especially since it also breaks with the run they've had going of the 2-disc version either being packaged with a disc of demos or a live set. I have no desire to have the 2019 mix.

so this seems like a p radical remix? This clip has me excited

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19hhctlleNo&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19hhctlleNo&feature=youtu.be

ugh, well Scott Litt on nixing altogether the staccato guitar on the choruses to WTFK

These remixes are both fucking terrible. I feel like one of those people that bash's Giles Martin's Beatles remixes (which I personally like); WTF is Litt thinking? These sound like boosted rough mixes where he looses almost every little touch that made the songs remotely palateable in the first place (I like this album more than most people but I'm not pretending it's one of their best ones. The remix seems to be aching to make it even worse).

Yeah, just did an A/B listen to "Let Me In" and... I don't think the new version does either the song, or Stipe's vocal, any favors.

(The new version is here.)

The new "Let Me In" is silly.

i'm iffy on listening to the remixes since the original album is so fixed in my mind production-wise, and it was an album i loved right off the bat. i thought it was wildly successful in what it intended to do, and its tepid reception had more to do with it not being the R.E.M. people wanted. Similar to what happened w/a lot of U2 fans in the '90s; both groups of disappointed fans missed out on some of their best work.

there was definitely a distancing effect on the rock tracks where the vocals were buried under layers of guitar overdrive. I can understand how that may have turned people off, but I thought it was pretty cool. "Fixing" the mixes now, just comes across as very unnecessary second guessing.

What will be your look this season?

https://i.imgur.com/WSy9a6j.jpg

haha, the Special Editions were exactly how I felt about the songs on the recent Stereolab reissues that had different fade outs or mixes or whatnot. I'm sure it applies here as well. The need to tamper with original works and "improve" them is frustrating, especially when the original gets erased.

Wait, is this new version replacing the original?

no

ok I can see tweaking levels on some of these tracks to get more separation or whatever but negating the whole point (drenching guitars) of something like Let Me In is just laughably stupid

nothing will ever replace the original because there are hundreds of copies of it in every retail establishment in the world, enough to last millions of years

I do kinda want to hear the remastered version of the OG mix.

See more of a point to the "Let Me In" mix than the Kenneth one. I like it OK.

the remaster has been on streaming services since they announced this. it sounds pretty good.

> nothing will ever replace the original because there are hundreds of copies of it in every retail establishment in the world, enough to last millions of years

Is anyone buying those hundreds of copies? CD stores have closed across the developed world, CD sales have plunged even online, and more and more people today don’t even own a CD player. As the world moves to streaming, it is certainly possible for remastered and reworked versions to obscure the original releases.

One of the best things around the original Let Me In mix was the extent to which Stipe's vocal sounded like it was drowning in the guitars. That and the organ line at the end. Obviously the remix dispenses with both those elements.

smdh

in the future all home will be insulated with copies of Monster

xpost exactly what I said before. everything good about the song got ditched in this! well not everything, the song itself is actually a good song. but everything good about the production. this just sounds like an unmixed version. it's stupid.

I like hearing Stipe's performance on it clearer. It's kind of like a Husker Du song. Very sad song.

Also: maybe it's just that one guitar on the original, just more processed.

Mills on guitar iirc

Buck on Farfisa

Berry on Heineken

Tambourine!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19hhctlleNo

Haha, I thought so (but couldn’t resist the joke)

Stipe’s comments about the song at the time have always stuck with me, that he felt that if he too had become super-famous at a younger age, that he wouldn’t have survived it. R.E.M. were nice guys.

I'd like to hear Document with a little less of the eighties production, that's for sure.

xp xref “How to Disappear Completely”

lmao wait til y'all hear the "king of comedy" remix

make your money

nothing will ever replace the original because there are hundreds of copies of it in every retail establishment in the world, enough to last millions of years

― akm, Friday, October 11, 2019 10:04 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol seriously. there were always 3-4 copies of this album and new order's republic in every used CD bin in the late 90s.

And it's in 50% of the charity shops in Britain right now, alongside Free Peace Sweet, Onka's Big Moka and every Robbie Williams record.

SPICEWORLD

the Best Of Bread of the digital era

New interview, some good lines: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-50206491

I like how they’re basically — “Scott’s new remix is whatever, we had nothing to do with it....”

The band built an app so you can A/B the two versions: https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/10/29/rem-monster-25th-anniversary-remix-compare-web-app/

All these years later, I'm finding that "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" not a highlight for me at the time, has totally held up for me. I want to sing along with it at the top of my lungs whenever I hear it.

lmao wait til y'all hear the "king of comedy" remix

In the vernacular of the era: "Could the vocal BE any drier and more upfront?"

https://66.media.tumblr.com/1ab7daff8828955c68405b62752224d5/tumblr_p4trcpBLJD1x4bi9zo6_250.png

I'll admit it's interesting to actually hear (parse) the lyrics of "Star 69" for the first time.

