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

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

mmm lamb chops

So it turns out this looks to be the actual most politically influential album ever, at least in American history:

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/longbox/?curator=MediaREDEF

that's kind of cool

Meanwhile while you've read that starving deer are nibbling at plastic longbox cases for Bon Jovi's New Jersey located in closed and toxic landfills.

I would have voted for "Endgame", fucking lovely stuff.

I always used to forget about this song but now it's one of my all time favorites. Just stunning.

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

Ah, that one's always been a favourite of mine. I always liked the fact that the first verse has a different chord progression to all the other verses.

That was my favourite when I used to be a big REM fan.

It's maybe my favorite Stipe performance. "Ha-aaaaaaaaaaaaaphh a world away!"

Oddly enough I mis-remembered it as being on Automatic For The People. Would have fit right in there.

Today is the kind of day where all I want to hear is the chorus of "Belong," over and over. Clear open blue sky, her breath, this song...Belong. OOOOoooooooOOoOooOOOOO

― Doctor Casino, Friday, April 1, 2011 2:59 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is such a good album.

otm

'Radio Song', 'Low' and 'Me In Honey' can gtfo but the rest is gold.

I keep reading this thread title as "the world is prolapsing around our ears"

― snoball, Saturday, 11 October 2008 09:57 (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same :(

someday everyone else will have left ilx and it'll just be me, euler, and doctor casino talking about which rem songs we like

I'm proud to say I still listen to R.E.M. - it's now been a few years since they split up and it seems like their stock is quite low at the moment, like people haven't really started to miss them yet. One day it'll happen.

Yeah no one my age (late 20s) is a REM fan. It is kinda crazy. My choice for this poll would be Texarkana.

Agree their stock is a little lower now, but it's pretty good relative to other college rock/alternative rock bands of their era. There just isn't as much interest in that stuff right now, but that'll change. That they ended on a high note (with two pretty decent albums) and have carried on with such a low key, unpretentious post-band projects should help their legacy, too. They're poised to be one of the most respected/fondly remembered bands of their era

Yeah, I find it admirable that the members have all been low-key since the split, this whole thinking of "R.E.M. is done now, so let's relax and have fun now that the pressure is off, because we can" ... I like that.

Fwiw, my kids listen to R.E.M., and it's not because I shoved it down their throats either. Ages 18 & 16.

that Unplugged show they did for this album though.

This is my favourite REM album. A lot of their music makes me think of travelling, but listening to this on road trips as a teenager means I can't think of landscape whizzing by every time I hear it

eephus otm

regardless of the rest of "Shiny Happy People" (I'm a fan but I get the hate), the transition from "Endgame" to the intro is marvelous.

dog latin - same here, 100%, and i probably listened to this on one, maybe two road trips maximum. it just has that feel to it.

I need to hear both "Belong" and "Half a World Away" pretty frequently. Can hear "Radio Song" once a year, "Losing my Religion" maybe once every two years.

listening to this record rn at my desk and getting too emotional.

It's been awhile, but I had just gotten a tape of this album in 1991 when I went into the hospital for major surgery vs my ulcerative colitis, I don't think I even had a chance to listen to Out of Time until I was in there recovering; was in the hospital almost two weeks (pretty huge abdominal incision) and listened to this album so many times in there. The surgery turned my health around but also turned my accustomed invalid world upside down and so in a sense this is an open road album for me too, suddenly I had the option of doing all these wide open things I couldn't feasibly do before but also I was out of my mind. Did indeed do a LOT of long distance driving the rest of that year.

(the other piece of media most associated with that hospital stay was the Hyperion novels by Dan Simmons; curiously, those bear a negative taint for me to this day as a result, not so with OoT).