XTC vs. REM

Even if it was just "Life Begins at the Hop" vs. REM through Fables, I'd pick XTC.

ah yes, I had the lasagna

Re the portal thing: I love Pylon too, but getting hold of their records in central Scotland in the 90s wasn't exactly easy, so it wasn't until the 00s and the internet that I got the hear em.

The funny thing about that is that for years after the punk explosion, the UK had a much more evolved indie distribution system than the US. And so, for many American fans like myself, the easiest way to get a Pylon record was actually as a UK import from Armageddon Records! Armageddon released quite a lot of southern American "new wave" groups in 1980 / 81 or so - Pylon, the Swimming Pool Q's, the Method Actors - plus a lot of British stuff, of course. It was a couple of years before you could easily find the domestic DB Records originals (or subsequent releases), unless you were from Athens, GA.

I would imagine by the 90s, with Armageddon defunct for a decade or more, the opposite would have been true.

Pylon seemed on the verge of becoming a bigger band, but their second album took a long time to come out and when it did, it contained a lot of previously-released single sides. The new stuff was inferior, the album got weak reviews and by then the landscape was littered with bands who managed much stronger repertoires. Bad timing on their part, and probably not enough songwriting effort.

I don't see songs like that fitting in with the idea of REM as a preachy liberal arena rock band.

otm

They fell prey to a lot of common traps - the country tune, the stadium rocker(s), the sittin'-on-the-front-porch-singin-a-folk-tune thing, the horrific rewrite of Reunion's "Life Is A Rock (And The Radio Rolled Me" and a lot more. None of them original, and most of them diminishing a formerly unique sense of personality into something rather humdrum. The songs that weren't as easy to label were increasingly unfocused.

This is kind of wild criticism. "The country tune" was what, "Rockville?" I don't know what the stadium rockers were. If it was "What's the Frequency Kenneth," I'd say it sounded like an R.E.M. single, and not contrived genre posturing. In any case, I don't think the criticism is really applicable much more than a very small fraction of their catalog.

Focus is another issue and people will have their opinions about the last ten albums or so. Saying that the songs that are "not easy to label" on an album like AfTP (all of them?) is not something I agree with.

Sorry.

Saying that the songs that are "not easy to label" on an album like AfTP (all of them?) ARE UNFOCUSED is not something I agree with.

Thanks, very kind of you. My thinking on the latter years owes a bit to Steven Hyden's Onion AV club series, which is well worth reading: http://www.avclub.com/features/perfect-circle-an-rem-story/

One of the things I like about Monster is that it's clearly an attempt, of sorts, to make a big loud rock album to play in stadiums, and also a response to the ironised rock of Zooropa and the grunge era... but it doesn't quite succeed in that. Kenneth aside there are no big catchy radio smashes, and darkly sexual songs like I Don't Sleep I Dream and Bang and Blame are hardly going to attract people looking for another Everybody Hurts. It makes for a really interesting album, but you can see why it was a relative flop and lines cut out bins to this day. Does cult status await it? Probably not, but it's well worth rediscovering.

I think E-Bow The Letter is great and I remember being really excited when it came out. I guess it was the first REM album I was able to anticipate as a fan and having such an abstract, moody song as the lead off single was clearly a deliberate move to show REM were still inventive, still relevant. But it was a bad move commercially. I admire that about them, the fact that they didn't do the obvious thing and, unlike the perennially shameless U2, were quite bad at playing the game. Ultimately, that made their early 00s era pretty sad. You wondered what the point of REM was when their mainstream audience had dissipated and the alternative crowd and old fans were put off by their bland new music. Last two albums represent a dignified bowing out though. Wouldn't want to overstate the 'REM as uncomfortable superstars' idea though. Although I didn't see them on their last tour, watching their energetic and experetly-judged Glastonbury set on TV reminded me that they were bloody great at being a big headline band when they wanted to. But that's a different thing to putting out interesting new records.

"REM i got into Patti Smith, Television, Mission of Burma, Replacements, Husker Du, The Byrds, Richard Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Howard Finster, Man Ray etc etc...

This sort of thing is always kind of difficult. I mean, for the most part, those are all phenomenally well-known artists for anyone who digs a little beneath the surface. So REM happened to be one's introduction to these artists, which is great - as evidenced by the list above, REM members had fairly good taste. But that's not much credit to the band per se. If REM had never existed and you had investigated pop culture to any meaningful extent, you would have discovered them all anyhow!"

Well, sure, but credit's due where credit's due. They provided the initial spark and fueled my teenage imagination and that means a lot. And pre-internet, in a town with no good record stores and with no friends or relatives into this stuff it was harder to hear these things than you might think. My local library helped with Patti and the Byrds but Pylon or Love Tractor? No chance!

I wasn't trying to say that these references make REM a better band than XTC - after all, if you follow the trails with XTC you'd discover all sorts of interesting stuff too - just that it helps explain the personal connection I have to them. Reynolds is very good on this idea of bands-as-fans in Retromania. It is true that it's something that doesn't really exist in the internet age, and that has good and bad aspects. When everyone's a curator with access to vast amounts of knowledge then it's hard for bands to have that portal aspect.

At the same time I was getting into REM I was also getting into Nirvana, and they had a similar effect. Stuff like the Melvins and Scratch Acid was a bit heavy for me at the time, but I glad I was aware of all that stuff. I do miss that sense of discovery that comes with making your first steps into music, the idea that there are all these worlds of possibilities out there and it all seems so exotic and exciting.