It sounds like they purposefully used the murkiest, lowest-quality dub of the original album they could find for purposes of that A/B listening page

Remastered 'Crush With Eyeliner' sounds tremendous.

That's the one that hit me too.

Wavered between "Ehh?" and "OK?" to "I guess?" on most of these, but Litt did a pretty good number on "Crush".

Still like the original tho'.

You guys talkin bout the REMastered or REMixed tracks?

the surf guitar touches on the remix of “crush with eyeliner” are interesting but distracting imo

“crush with eyeliner” remix is actively unlistenable

er i meant “king of comedy”*

Oh I'm not bothering with the remix, I'm only talking about the remaster here, which is much the same as the original but really pops in all the right places.

yes the remastering job is sweet, i was reminded of the mirage and tango in the night remasters in that a lot of subtle detail gets raised up very tastefully

I’m actually kind of enjoying the remix(!), now that I’m listening to it straight through. It definitely makes a... different impression.

I went thru the rough/unfinished demos on my drive... a few of them sound like they could have made good songs, but most sound like super-generic R.E.M. jams.

I really like the remix! "I Don't Sleep, I Dream" is fabulous: Litt draws consistently on the doomy side of the album, in emphasizing the bass, and it lifts this song into something new (rather than just subtracting something old, like on WTFK).

i find the extremely audible amp hiss on "i don't sleep i dream" p much ruins it

listening to the remix r/n and finding it totally hapless for my own ears --- there's definitely neat "revealed details" but it's sorta missing the whole reason i wanna listen to Monster. pulling stipe's voice out and pushing the band back... it sounds like a solo album demo tape, or a late-period REM album maybe. and some of the lyrics that are going for camp menace end up sounding just goofy, idk. like idk, "star 69" and "bang and blame" and "tongue" come through okay, but "circus envy" without everything brickwalled and fuzzed out sounds a lot like "ignoreland" in the "squares trying to be a heavy caveman riff band" kinda way.

it does sound like a demo tape! i hate it

the only smart choice i can point to is subtracting the drums from the first verse/chorus of "you," that sounds pretty cool

I thought "Tongue" came out well. None of these are going to replace for me the original versions (well, maybe "Strange Currencies", the only song on this I've never liked).

I thought it was weird that Mike Mills' voice is mostly cut, but there are other female vocals I never noticed before brought to the forefront. Who are they? Is Stipe's sister on this?

Ané Diaz – backing vocals on "Bang and Blame"
Sally Dworsky – backing vocals on "King of Comedy" and "Bang and Blame"
Lynda Stipe – backing vocals on "Bang and Blame"

sally dworsky's and stipe's gang vocals at the end of "king of comedy" are prob my favorite moment on the whole record

I only discovered today that she's also on the Lion King soundtrack. That's quite the early 90s CV.

huh, cool! the end of "King of Comedy" is really fun now in the remix, in a way I'd never noted before

I think part of the deal for me with the remix is that I’ve listen to this album so many times, it’s kind of become “ossified,” so it’s nice to be able to hear the songs with fresh ears... even if the remixed version is definitely not the one I would recommend to someone coming in new!

(The basic remaster also helps freshen up the songs… although the bass may be boosted a teeensy bit too much on “Bang or Blame.”)

these demos are lame

i'm never going to listen to this remix again.

the remaster is really nice

Looking back at Monster as a whole package, the sleeve imagery, the Thurston Moore guest appearance, etc. it all feels to me now like a concerted effort to sell R.E.M. as these kind of godfathers of the indie rock scene. That might be part of the reason why it felt so baffling and mildly alienating to me as a kid, when "Automatic" was my only other knowledge of the band - I wasn't really into "cool" music then and found this new direction really strange.

It makes it feel like a bit of an anomaly in that sense, I can't think of another album in their back catalogue that is consciously striving for hipster cred status (at least from a presentation point of view) as this one did, and they've never particularly struck me as a band that really gave a shit about that sort of thing. By the time of "Up", just four years later, they were pretty much already rock heritage material in any case.

FWIW, it didn’t feel that way to me at the time... If anything, SY‘s Dirty felt more like that!

i really do not think monster was made with hipster cred in mind or that it even seems like a record striving for that and will expand on this elsewhere. "what's the frequency kenneth" is itself about striving for coolness and failing bc you're too old

Slagging R.E.M. for "striving for hipster cred" on this record is like tearing into the Rolling Stones for "striving for disco cred" on Some Girls. I see where you're coming from, sure, but it's way off base.

