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

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.

Crappy VCR transfer that cuts off the first part of the song, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3CtOivDSTE

That doc also reveals that Athens band Time Toy invented the Spin Doctors.

That's a great clip, with Stipe playing the drunken hobo in his mannerisms. I love the fashion too. Full version here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_QG6tr9mjo

I wouldn't have voted for "Swan Swan H" but I dig it: great accordion, an invocation of the name of Satan that catches your ear, esp. since the content of the song is hard to suss out (as usual), and it ends fantastically...leading right into the party smash.

There we go, much better clip, thanks

One of the very best r.e.m. bridges imo

http://justhonorgod.com/Portals/8/kiosk%20bridge%20day%201.jpg

#14 (tie): Moral Kiosk
10 votes, 92 points
Highest position: #1 (Charlie Howard, rat bat bruce)
Position in Murmur poll: tie for #3 (7 votes)

<3 moral kiosk

― Matt P, Thursday, December 11, 2008 1:47 PM Bookmark

http://991.com/newgallery/REM-Drive-10321.jpg

#14 (tie): Drive
10 votes, 92 points
Highest position: #1 (kornrulez)
Position in Automatic For The People poll: #1 (16 votes)

This album is too personal for me to say much about on here. It came out at one of my most emo times of life, just off to college thousands of miles from home, like a complete unknown. I'd gone so far because nobody tells me where to go, baby. REM had been my favorite band for years, and growing up in Georgia their work spoke to me physically: I knew those places they sung about. My mother sent me Automatic in a care package (I hadn't asked) and it ripped me apart. I spent a dark-ish night of the soul about a month ago with it and it still hits home. I voted for "Drive" Doing my best to articulate why in public language: because nobody tells me what to do, baby. But freedom has costs, not just for those left behind, but for the one leaving. "Drive" pairs what reads on paper as a celebration of freedom with a serious lament of a tune, funeral organ standing out. It continues to remind me that I buy my rootlessness at the expense of important goods, and as I drive away again wondering why I can't help but leave but why I feel so sad, "Drive" comforts me. And so does the album.

― Euler, Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:48 AM Bookmark

^^^ one of my all-time fave ILM posts, really the kind of thing I log on here for.

yeah, booming post.

I just wrote something about "Moral Kiosk" the other day:

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com

also drive offers Peter Buck playing an platoon of honest to god Les Pauls through an honest to god Marshall, as a love letter to Brian May (who of course plays single coils through an AC30 but that's not important right now because no Buck lead had ever sounded fatter or meaner...)

"Moral Kiosk" is great. Everyone brings their A game to the performance: Buck's riff and the bends punctuating each line of the verse; Berry changes up his playing repeatedly, so much to listen for, so many little details; and in tandem with Mills' prominent groove it's a song that's great for cutting some rug (maybe a side of the band we don't talk about enough? at least the early band); and Stipe's hoots and hollers on the chorus, and the various grunts that punctuate other parts of the song: maybe he's bringing memories of military events to the surface? I have no idea what the song's "about" but as with the rest of early REM "aboutness" wasn't the idea: just dance, gonna be ok.

Agreed, one of the best things on Murmur, and along with "9-9," feels the closest to the almost-terrifying post-punk sock-hop of Chronic Town. I like how it feels like the various parts of the song have almost just been pasted together, but sheer momentum gets you from one to the next. Great rollicking listen.

http://elnirvana.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/losing-my-religion-rem.jpg

#13: Losing My Religion
12 votes, 93 points
Highest position: #2 (Charlie Howard)
Position in Out of Time poll: #2 (6 points)

I actually got clotheslined by some Another Bad Creation fans in elementary school for having the R.E.M. "Losing My Religion" cassingle as they chanted "R.E.M. Sux!" I'd hate to think what would have happened if I sang the song.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, December 12, 2002 10:27 PM Bookmark

man... every now and then this song catches you when you're not expecting it, and you forget that you've heard it a million times and you forget that the video was pretentious as fuck and completely inescapable and you remember that it's absolutely stunning.

It's hard to hear this song with open ears anymore and it still strikes me as a weird single...but on the other hand, you can dance to it: at a goth kicker dance party, maybe. Actually that sounds really fun.

I like this OK but it's below the median of "Out of Time" for me (but then again I am the weirdo who stalwartly backs "Radio Song" and "Shiny Happy People" which I think is a nonstandard view of this record.) I think the best material on this record is the weird, sparse stuff like "Low," "Belong," and "Me In Honey," a sound that's new to this album and to which I don't think they really returned. While "Losing my Religion" and "Near Wild Honey" represent for me the band recognizing that they've sort of hit the point of exhaustion when it comes to writing a certain kind of strummy, slightly abstract pop song.

I'm mostly with you up to your last sentence, and then I'm not. I take it you're thinking of e.g. "Driver 8", "Fall On Me", and maybe "You Are The Everything" as among this "certain kind of strummy, slightly abstract pop song"? If that's right (and it's not easy to think of other examples, at least if you mean "pop song" as "potential hit" as I do), then I think it's better to see "Losing My Religion" as a realization of that ideal, rather than some recognition of exhaustion (I take it from having mined that vein as far as it will go).

I'll go out on a limb a bit and say that the cultural hugeness of "Losing My Religion" in 1991/2 worked like this: good catchy pop song, a bit dark, but oh! that video, let me pay more attention to the song, oh, it's "about itself", about the band in the spotlight (and now they're huge so they really are in the spotlight) and Stipey is an icon...which is my sorta-incoherent way of narrating the feedback loop by which I think the song took on its hugeness: its sound and soundness of pop structure as a song but also as having a great video and then turning in on itself, containing a commentary on itself and their new fame.

Also didn't hurt that the title was suggestive of some sort of Deep and Profound personal crisis, even though the actual connotations of the phrase are a bit more pedestrian. Never been sure which way Stipe was really going with it. I guess it's officially a song about opening up to a crush and trying to interpret the few available signals, etc., but it would also work extremely well as a coming-out narrative, with "corner" as "closet."

I wasn't really paying attention when this was a hit, but I was exposed to it through Weird Al's use of it in a polka medley (yup) so it still felt well-worn by the time I got around to the actual song. But I do like it - - agreed with rogermexico that it sort of surprises me each time. The "that was just a dream!" section is dazzling.

http://cnx.org/content/m11636/latest/BluesScale.png

#12: These Days
11 votes, 94 points
Highest position: #2 (rogermexico, rat bat bruce)
Position in Lifes Rich Pageant poll: #3 (6 points)

huh, not one I'd have voted for, but I like it; it keeps the momentum going in its slot on the album, and it ends really well.

This has at times been my very favorite of their songs. Never before and never again did they rev up the tone enough to sell a line like "We are hope, despite the times." Maybe the "Enemy sighted, enemy met" part of "Exhuming McCarthy" comes close, or -- as familiar as it's become "Time I had some time alone." But those are moments, while "These Days" keeps it up start to finish.