The World Is POLLapsing Around Our Ears: REM's "Out of Time"

The storm it came up strong
And shook the trees
And blew away our fear

^ what i would've voted

half a world away
losing my religion
near wild heaven
country feedback
texarkana
me in honey
shiny happy people
endgame
belong
radio song
low

It would have been between 'Half A World Away' and 'Near Wild Heaven' for me. Unsure which one I would have went for.

Their worst Bill Berry-era album

I'm going to keep posting this bit of rongness

OK, how about "Stipe's worst Bill Berry-era album, rescued by Mills"?

I think you meant to say "Green."

Well OK, Green plus Monster would complete the trilogy-of-the-lessers, but at least Stipe showed up for the whole album on those two.

"worst Bill Berry-era album" works for me

no "Hairshirt"s or "I Remember California"s or "The Wrong Child" on OOT though.

There are some good songs on OOT but probably not any I love as much as my favorites on most of their other albums, and I just hate the sound of it, almost as much as some of those anemic later albums. Automatic mines the same basic sonic territory in a way that manages to be both plainer and much, much richer.

At the time I certainly would have agreed with you. Automatic is the only good Scott Litt-era REM thing I never listen to (I wouldn't skip, say, "Monty Got a Raw Deal" if I heard it on someone's mix though).

i'd really like to know what someone in 2012 who had no sense of REM would make of this album

it probably would sound like the world collapsing around his ears

i mean berry-era REM is just so youth-defining that it feels surreal to picture hearing it for the first time already having a sense of musical history, but this album in particular is like Led Zep dipped in dork sauce with a dash of KRS-1.

for an album of strings, bass runs and mandolins kicked off by lite rap-funk it really wound up aptly named

tbh I have no idea how REM will play to "millennials."

I gotta ask students what if anything REM mean to them: maybe this irreconcilable combo of obscure and earnest

Not just earnestness, though. I think there's real human content in R.E.M.

Am I the only person who thinks there's a salvagably decent song inside "Radio Song"? The breakdown with Stipe singing the "everything to show/everything to hide" part over JPJ's immaculately-arranged strings really is beautiful.

I do. The only song I'm meh about is "Belong." Right now, that is.

I think "Radio Song" is great, always have.

can any of you hardcore heads help me make a playlist of every REM song with slap bass?

"Finest Worksong" comes to mind.

yeah i think Document through "Ignoreland" is the halcyon era of fonky REM

all day long

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL6Gsm1AOmY

never understood the appeal of hearing one of the band's most plodding songs done in a big muff alt-rock style

I think the question about millennials would have to do with the stylistic context of the album, but I don't think it goes deeper. Are people hearing it for the first time going to understand the historical context of '91 and R.E.M.'s own trajectory? Because there's a richness to R.E.M.'s thing; there's a richness to their roots and what they were trying to do with this album. That's in danger of being lost in too much fretting over their "dorkiness" or whatever.

REM's context is kind of lost to time, especially since now remembrances of 80s college rock and 90s alt-rock are so explicitly tied to bands that were only part of one or the other (and U2 left a bit bigger of a footprint that they don't have the same problem)

People will have to explore it to understand the context, but you hear slap bass and mandolins and you wonder why they would. I have to remind myself that someone will hear "Me in Honey" and they've got their reason to explore it right there.

Hahaha. The song I woulda voted for got zero votes.

I can't listen to this album anymore but thought about 3/4 of it was pretty good at the time (last time I thought that of an REM album, too.)

It's certainly no FABLES.

I don't know about worst Bill Berry-era REM album, but it's definitely somewhere down in the bottom half of the pile for me!

I love "Radio Song", Stipey "rap" & all.

I didn't see this thread yesterday but weirdly I was thinking then about "Losing My Religion" & how it was an odd megahit, & then I remembered its outro & sighed.

I still think this is my favorite REM album, after all these years.

4 years ago I might have blindly voted "Country Feedback" based on memories alone but after hearing this album in it's entirety today at an event (in the bg), I was struck most by "Half A World Away".

think i need to put this on. i consider it a favourite but just looking at the tracks in the result there...there's not a lot to it, track by track.

Country Feedback is a great song but I have trouble listening to the album version since I first heard the slower live version. The album version feels like the club is closing in 4 minutes so they had to speed up the song to fit it in or something.

i've heard losing my religion a million times but it still strikes me as an astonishly perfect song.

bloody terrible album this and i say that as a one-time teenage REM nutcase. the LPs either side were both incredible imo but this was just.. i mean what happened??

the cover art was pretty bad

Naming your record after the immediate deadline you've got for naming your record is never a good sign.

did you see what i did there.

Half A World Away 4 votes, WTF. That's crazy.

One thing I never got, good song as it is, was Country Feedback's choice for live fan favourite for much of the late 90s/00s (ie when you actually hear OOT songs live) - it got a crazy amount of requests from websites etc. It is a very unexciting live song to me. It would always contain extended Buck soloing, and Peter Buck is not a good soloist IMO.

Completely overexposed and I'm never always in the mood to listen to it but from purely a songwriting POV Losing My Religion is perfect.

I dislike all three songs on this album Kate Pierson's on, and guess what, I really don't mind Kate Pierson.

How can you not like "Me In Honey"?! That's crazy talk! You're crazy!

I don't really rate 'Me In Honey' either, fwiw. I don't hate it, but it's not one of my favourites either.

Hnnnnnnnngggggggh, hnnnnnngggggh-hnnnngggghhh.

It's not horrible, but c'mon.

One thing I never got, good song as it is, was Country Feedback's choice for live fan favourite for much of the late 90s/00s (ie when you actually hear OOT songs live) - it got a crazy amount of requests from websites etc.

I think this is because Stipe was frequently quoted in interviews as saying it was his favorite.

But "Me In Honey" was, is, and always will be the best song on Out of Time. Though "Belong" has grown on me with time.

And I see "Losing My Religion" as a reprise of "World Leader Pretend."

Think I voted for Low, and I'll stand by that.

'belong' was my first favorite rem song, but i'm pretty sure i voted for 'country feedback' or 'half a world'. side 2 ftw, anyway

I voted for none of them, this band sounds like if sheep got instruments and didn't learn to play them but still recorded an album anyway and the album was recorded whil e the sheep were being seared

i mean sheared

video killed the radio star obv

name a better side two than that of this album

I usually once or twice a year watch their Bridge School Benefit concert performance of “Country Feedback.” Imagine being Michael Stipe and announcing this is your favorite song of yours and then Neil Young just tears into it with you.

Ah a few weeks ago, after their « reunion » interview/performance, I was listening to this album walking around the Luxembourg garden in Paris and suddenly looking up I found myself face to face with… Michael Stipe ! I was so surprised I had to tell him I was listening to him and showed him which song (« half a world away ») which he said he liked a lot. Then I thanked him and wished him a nice day. He was very nice and friendly. Fond memories !

AIREM from Paris