I'm not slagging the band at all! I'm suggesting it may've been a marketing decision to try and sell it that way, that doesn't seem so unlikely given the musical climate of the time, to me anyway.

Was in the record store last night and the 2 clerks a (both v earnest early-20s rock kids) were listening to the remaster and complaining that the vocals were too low in the mix on the original. Also had a conversation where they both expressed amazement at how Michael Stipe, “the main guy”, didn’t play guitar. I felt old.

I dont' recall that being the marketing stance at the time. it was just presented as their new and now noisy album, and some people liked it and some people didn't like it. It does have a higher dud ratio than anything else they'd released to that point, I think. I missed the tour for this album even though I had tickets because I had a school party to attend; does anyone know how that went over?

ask the people at the party, idk

the live show included in the reissue is very good

also i would like to advance the theory that there are no duds on this record

This tour kicked ass, but props for being true to your school.

I was there at the time,and Monster confused buyers who became fans after two consecutive slow albums. The rest of us owned Green, Document, and Lifes Rich Pageant; we know they were often loud.

I think it was even more of a surprise of how fuzzed-out virtually all of the album was, it was not a sound even associated with their earlier rockier songs

The mix didn't impress me so much as the queerness in lyrics and delivery: now he mumbled, but legibly, behind fuzz.

i'm straight i'm queer i'm bi

Why were those clerks amazed that Stipe didn’t play guitar?

also i would like to advance the theory that there are no duds on this record

I concur... I also prefer it to the preceding two albums, when all is said & done.

I'm listening to the new vinyl release of this tonight.
It's just a really good record.
I remember it being more fuzzy, repetitive and unfocused than it actually is.
Weird how memory plays tricks on you like that.

What the heck is this trebly mess with remixed "King of Comedy," wow. No thank you.

Why were those clerks amazed that Stipe didn’t play guitar?

They were Guitar Guys themselves (they were debating what guitars different solos sounded like they were played on: "That's a strat!" "No, sounds like a tele!"), and it sounded like they had an idea from Monster of REM as an Cool Guitar Rock Band, and I think they were just surprised that "the main guy" wasnt himself a cool guitar-playing guy like Jack White or Dan Aurebach. It was p interesting to hear them listening to it and processing it as young 2019 rock fans.

That is interesting... I feel like that model shouldn’t be too alien, thnx to more recent bands like Radiohead or whoever

? Thom Yorke is a great guitarist, though often overlooked in praise of Jonny Greenwood

Oh haha, mea culpa

(not a Radiohead fan)

I was there at the time,and Monster confused buyers who became fans after two consecutive slow albums. The rest of us owned Green, Document, and Lifes Rich Pageant; we know they were often loud

I was also there at the time and I knew that Monster had absolutely nothing in common with those great earlier records. Hated it at the time, still hate it now.

I was a bit of an REM casual at the time but I remember being intrigued that they were clearly building up to a left turn. The thing I liked most about the album was its muddiness but I guess Murmur was my other favourite of theirs, it kind of makes sense.

It was the first one I didn't buy but there's at least some continuity with earlier records, no? "You" has a vibe not unlike "I Remember California" IIRC. "Star 69" and "Let Me In" sound like they could have been on LRP. (With a rhythm section added and reverb toned down marginally on the latter, he concedes upon refreshing memory. LOL)

I often think of Monster and Achtung Baby as birds of a feather, bands at the peak of their fame changing their sound in a way that surprised their fan bases. But Achtung Baby was more of a departure thematically than Monster was. While U2's album turned away from the "current affairs" politics of The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum, REM had already made that turn on Out of Time, towards a more inner politics. Monster intensified that, turned more acutely toward sexuality, but continued a turn already taken.

Stipe is of course not good at playing guitar but during the Up era he at least pretended to in concert, right? I remember on "Hope" he strums one chord (a G) the whole way through.

hmm was really excited to check this out but yeah there's something so muddled about it, same thing starts off on fire then I lose interest

new mixes are shocking! pretty crazy, usually these things are cool but tasteful like the Beatles ones, these are radical, not sure it's any better than the brown murk but it's definitely a different take on the record

I wonder if they'll remix Around the Sun and Reveal to make those albums bearable.

i don’t think a remix would help those records. maybe a disc of demo versions for reveal cf. the excellent demo of “the lifting” which makes the album version seem overthought and its tempo rushed

I'd be interested in hearing a remix that made the albums even worse, like the Monster one. Ok I wouldn't.

Wouldn't change Around the Sun. Reveal would be fun to play around with.

frankly accelerate could use something. it's an ok album, and a bit like monster in it's aesthetics, but I think it sounds shitty.

could be that the songs just aren't that great though.

