\\\///\\\/// It's the ILX SUPER SUMMER R.E.M. POLL OF POLLS RESULTS THREAD \\\///\\\///

eephus - Ooh, how long are you there? Be sure to grab a Golden Bowl at the Grit (if you've ever even sorta liked tofu, you will LOVE this) (failing that most anything there is yummy, including the desserts), and/or a chocolate malted at the Grill. There's plenty of other wonderful stuff to do in town but those are the ones I'm most craving right this second...

Oh right, R.E.M.... loving the commentary on this one, it's making me want to hear it more than I did this morning for sure. Good call on the chorus. I also like the way the song eventually dies off with the lonely, confused, vaguely funereal strings. It's always kind of jarring to go from all that to much more "straight" Reckoning-style R.E.M. with "Maps and Legends" - kinda wish we went instead to "Driver 8" which is classic-style R.E.M. but more shadowy, a slight element of menace in the riff that would have transitioned nicely I think.

as to the song: I remember hearing or reading once, a long time ago, that it's "about" anal sex (inasmuch as any REM song is "about" anything). I'm not sure I buy it, but it's always...colored my view of the song. The line that hits me the most is

"It's a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it"

and in particular the second line: firstly the politeness ("let me show you") and the desire to make something mutual; and what's to be made mutual is the narrator's *ability*: "what I can do with it". The latter links with the craftsman theme that I hear being articulated on the album (it's dedicated to Howard Finster). There's also mystery, and perhaps some implied menace, by the narrator's not saying what it is that he or she can do.

And then there's the reply: "somewhere near the end it said you can't do that / I said I can". Yeah, I'm getting lost in these lyrics again.

With regard to the song's structure: the second chorus is great; I mean the "I felt gravity pull onto my eyes" part. I love how it melts into the strings in the coda. It helps me understand better what Camper Van Beethoven was going for on Key Lime Pie.

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/ca501f745ba013f85eb097a7d027a8b8/794101.jpg

#21: Perfect Circle
7 votes, 59 points
Highest position: #4 (Charlie Howard, dan., Ari (whenuweremine))
Position in Murmur poll: tie for #3 (7 votes)

No pull quotes for this one - the name is damn near Googleproof, and most of what I could find on ILX was people listing it in their POX, and me personally complaining about its boring slackness on various threads - seemed somehow unfair....

BTW, if it isn't obvious, that's the cover of some dicey bootleg, and not in any way licensed by R.E.M.'s state-of-the-art graphic design team.

eephus - Ooh, how long are you there? Be sure to grab a Golden Bowl at the Grit (if you've ever even sorta liked tofu, you will LOVE this) (failing that most anything there is yummy, including the desserts), and/or a chocolate malted at the Grill

Very good malted. Thanks for the tip! Heading home tomorrow morning.

http://www.wowtcgdb.com/images/large/eviscerate.jpg

#20: You Are The Everything
7 votes, 60 points
Highest position: #3 (Guayaquil (eephus!))
Position in Green poll: #1 (14 votes)

I'll say this for Green: "You Are The Everything" sounded great in that "90210" episode in which Dylan sobs quietly on the couch remembering how much his dad loved him.
― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 3 January 2007 23:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

...the song where R.E.M. proves they can do a slow, two-chord, featureless, completely sincere ballad and make it majestic and great. Sort of a lonely monument against all the slow, two-chord, featureless, completely sincere, and kind of terrible ballads that came later.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, January 19, 2009 8:47 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The image for #20 doesn't display for me because...
"To view this page, you must log in to area “www.wowtcgdb.com” on www.wowtcgdb.com:80."

Yeah plus is annoying.

Another thing I like about this song: there are three characters in it, "you," "me," and "she." It took me a long time to appreciate this.

Wow. I expected "Perfect Circle" to place MUCH higher.

Sorry about the screwy image link, guys; it works okay on mine. :(

"You Are The Everything" has never been a favorite of mine, but pulled out of the context of Green (which I don't put on very often) it's sounding really good in my head, the opening tinkly mandolin-plucking etc. It's quite pretty and I do like Stipe's lyrics on this.

