REM: Classic or dud?

huh, never heard that irs insistence thing though it makes sense - it's a definite stumbling block to mainstream success. there's a pretty huge gap for me personally between chronic town-murmur-reckoning and everything else. not a knock on the later stuff but that early stuff will always always be my fave, and the difference between what they sounded like live those early days vs later is night and day. when i was in high school i used to write 'please make another record with mitch easter' on a postcard and slip it thru the mail slot at their office all the time.

Never forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CERhzm6t7I

i think if it had actually been their last album it's rep would be even higher

definitely, monster/new adventures would have made a good presence/ittod

huh, never heard that irs insistence thing though it makes sense

I mean, it might be an urban legend, but the difference between Stipe's approach on Fables vs. Pageant is pretty stark.

when i was in high school i used to write 'please make another record with mitch easter' on a postcard and slip it thru the mail slot at their office all the time.

hahaha. That rules.

rem def copped to don gehman giving stipe shit during the recording of pageant, but I never heard IRS did

and even if Gehman didn't give Stipe shit it's musically impossible to mumble through a Gehman production.

I like the idea of Miles Copeland sitting Stipe down with Synchronicity and saying "listen to how well he enunciates every syllable! you can't argue with 8 million sold."

"repeat after me...CAUGHT beTWEEN syCLla AND charbDYIS"

"CAWbuTWEEN"

"CAUGHT beTWEEN"

"CAWbuTWEEN"

loool

My theory is that Stipe changed his vocals after someone gave him a copy of Easter Everywhere.

pleased to see the hate for Out Of Time; such a let down after Green.

New Adventures is kinda their Abbey Road; took 10 years for people to really start raving about it as one of their best yet now it's in so many people's Top 3s and you don't bat an eyelid.

I love OOT -- such a big step after Green.

Green was the first one I owned, and I thought, "Ohhh I hope they don't all sound like this..."

oh c'mon Abbey Road is so not a realistic analogy in any way

for one thing Abbey Road caught the Beatles at the very end but still at the peak of their artistic and commercial power.

Not yet got the Document reissue but will do - looking forward to hearing the live show. I saw them at Hammersmith on that same four-date European tour in 87, and they were blistering.

The REM reissues have been pretty masterfully handled, in fact. Genuinely interesting bonus material all round, though for listening pleasure, I wish Fables and Pageant had been packaged with contemporaneous live shows rather than the demos. That said, the Fables demos showed how much the much maligned Joe Boyd brought to what remains, for me, the best REM record.

"Fables" is the only "classic" REM album I've never been able to crack. No idea why.

My first album was also "Green," purchases the same day as "Eponymous," so I never made much of a distinction between old and new REM - it was all kind of new. But "Monster" was where I got off the boat, I guess. After that, it was always someone else's band, not mine, as much as I liked much of what they released after.

I listened to New Adventures In Hi-Fi again last night, because it had been a while. The thing I love about the album is the way that it ends with 'Electrolite', as the instruments trail off leaving Michael Stipe to sing "I'm outta here". It's a fucking excellent way to end an album, and if R.E.M. had stopped there it would have been the perfect end to their recording career.

I attempted to listen to Monster afterwards, and I just didn't find that it excited me as much as New Adventures In Hi-Fi. The thing is, they HAD to make Monster in order to go on tour to make New Adventures In Hi-Fi, and it kinda shows. Monster sounds like a band trying to remember how to ROCK after Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, and New Adventures In Hi-Fi, with cuts like 'Depature', 'The Wake Up-Bomb', 'So Fast So Numb', sounds like a band in full-on, enthusiastic, excited rock-out mode.

It got me thinking, maybe Monster would have been a far more better record if the band had just went out on a short tour and road-tested it out in front of audiences first, shook the rust off and got back into the 'rock band' type of mindset, before subsequently recording it when the band were more comfortable. But as is, Monster sounds like a document of a band trying to re-learn how to be a rock band, rather than a document of a band confidently BEING a rock band.

The intentions behind making Monster were understandable ('we need a ROCK album, else we can't go on tour!'), but I don't think they were quite ready to make THAT particular album at the stage that they did.

i almost wish the singles had been leave" then "departure" then "electrolite" for a farewell trilogy

i almost wish the singles had been leave" then "departure" then "electrolite" for a farewell trilogy

― da croupier, Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:30 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually, that had never occurred to me before... the 'Leave'/'Departure' plus references to being 'Outta here' (Electrolite) etc. If they'd stopped there the band could have easily made a case for 'coded messages' in the same way as they have done for Collapse Into Now, although in this case they would have been incredibly unintentional!

And am I the only one that wants to laugh out loud every time they hear Stipe sing "I want to wash you with my hair" on 'Be Mine'?

he wants to wash you with his pubes

I listened to New Adventures In Hi-Fi again last night, because it had been a while. The thing I love about the album is the way that it ends with 'Electrolite', as the instruments trail off leaving Michael Stipe to sing "I'm outta here". It's a fucking excellent way to end an album, and if R.E.M. had stopped there it would have been the perfect end to their recording career.