Sounds nice to me, listening to it now. Why were we supposed to hate Jacknife Lee again?

monster was my way in to r.e.m. (and honestly to a lot of music) at the age of 10....so i've listened to it A LOT. the remix is fascinating given how familiar i am with the sonics of the original mix. when i listen to the original nowadays i think the way stipe's voice is so frequently buried and obscured is the album's fatal flaw. my initial take is that while not every remix works the new versions of crush with eyeliner and star 69 are pretty compelling and making the vocal a little more naturalistic is one of the reasons why.

it seems totally insane to shell out for another physical copy of monster in 2019 but i feel like i really need to give the remaster and remix both a good list.

*a good listen

I don't hate Jacknife Lee, I know nothing about him aside from the fact that I think his name is stupid. But I find that album murky and poorly mixed and mastered, and the songs, while not bad, are kind of all mediocre and unmemorable. It's an 'almost' record, as in, it's almost good. Or, I almost remember liking it, and thinking it was almost right.

Yeah, that album sounds terrible, and the songs (from what I can hear thru the ear-bleeding production) are no great shakes, either. But R.E.M. lost me soon after Monster, anyway.

So, you don't like the compression? Because if it sounds loud then all you gotta do is turn it down.

I think it's warm sounding, clear, bass sounds nice, vocals sound nice. It's like 10X better sounding than Monster.

But Collapse Into Now is even better.

"Supernatural Superserious" and "Mr. Richards" are both all-time R.E.M. for me.

Because if it sounds loud then all you gotta do is turn it down.

How about down to “0,” does that work? 😅

Currently spinning Monster for the first time in 10-15 years - it seems pretty great actually, and the mix sounds like they got exactly what they were going for.

You hate the compression, I guess. I don't know cuz you don't elaborate.

xp

accelerate sounds like a mess imo, every jacknife lee record from around that time is cursed with an awful mix. but then i think monster sounds amazing

great review Brad, agree with most everything you said, and loved the description of Let Me In drowning in the rain of its own grief. It's definitely the queerness of the album which makes it so compelling.

This album is too good for some of y'all.

Gutted that the Tongue remix doesn't reinstate layers of fuzz guitar

Dolby atmos mix of Murmur or gtfo

Brad, if I could write as well as you, I’d (hope to) be a writer too!

The remixes are ok, but I could do without the “It’s Litt!” drops on every track.

lol

thank you matthew and morrisp <3

With regard to Accelerate’s production, it is worth pointing out that the record was mastered very differently for vinyl and for CD. While the CD release was rather a "loudness wars" disaster, the vinyl release actually has some room to breathe sonically. Consequently, though I do not own a turntable myself, I bought the CD to support the band, and then I downloaded a vinyl rip from a filesharing community, and the vinyl rip is what I actually pay over my stereo when I want to listen to this album.

This album is too good for some of y'all.

The irony of this is that...R.E.M. ruled. They were everything Kurt Cobain said they were always. And surely 90% or more of the ILM R.E.M. crew all have a *cutoff point* - whatever your variant of the "I stopped paying attention after Fables of the Reconstruction formula may happen to be.

Y'all are the haters.

didn't know that about accelerate - huh! i should check out the vinyl version, i like several of the songs on that album but the main thing that keeps me from putting it on is my mental "pre-hearing" of what it sounds like.

xp Tim - any band that releases 15+ albums over 31 years is sure to lose many folks along the way (regardless of whatever Kurt Cobain may have "said they were"); it's not a big deal?

yeah really

enjoyed your write-up, brad. didn't really make me want to rush out and buy the reissue though, lol.

I just bought it (the 2CD version), LOL.

Figured I’d contribute to the Mike Mills Jr. college fund, or whatever.

R.E.M. is actually the name of the scientist, the monster is called R.E.M.'s Monster

Can't decide if I want to spend the money on the whole box, but I'm annoyed that the 2-disc version is just the album and the remix. For the previous reissues the second disc of the smaller version was always either a disc of demos or a live set. The remix doesn't interest me at all.

I'll try to be more blasé. Anyway, I was trying to say that I like Monster.

Monster really isn't any better this time around but thankfully, it isn't worse. For all the talk about this being a nod to glam, I don't hear the musical joy of glam coming through at all. It's mostly just slabs of chords in that regard, and I'll never understand Buck's sudden love for the Les Paul, which doesn't suit his style much.

The new Litt remixes are very much a mixed bag, some songs work a little better and some don't; I found them interesting but rarely (surprisingly!) preferable to the originals. I guess I was hoping for a Don't Tell A Soul transformation, because those remixes are GREAT.

The demos are interesting-ish, but if anything they sort of present a band trying to find a louder vibe that will sound like REM. And they don't, really. The live tracks are ok but the band sounds distanced like they are playing stadiums. Which they were, despite Buck making promises that he'd never play stadiums.