Here's a scene: you're in the backseat,
laying down, the windows
wrap around to the sound
of the travel and the engine

The only real dud is "I think about this world a lot" - eesh. There are other bits ("she is so beautiful") that are a bit generic on paper but totally sold by the vocal.

Yeah, I think you're right that the vocal sells the song. I remember on my first listen being struck by his commitment to what otherwise seemed like a silly song. I like how its last note is resolved by the opening of "Stand".

Hey, sorry for the lack of updates, guys - have been squeezing in the weekend travel and the weekdays are just too short anymore. Rather than have this limp and jerk along sporadically I'm just going to put it on hiatus until I'm back in the States and at a computer regularly - end of December most-like. Hope nobody minds too much. I do swear this won't become an abandoned poll though!

Anyway, we have Tuomas's excellent 80s albums poll to keep us entertained, and I suspect R.E.M. will be putting in some appearances over there...

I was just wondering where you'd gone off to. Enjoy the holidays and your weekends, see you here when you've got the time, and thanks.

Super summer lasts all winter long!

http://cdn.7static.com/static/img/sleeveart/00/000/072/0000007278_350.jpg

#19 (tie): E-Bow The Letter
9 votes, 65 points
Highest position: #3 (cwkiii)
Position in New Adventures poll: #2 (9 votes)

The main guitar line running through E-Bow The Letter still gets me every time - it's one of my favourite songs of theirs. Also it features Stipe playing with momentum in his vocals for pretty much the last time - it's really unlike pretty much everything else they released.
― Matt DC, Monday, January 26, 2009 12:13 PM Bookmark

"E-Bow" is horrible. May be the worst R.E.M. single ever (although the nagging and repetitive "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" comes close)
― Geir Hongro, Monday, January 26, 2009 3:35 PM Bookmark

That said, with napster I've checked them out quite a bit, and while a lot of their stuff isn't bad, it's not particularly strong either... that is, except for one song, which I actually feel is one of the most haunting I've ever heard, and that's "E-Bow the Letter" off New Adventures in Hi-Fi. From the constant drone in the background to the lyrics to the amazingly good idea of having Patti Smith on back up vocals, the song just plain works, and is surprisingly powerful, at least to me.
― Sean Patrick O'Toole, Monday, January 22, 2001 8:00 PM Bookmark

http://jackwolak.com/cd5/1741.jpg

#19 (tie): What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
9 votes, 65 points
Highest position: #3 (Matt DC)
Position in Monster poll: #1 (17 votes)

even though it's totally tuneless (read: discordant), i can still sing every note of that (backwards?) guitar solo.
― petesmith (plsmith), Friday, September 2, 2005 2:40 PM Bookmark

You want to punch Bono in the sunglasses, you want REM to just take the damn things off and stop kidding themselves.
― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, October 23, 2004 2:25 PM Bookmark

It's a great song. I say this despite having been asked the title question countless times.
― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, September 3, 2005 8:40 PM Bookmark

I guess it just sounds better than "what's the frequency, anthony?" or "what's the frequency, alex?"
― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, September 3, 2005 8:59 PM Bookmark

I bet the lollability people find in certain of these lines is directly proportional to the tanginess I find there.
― roxymuzak, Monday, October 1, 2007 11:27 PM Bookmark

#2 and #1 on the Modern Rock chart, respectively. It was a different age.

WHOA

it's back! :)

I love e-bow, btw, and I assume I placed it high up in my ballot, although I can't remember.

what's the frequency was intriguing when it was released, since it signaled a (really yet another) shift in direction for rem. but aside from the one guitar riff, the song is lacking.

e-bow is okay.

I'd be with Geir on "E-Bow" except for "Leaving New York", which was a worse single.

"Kenneth" was such an excellent single at the time: their contract with America if you will.

Ah, the super summer poll....

http://www.astrolabio.net/revistas/articulos/multimedia/pretty-persuasion.jpg

#18: Pretty Persuasion
9 votes, 66 points
Highest position: #2 (kornrulez)
Position in Reckoning poll: #4 (8 votes)

Voted Pretty Persuasion, 'cuz the entire song still rings in my head, at least 10 years after last hearing it.
― Bored American Aerospace Defense Command (BORAD) (contenderizer), Monday, December 22, 2008 2:00 AM Bookmark

goddam

http://www.barrylutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/whoa.gif

Propulsive and rocking - - reminds me of comments people have made about the Beatles, that their minor album tracks would have been dream smash hit material for other acts. Not that "Pretty Persuasion" has smash hit written all over it, but it feels like the kind of thing any R.E.M. ripoff band would have been shooting for (and never coming close).