REM's country song, Don't Go Back To Rockville, was one of their earliest tunes, predating much of the material on Reckoning. It's a great song, loads of fun. Don't really see it as a trap. Loads of post-punk acts were dabbling in country at the time, with fantastic results: Meat Puppets for example.

It's interesting to me to read British people talk about REM because it's still weird to me that they broke internationally. I'm from Georgia & REM are local boys done good. That their music could speak overseas is strange to me (Monty), because they were writing & playing about local things through Automatic, by which point they'd peaked. Maybe it's like hearing Americans talk about Blur.

XTC's nineties are soooooooo much worse than R.E.M.'s.

The Church, waaaaaaay over both of them.

XTC's nineties are soooooooo much worse than R.E.M.'s.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, September 16, 2012 10:35 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

seems unfair to compare one band spending most of the decade in label limbo to another that got to pump out platinum albums every two years

yeah wtf? xtc's nineties = nonsuch + apple venus

I'd never suggest that they keep making the same records, but even with "Reckoning," the original mystery was largely gone. That's okay - replace it with some NEW mystery. Instead, they did offer "diminishing pastiches" - just not of their own creation. They fell prey to a lot of common traps - the country tune, the stadium rocker(s), the sittin'-on-the-front-porch-singin-a-folk-tune thing, the horrific rewrite of Reunion's "Life Is A Rock (And The Radio Rolled Me" and a lot more. None of them original, and most of them diminishing a formerly unique sense of personality into something rather humdrum. The songs that weren't as easy to label were increasingly unfocused. There's a point on "Reckoning" where I see it as nothing more than a reasonably interesting Long Ryders album. That's a pretty quick slide!

This is otm, but I'd disagree about Reckoning. I never heard it as a Long Ryders-esque (or Del Fuegos-esque or whomever) record because none of those bands had Bill Berry -- his sense of propulsion was never, for lack of a better term, roots-rock based. He didn't look to Doug Clifford, he looked to Peter Prescott and Scott Krauss. And this was the record where the joy in the danger of playing live really came out, like the Byrds on speed. My main problem with Out Of Time and most everything that followed is that they just sound defeated as a musical unit.

The increased rootsiness of Reckoning was just gravy imo. More depth and nothing lost in progressing from the Chronic Town tunes to things like "So. Central Rain."

And, if I'm truly honest with myself, Andy Partridge is just fucking annoying sometimes! Grating in his presentation and vocal affectations. Does anyone else feel this way?

― Clarke B., Sunday, September 16, 2012 5:36 PM (5 hours ago)

I second that emotion. XTC were interesting for about 5 minutes in the early 80s. They haven't troubled my consciousness since then.

that's shit

E-bow shite.

EMOTIONS

grrrrrr...

i'm not reading this thread but voted REM by a gajillion squillion light years

REM appeal has faded so dramatically since my teenage years I pretty much never want to listen to them ever. XTC's catalog only grows richer as a I get older, so them.

I think REM came on stronger out of the gate (although I like the first three XTC albums fine.) But from Black Sea onwards XTC scale heights for me that REM never approached.

The Church, waaaaaaay over both of them.

― mr.raffles, Sunday, September 16, 2012 9:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

for 80s + 90s output together that continues to be listenable (and enjoyable and low on countable cringe moments/emotional outburst inducing qualities) in 2012 yeah, definitely
at least for me (but i like all three bands for different reasons so i'm not sure they're even comparable in my mind at all)

XTC, because, as crustaceanrebel stated eloquently upthread, the span from Drums + Wires to English Settlement hits such dizzying heights. XTC, for me, were never quite as great again once they lost that slashing rhythmic edge to the guitars, but the later paintbox pastoralist stuff had its share of wonderful moments even if only Skylarking sustainsa feature-length listen.

REM, by comparison, start out full of treasure, make real magic for about four years, then produce 20 odd years of mawk which I never want to hear again.

Andy and Stipe tied for potential to be annoying twits, in radically different ways, of course.

For one last bit of REM magic you can squeeze from their stone, seek the fan club singles - brilliant covers, oddities and live bits. Hope they riessue those properly!

dave gregory has gone full prog, covering genesis and everything, in tin spirits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTLhdnbDQeA
and peter buck is touring minor league baseball stadiums. i wonder if we'll ever hear much again from any of the rest of these guys

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

While XTC hasn't been wearing well for me at all over the last decade (due almost solo to Andy Partridge's vocals), they loomed pretty large for me at certain points in the past, and I still love a handful of their songs more than anything from REM. I was never particularly into REM, except for briefly listening very heavily to Green around the time it came out. (I got to like some songs from that, and a few other songs, while drunker than I've ever been, at a work-related party.)

But "Ten Feet Tall" alone, for instance, thrills me more than everything I've heard by REM put together.

Though I would probably take most REM over 90s XTC.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hahaha

http://stuffflypeoplelike.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Hundreds-celebrate-death-of-Osama-bin-Laden-in-Washington_1.jpg

incorrect outcome

and they're marching through swindon
s-s-s-s-swindon

Sock the Vote!

Damn you, Peter Buck and your 30 ILX accounts!

good to see the zappabots evolved btw

Neither.

and apparently andy partridge is recording with . . . mike keneally?

http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=38692

what?

REM standom befuddles me

I feel like there needs to be a Fall song on the Hey! Student/Hey! Fascist template called Hey! G00gler

hey! scambot 1

unskewedpolls.com

hahaha

― balls, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 01:59 (16 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

praise alarm