Also, if you listen to all of REMs albums in succession in a reasonably short amount of time (as I recently did), Monster doesn't sound particularly out of place as I'd remembered.

peter buck may have been playing a les paul on monster, that's news to me as of this reissue press cycle, but man he did not get anything close to a classic les paul sound.

i think it sort of works on monster, and also on new adventures (which i like a lot more), but it is not a tone i would ever elect to use.

there's certainly a section of the fanbase that were lost by REM's move to stadiums, despite the many more they picked up along the way.

The arena moves by 1988/89 might have been a little much for some of the old guard but IMO it seemed all of a piece with the end of a prolific decade; a natural progression to the million seller that they had become - finishing off in Atlanta arenas seemed like a cap on everything that they had achieved. I feel like some of those along for the ride going into the 90s were alienated by the move to stadiums by 1994 and dropped off; the intimacy of even 1988/89 was lost.

(Buck was bringing out the Les Paul on the Green tour for 'Turn You Inside Out' and certainly a few others; I dont remember if he employed the LP on prior tours)

Also, if you listen to all of REMs albums in succession in a reasonably short amount of time (as I recently did), Monster doesn't sound particularly out of place as I'd remembered.

it gets a little normalized in retrospect by new adventures imo. but i listened to it for the first time a decade after it came out, after having heard most of the previous and following r.e.m. records, and idk, it still shocked me

it only recently struck me that "tongue" and "how the west was won" kinda take place in the same universe sonically

it gets a little normalized in retrospect by new adventures imo

yes but it's hard not to think of Monster as the turning point where REM no longer mattered. If Monster was their last album, their canon would remain intact. But...

i wasn't talking about them mattering, something i do not really care about

Monster felt like another move into intelligibility but bolstered by Stipe's increasing confidence with performance. I was noticing these things because I discovered Roxy/Bowie the previous year.

Hmm, he was pretty confident even by the Green tour but it also seemed to be him embracing his celebrity significantly more than ever before. Maybe that was hitched to him coming out or his wealth or maybe even just being in his 30s.

Not being a Roxy-phile (although I did also recently listen to the Roxy albums in the order presented on your blog), what's the connection you were making Al?

Seemed like he was just as intelligible or more intelligible on Out of Time/Automatic to me.

Side Two of Green was the "Metal" side and Bill Berry was saying they were getting more metal and it had "Turn You Inside Out," which could totally be a Monster song.

For all the talk about this being a nod to glam, I don't hear the musical joy of glam coming through at all.

Yes, Don otm.

All started with "Toys in the Attic"

i'd say monster is a calculated step back in intelligibility from automatic.

Goes through "Finest Worksong," etc.

ah yes who can forget that very metal r.e.m. song "hairshirt"

It was for "Turn You Inside Out" and "I Remember California" obviously

Just to be clear in case people had the CD or what have you, that's what the label said. Side one was air, two was metal.

I recall their original plan for Green was for one side to be acoustic, and the other electric — and they abandoned that, but kept those designations for each side (even though they were no longer operative).

the shift to les paul guitars is what mills identifies as the source of the change in tone in the new liner notes

anyway needless to say i think "finest worksong" and "turn you inside-out" are great big rock songs but are also v different from what they're doing on monster

and i always thought "air" and "metal" were arbitrary elemental designations for each side so thanks for that morrisp

He may have had it before (as was mentioned above), but I remember some interview from the time where he was saying, "I became a man today" because he had gotten a Marshall.

Curious in what ways you see those songs as different. Obviously, Stipe had changed his way of writing, but I mean musically.

i mean for one they're dronier and less playful and less flexible than anything on monster

the songs on monster are sexy

I think they're only very slightly dronier than "Crush with Eyeliner."

Oh come on

xp

Droney - "I Took Your Name"

tim why don't i just acknowledge that you're right so we can stop pretending you're having a conversation with me

You don't have to involve yourself in the conversation if you have nothing to say. I was genuinely interested in how you heard them as "v different from what they're doing on monster." Does it suit you to think that I wasn't?

just bc it only consists of two tremolo'd out chords doesn't mean i consider it droney. there's a kind of droning tambura effect to the way the guitar works in both "finest worksong" and "turn you inside-out" and that is not present in monster at all except idk maybe in "you"

when you respond to me with "oh come on" then i start to like... wonder why i'm even trying to explain this to you

Hmm, he was pretty confident even by the Green tour but it also seemed to be him embracing his celebrity significantly more than ever before. Maybe that was hitched to him coming out or his wealth or maybe even just being in his 30s.

Not being a Roxy-phile (although I did also recently listen to the Roxy albums in the order presented on your blog), what's the connection you were making Al?