Probably the best slurro-mumblo Stipe vocal performance of all time on the bridge.

won't gum up the thread with a youtube embed, but this is a live version of pretty persuasion from back when i LOVED REM

sounds so much like the album track i wonder if it's live (it's supposed to be, but 'tevs)

http://cdn.7static.com/static/img/sleeveart/00/000/072/0000007276_350.jpg

#17: Electrolite
9 votes, 72 points
Highest position: #3 (David Merryweather, Daniel Esq)
Position in New Adventures poll: #1 (11 votes)

i've had THREE vitamin waters today.

electrolite, you're outta site.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, November 20, 2005 7:01 PM Bookmark

(As we go further and further up the charts, the songs feature more and more regularly in POX, POO, and "what're you listening to right now?" threads, but oddly have fewer and fewer long impassioned declarations - - perhaps because the consensus is assumed and people don't feel the need to sell others on the songs? I think there will be a bit of a swing back in the other direction as the songs get so colossal that you just can't resist trying to verbalize their majesty...)

This poll is making me realise that New Adventures is definitely my favourite REM album.

http://www.stormwaterelkco.org/pictures/large/00148-CuyahogaFrandAc06-lg.jpg

#16: Cuyahoga
9 votes, 74 points
Highest position: #3 (Charlie Howard)
Position in Lifes Rich Pageant poll: #2 (12 votes)

Another "popular in ilx lists but no pull quotes" song. Part of the problem may be that it's a little too clear what's being discussed here and it's hard to have a relationship deeper than nodding approval.

(But I'd love to hear from those 9 voters, o'course!)

People always talked about R.E.M. being "Americana" but I think that's mostly not true, except for this song.

I Believe is a little Americanaey too.

"Let's put our heads together and start a new country up."

I didn't vote "Cuyahoga" but I can something good about it too. The opening, with the bass riff and then a classic Stipe pump-you-up lyric, is great. Stipe's gentle verse vocal. Buck's guitar on the verse dancing around, painting bits here and there. The bell! You can shout along with the chorus! Is it clear what's being discussed here? I know about the burning river but I always thought it was sung from the perspective of a Native American but it's not super clear what the story is. Haha, looking at the lyrics on the net for the first time ever...

oh, the bridge! the best part! and then back to that bass riff, in the clearing again

"We are not your allies, we cannot defend."

the opening is the first thing i learned to play on a bass guitar

Is it clear what's being discussed here?

I take it to be: it's kind of a 1980s political song aginst dispirit, where the speaker is saying "people with beliefs like mine are now marginalized and the reaganite status quo validated as synonymous with americanism -- let us remember that the animating spirit of the american republic is a radical one which aims to 'erase the parts we didn't like' and make a nation different in kind from all others on earth -- and this spirit must go on, we need a radical and rigorous skepticism about the status quo if we're going to start a new country up so let's put our heads together even if the river is burning all around us and it seems useless or even dangerous to stop and think"

but more importantly that is an awesome bassline

kh wow, that's a cool reading of the song. I'm not sure how the "we are not your allies, we cannot defend" part fits in with that reading, though---it seems to me that there's also/instead an element of the scapegoat (a lyrical trope Stipe ran with on Up): the natives, the part we didn't like, are the ones whose knees were skinned and turned the river red, and they are not "our" allies in the reformation of the country, obviously, but "we", the reformers, have the upper hand; the natives cannot defend. If that's part of it, then the song is expressing skepticism not only of the status quo, but also of radical transformations as well.

wow, for me "the part we didn't like" is something like the religious parochialism and class heirarchy of Europe -- we want to keep the ideals of liberty we bring over but throw some baggage overboard. And it's the "we" of the song who knee-skinned it! I read this as "we (your ancestors) worked hard, so hard our knees bled, don't let what we did go to waste." I think the explicit identification of the speaker of the song with the "father's fathers" comes when the lyric changes from "this is where we swam" to "this is where they swam." The we (now) and the they (then) are the same. As for "we are not your allies, we cannot defend," I just take this to be addressed to the current powers that be. I will admit that this makes the "you" of the song rather confused (i.e. "your allies" is not pointed in the same direction as "we knee-skinned it you and me") but I guess I'm willing to let Stipe make this pivot as the song nears its end.