― Joe Gargan (dandydonweiner), Monday, November 4, 2019

I hope I addressed these points here.

Yeah, and better than I ever could. Your blog is a joy, btw. It's hard to keep up with all your lists, but often I make playlists from them. You know, if that kind of shit matters.

That said, I really don't see much of the playfulness or sexiness that others often reference in Monster. I think that overall, I'm just not taken with the arrangements much at all.

The “loud rockers” on Document, Green, and Monster all feel very different to me; can’t really articulate why.

the mixes, the hooks, the melodies are typically more straight forward and anthemic.

(on Document and Green)

I would even go so far as to say that, until the band started to repeat themselves on NAIHF, it’s hard for me to imagine any song from an R.E.M. album fitting on a different R.E.M. album. Maaaaybe there’s a little bleedover btw. Pageant and Document.

BTW they recorded most of NAIHF on the Monster tour. I'd forgotten that.

I wonder if a (not-so-)secret reason they stuck all those weaksauce demos on this reissue was to make a point — “Look how hard we worked to avoid repeating ourselves... We threw out all this stuff!”

Yeah it opened them up creatively for sure - it was clear from the Document -> Green -> OOT -> Automatic trajectory that they were self-defining as "folk rock" pretty much, but Monster said you know what? not doing that shit any more, here's something else.

http://exclaim.ca/music/article/torontos_sonic_boom_used_400_copies_of_r_e_m_monster_to_create_one_hell_of_a_window_display

giving some thought to the notion that the new mix is a troll - this is what you wanted, right? there ya go.

What a joy of a review, Brad. Beautiful writing, colorful and passionate.

^^^^^

^^^^

^^^

thanks y'all <3

i become someone
on command

'Monster' is so fucking sexy. It's the sexiest REM album ever, and I have great trouble understanding people who categorically deny this!

The new mix - listened to it tonight - is shit though. Properly shit. Like Brad wrote, it removes or pushes back everything that makes Monster Monster. It smooths over all the rough and ugly and daring edges that made Monster what Monster is. I can't understand Litt doing this again and this being the result; even if it was in his free-ish time, come the fuck on...

It's a mystery to me how thousands of Monster cd's ended up in the $1 bins in the US. Perhaps here in Europe ppl were too ashamed to return their cd, idk? I'm not saying Monster wasn't rejected by some, but nowhere near on the scale like it was in the US. Regardless, this album still steams and rocks. One of those rare albums that will only gain praise and climb higher as time passes.

I watched this interview y'day; Michael & Mike say that the producers of Friends (the sitcom) wanted to use "Shiny Happy People" as the theme song, and the band said no, so NBC hired another band to do an "R.E.M.-style" song. (This has nothing to do with Monster, other than the time period, but I thought it was funny.)

Pretty good interview and track by track commentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJje9gA9jsI

wait where is brad's review??

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/rem-monster-25th-anniversary-edition/

thank you!

yes, terrific.

It's a mystery to me how thousands of Monster cd's ended up in the $1 bins in the US...

The packaging and inserts and stuff in this box are really nicely done.

Wow — in these liner notes, Stipe is really effusive about Michael Hutchence, and what a great friend and influence he was.

Why do the credits for the Scott Litt Remix™ say “Mixed by Clif Norrell”?

The two of them work together, Litt producer and Norrell engineer - so I'd presume the aesthetic decisions were made by Litt and Norrell created the corresponding mixes.

That’s funny, he’s like — “Clif, turn that knob a little... a little more.... wait, too much”

My guess is Litt would handle the "why" and Norrell the "how" - there are lots of nuances in mixing beyond turning things up and down and panning them left or right, not that I am any kind of expert.
I still think the new mixes are a troll and am disappointed I wasn't lauded for my penetrating insight.

The new mix of "Bang and Blame" somehow brings into focus how much that song is a revisit of "Orange Crush" (but I like "Orange Crush" a lot better)

xp I like yr troll theory, but it sounds like Litt really wasn’t happy with the OG mix

The fact that the band is doing press for this, or that Stipe neatened his retirement beard and apparently took out the septum piercing, are further indicators that a reunion could be in the works.

But it’s only Michael & Mike doing all the things!

It is interesting how heavily this one’s been promoted, though. I’m surprised myself at how much I’ve enjoyed getting back into it

Did they promote all those other reissues? Did Stipe participate? I can't remember.

I don’t know, but Peter & Bill didn’t even show up for the liner-notes booklet interview.

I’m surprised myself at how much I’ve enjoyed getting back into it

Yep, same here!

The album has imo always been exceptionally good and the odd production is both the point of the exercise and one advantage it has over a lot of other ‘90s stabs at making some kind of future rock (vs modern rock).