I never thought there were Native Americans in this song at all!

When I was 14 I had a Life's Rich Pageant-era poster of REM with the phrases Walked Swam Hunted Danced Sang. I'm not sure how this is relevant to any discussion going on, but I gotta be me.

yeah I'm not sure if the natives are Native Americans anymore, but just those who are the ones who are part of the status quo, the "baggage" as you put it. As I'm reading the "we are not your allies" part, Stipe is expressing sympathy for them, as they're the ones who stand to lose through reformation. This also takes a pivot of narrative perspective, because the "we" in that line isn't the same as the "we" who are going to start a new country up.

also I want to make it clear that I have no idea what I'm talking about

I've always thought it was about Native Americans.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Bi5DKjtXL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

#15: Gardening At Night
9 votes, 78 points
Highest position: #1 (Z S)
Position in Chronic Town poll: #2 (12 points)

i used to debate the merits of gardening at night with my trig teacher.
― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Saturday, April 30, 2005 11:53 AM Bookmark

...I was a freshman at UGA when it came out, and I can still remember buying it, taking it back to my dorm room, and listening to it over and over, just boggled that someone from Athens did something that good. And then the person who reviewed it in the Red and Black (college daily) actually made a comparison (in re "Gardening at Night") that it was as good as something the Beatles could have done, which both shocked me and struck me as totally true. ...
― Lee G (Lee G), Friday, November 7, 2003 10:15 AM Bookmark

Damn, how did I miss this? From the noms my top 5 would be Fall on Me, Electrolite, Find the River, Country Feedback and The Lifting.

"Gardening at Night" (and the rest of Chronic Town) was the track that really made me a R.E.M. fan, and the way I came upon it was sorta strange. I hadn't heard any earlier R.E.M. (pre-Green) at all when I bought Dead Letter Office on a whim one day. That one didn't really sell me on the band either, being a collection of oddities/covers. And in fact, I didn't even make it all the way through the CD for a few years. However, I was lucky enough to buy the version of DLO that had Chronic Town appended to the end. I didn't realize those tracks were even on there, and I was boggled that all of a sudden this CD gets INCREDIBLE during the last few tracks! Eventually I figured out what was going on and was steered toward Murmur, Fables and Reckoning. To this day I still find mid-period R.E.M. a little boring (not a popular opinion on this thread, I'm sure!), but I love love LOVE those first few.

depends what you consider mid-period, Z S, I certainly think Chronic Town - Green is a way better run than Out of Time - New Adventures, for instance, and I'd guess most on the thread would agree? Well, let's see how the top 14 plays out.

In voting in this poll I found myself favoring the early records in ways that disappointed me, since I don't want to be "that" kind of REM fan. But I love lots of midperiod REM, just not as much as Reckoning in particular.

Re. "Gardening At Night": I got into REM with Document and then Eponymous on a cassette borrowed from a mysterious classmate in 9th grade. So I knew "Gardening At Night" from Eponymous before I knew the Chronic Town version. I like that "alt. vocal mix": Stipe sounds more brittle, less gentle, though the gentleness is still there on the "been there twice" part. (Is that a chorus? A bridge?). "Fun" fact: I quoted this song (along with many other REM songs) in my HS valedictory address. Since this was in suburban ATL I'd like to think the references weren't entirely lost on the audience.

Yeah, I also got to this via Eponymous - where honestly I think it works a lot better, part of the general "file under grain" ambience. Sorta slows down "Chronic Town" too much, but I guess a debut EP needs to show everything the band can do.. woulda been better shelved til Murmur IMO.

I'm rewatching the excellent doc Athens, GA - Inside/Out, and I just realized that Swan Swan H wasn't even nominated! It definitely would have made my top 5.