I’ve really grown to like the remix... with the alternate takes, etc., it makes for a looser, scrappier album; maybe more “musical,” in some ways (insofar as it brings out some of the individual parts). As a complement (not a replacement!), I think it’s a success.

The live "What's the Frequency" on this is really fun; I think Mills's goofy harmonies on it probably don't belong on the record but they sound great live, just remind me of REM's history as a band blowing away college parties with dynamite ramshackle classic rock covers

re:the promotion, I remember a bunch of interviews & things for the Automatic reissue a couple years ago similarly just with Mills & Stipe, but it definitely seems like theyre doing more promo for this for whatever reason.

I really like the "doddering old married couple" dynamic that the two of them seem to have developed. Theres a really funny unboxing video with the two of them going through the monster set and showing almost none of it to the camera, just leafing through the pages and muttering "oh that looks cool, oh look at that, how neat" to each other.

Yeah, I find myself liking these guys all over again.

Btw- it hit me today that pieces of the vocal melody of "You" are sort of tweaked/recycled from "Fretless" (another great song)

I’ve mentioned this release to a few friends (R.E.M. fans) irl... they haven’t heard/bought it yet, but both mentioned that it’s covered in a recent episode of that Scott Aukerman/Adam Scott podcast. Sounds like those guys like the remix, fwiw.

Haha, that unboxing video is rather amusing.

Elsewhere on the Artist 100, R.E.M. debuts at No. 91, thanks to a 25th anniversary deluxe reissue of the band's classic album Monster. The set, which generated the Alternative Songs No. 1s "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame," originally spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 beginning upon its debut on Oct. 15, 1994, and re-enters the latest ranking at No. 115 with 7,000 units earned, up 1,237%. The set also starts at No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart.

Monster became R.E.M.'s second of two Billboard 200 No. 1s, following 1991's Out of Time. The group disbanded in 2011.

Interesting that Automatic stalled around #2 (and sold 3,520,000); while Monster hit #1 (but only sold 2,900,000).

Or maybe not that interesting, I dunno. Automatic was probably kept out of the top spot by some huge album.

my guess was it was released in the middle of a Garth Brooks run of chart dominance and i was half right; it was released smack-dab around the moment Billy Ray Cyrus' album Some Gave All ended its 17(!) weeks at #1 and gave way to Brooks' The Chase six-week run at the top.

Ha ha, Garth Brooks was also my stab-in-the-dark guess

Monster hit #1 (but only sold 2,900,000)

It's a mystery to me how thousands of Monster cd's ended up in the $1 bins in the US. Perhaps here in Europe ppl were too ashamed to return their cd, idk? I'm not saying Monster wasn't rejected by some, but nowhere near on the scale like it was in the US. Regardless, this album still steams and rocks. One of those rare albums that will only gain praise and climb higher as time passes.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 10:49 PM (one week ago)

I come across "Monster" in a lot of bargain bins here too. I think the bad reviews turned a lot of people against it. I never bought the album at the time but I heard some of it on the radio and I thought it sucked and REM were doing a big dumb rock move. I did like "Tongue" and "Whats the Frequency" at the time though. I love the album now though (after picking up a copy of it up in a bargain bin a few years ago!)

Didn't like it much then (and god knows I tried). Given the tenor of most recent posts here, I was surprised to find how strongly I still dislike it today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbI0ry9bebE

I doubt there's anybody except Geir who doesn't wish Bill Berry was still in the group.
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, November 9, 2003 7:24 PM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Except maybe Bill.
― Keith Harris (kharris1128), Sunday, November 9, 2003 7:28 PM

lol

I sold my vinyl of this because $$$ but I really should get a CD rip, I was TOTALLY into this when it came out and still prefer both this and New Adventures to Automatic

I actually still have my vinyl of this -- it's possibly my fave along with Life's Rich Pageant and the early-ish live albums that include the Jacques Cousteau show song and the duet with Natalie Merchant

^^^ gets it

Photograph? I think my wife had it on the Born to Choose comp

I have a cassette in the attic of some live thing where they called themselves Bingo Handjob and covered Tom's Diner

I recently discovered there’s a super high-quality remaster of Photograph on a Natalie Merchant compilation.

this was a live thing where Natalie was singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and Michael was singing a different cover song as a duet and then he starts singing "I've got the music in me! I've got the music in me!" -- I have confidence that someone reading this knows about this and that it isn't a rare thing at all actually.

The guitar thing where it goes "what's the frequency Kenneth, is your Benzedrine uh uh" WOKKAWOKKAWOKKAWOKKA is one of the best sounds ever

otm

that tremelo effect was hot in the 90s

omg michael's outfit in the video was like the platonic ideal of what to wear in high school for me. a few years after the fact, as almost everything was in utah (96-2000)

that effect blew my mind when i was 11

that solo is also still hot shit imo

years later i finally hear all the 70s power pop / jangle / light psychedelia in r.e.m.'s sound. quite an achievement that they took it to the bank in the 80s and 90s. that sort of thing seemed really out of fashion esp in the 90s? at the time i don't think i really understood what i was hearing, too young.

Which bands in particular are you thinking of?

"Star 69" is a jam!

this was a live thing where Natalie was singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and Michael was singing a different cover song as a duet and then he starts singing "I've got the music in me! I've got the music in me!" -- I have confidence that someone reading this knows about this and that it isn't a rare thing at all actually.

― sarahell, Wednesday, October 20, 2021 9:26 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Here it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJPvMub2JXI

Wow I had a LOT of REM boot cassettes back in the day and I assumed this was something I had but this one's new to me -- love loopy Stipe (same goes for the Tom's Diner Bingo Handjob tape)

Anyway I'm glad the forces of good have reclaimed this thread and made it into the Monster appreciation thread this record deserves

Star 69 forever

is bashing one's monster a euphemism

Which bands in particular are you thinking of?

― juristic person (morrisp), Wednesday, October 20, 2021 5:15 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

big star, the byrds

wonder if there's a timeline where r.e.m. relaunches the byrds like pearl jam relaunched neil young

i'm just shitposting, anyway monster is a cool album

xxxp I had never heard that Leaving on a Jet Plane / multiple-VU-songs mashup bootleg either... nice

this has aged p well actually

This was great then and is still great now.

Great album that I've never truly been able to get to the centre of. Much about it which is true is also not true.

Aged better than the remix.

I'm not
commodity

The first side is great.

Crush and Frequency, plus Bang, remain solid for me. Sorry if that's a basic opinion.

I only lose the plot at Reveal.

Monster was and is shit. Radiohead killed REM on that tour. Mike Mills wearing those ridiculous suits is just more shame accenting the end of REM.

strange currencies > everybody hurts

not really

We have to bash Rem as a whole

The final three songs are a final act almost as great as the final three songs on Automatic.

(I'm sure many would point to Circus Envy as the weak link there but I really like how infected and deep fried it sounds. The mid-point between Radio Friendly Unit Shifter and the Manics' My Guernica).

probably my favorite "rock" track on the album.

It’s significantly better and more cohesive than Document

not really
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, February 1, 2023 4:53 PM (yesterday)

I think you made a typo intending to say "no, really"

“bang and blame” is 75% of a great song, unfortunately the other 25% is the chorus

The second best thing about this entire album is the jangly rhythm guitar in the verse of Bang and Blame

The best thing about this entire album is the acoustic guitar in the verse of Bang and Blame

I keep hoping that 25th anniversary remaster box set of this will start popping up in used bins with the frequency of the original release, but no dice so far. Haha.

The guitar thing where it goes "what's the frequency Kenneth, is your Benzedrine uh uh" WOKKAWOKKAWOKKAWOKKA is one of the best sounds ever

otm

i.e. tremolo (unless you're Leo Fender when you call it "vibrato" on the amp because you previously named vibrato bridges wrongly)

I can still hum the melodies of all the feedback on this record

The first and last four tracks + Tongue are all good to great

This record is like your health as a fortysomething - not the best, but as good as it gets until you break up

I hear it more as a DUGADUGADUGADUGA

The first NEW rem album that came out after I became a super fan. I liked it at the time because it wasn't awful and I was IN on the band so much. I tried to listen to it the other day and couldn't get through it. "Tongue" is the one I still like because it isn't overworked. In a perfect world I would switch it with "Ignoreland" on Automatic, putting "Ignoreland" on Monster so I could toss the whole damn thing.

Radiohead did indeed slay on their opening slot touring.

Sonic Youth opened for REM on the Monster tour date that I saw (KC) and similarly upstaged them. REM had a lot of sound problems with the mix that night too, I don't know if that was atypical

i was at that show!

I saw REM on the Monster tour with Radiohead, at Milton Keynes Bowl (?), and "High and Dry" was the most out-of-tune vocal I've ever heard, like literally a whole field of people wincing. Great show though

As in, "Don't leave me [much too high] highhhhh, don't leave me [much too low] dryyyyyyyy"

Blur opened on one of the Milton Keynes dates. Bit weird to think about imo.

from what I read on Wikipedia, bill berry was really influenced by Echobelly for the Monster guitar sound. I think maybe they did that tremolo thing too?

Surreally, Dan Rather interviewing the band and even performing a bit of "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ucWfkML7g

the cover art is the worst thing about this album, in retrospect

special 12" remix of Dan Rather singing "Kenneth."

Banged by Blame

Warner Bros - release the Rather mixes, you cowards....