I attempted to listen to Monster afterwards, and I just didn't find that it excited me as much as New Adventures In Hi-Fi. The thing is, they HAD to make Monster in order to go on tour to make New Adventures In Hi-Fi, and it kinda shows. Monster sounds like a band trying to remember how to ROCK after Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, and New Adventures In Hi-Fi, with cuts like 'Depature', 'The Wake Up-Bomb', 'So Fast So Numb', sounds like a band in full-on, enthusiastic, excited rock-out mode.

I also listened to New Adventures last night: for my money, the real rock epics are "Undertow," "Leave," and "Low Desert."

It got me thinking, maybe Monster would have been a far more better record if the band had just went out on a short tour and road-tested it out in front of audiences first, shook the rust off and got back into the 'rock band' type of mindset, before subsequently recording it when the band were more comfortable. But as is, Monster sounds like a document of a band trying to re-learn how to be a rock band, rather than a document of a band confidently BEING a rock band.

The intentions behind making Monster were understandable ('we need a ROCK album, else we can't go on tour!'), but I don't think they were quite ready to make THAT particular album at the stage that they did.

Agreed. I said more or less the same thing yesterday, but Monster is the sound of R.E.M. in the studio self-consciously willing themselves to rock, whereas New Adventures is the sound of them on tour, in full rock mode, which produced far more rocking (and all-around better) results.

I thought R.E.M.'s line on Monster was they set out to make Self-Conscious Rock Songs, with Stipe putting quotation marks around the glam posing.

My opinion hasn't changed since '94: I love the thing, despite the occasional strain.

Pretty much every one of the band's post-"Automatic" albums would have sounded better, or at least benefited, if they were just recorded as a band in some big empty room rather than fussed over in the studio. Even something like "New Adventures" doesn't exactly sound like some shambling "Exile" recorded in back rooms on the fly, let alone "Zooropa," recorded much the same way. And everything after "Adventures" sounds coldly, airlessly anchored to a click track, as if no two members of the band were in the same room at the same time, which may very well have been the case. My dream final REM album would have come after "Up," with the three remaining members and no one else recording something with few overdubs in an old church or something. But really they went the complete opposite direction.

I just read a great, simple quote from Mick Jagger about being in a long-established group where things are done as much out of duty and contractual obligation as much as passion and creativity:

“When you’re at the beginning of your career, you’re in the band 24 hours a day. But as you get older you don’t want to be doing that. I think the band is fine being in the band, and the band rather likes not being in the band, too. That’s a good balance.”

quotes like Jagger

My opinion hasn't changed since '94: I love the thing, despite the occasional strain.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, November 11, 2012 6:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My opinion on Monster now is far more warmer now than it was for a good number of years, to be honest. The only track on there that I'd say I out-and-out LOATHE is 'King Of Comedy', which I feel could have potentially been a decent track but doesn't seem suited to the treatment it received on the album.

Interesting to note the change in appearance of Mills & Stipe between Automatic For The People and Monster, too. Up until and including Automatic, Mills had this definite nerdy/geeky appearance, and suddenly with Monster (and definitely onwards ) it seems like he's trying to bury his inherent geekiness and try and look 'cool'...

Stipe, too, suddenly went from hat-wearing smartly-dressed eccentric to bald head, mini-beard, t-shirts and rock star posing.

Stipe's Monster-era image is such a hell of a contrast to any image he'd had up to that point!

I think the artificiality of Monster is one of its strengths. Rock in quotation marks? Perhaps. I kinda see the album as a queer pomo glam album, full of sex and paranoia. The production suits that. Admittedly, songs like Star 69 worked better live, but the likes of Crush With Eyeliner, Tongue and King of Comedy benefit from their inauthenticity. The fast rockers on New Adventures (Wake Up Bomb, Departure) are better as performances, but they're not particularly great songs and next to the weird things on Monster they sound rather too much like ordinary rock.

The great lost song of post-Berry REM is Beat A Drum. The 'demo' version which came as a b-side to Imitation of Life is incredibly beautiful - just Stipe singing a beautiful melody over piano and acoustic guitar. The fussy faux Brian Wilson treatment it got on Reveal ruins the impact of the melody and lyrics, not least in the chorus, where the aching pause between lines is filled with a parping horn motif. That said, I do like some stuff on Reveal, not least The Lifting and the hazy exotica stuff like Beachball. Imitation of Life is ok, but a bit REM jangle pop by numbers. I'll Take The Rain is one of their worst, kinda like if Diane Warren and U2 got together to write a stinky stadium ballad.

i would def rather listen to a collection of demos from the post-Berry period than the albums besides Up

I kinda see the album as a queer pomo glam album, full of sex and paranoia.

Oh yeah. And the band alluded to Roxy Music in interviews around this time.

If only they sounded like Roxy Music. "Monster" is some wan glam.

Problem was, there was neither an Eno nor even a Jobson (or a Ronson) in R.E.M. Which wouldn't be an issue otherwise, but maybe they could've, I dunno, drafted Allen Ravenstine in or something.

Granted, it's not entirely successful as pomo glam or rock in quotation marks. Roxy Music or Sparks it ain't. It's as if they were self-consciously trying to respond to both grunge and the pomo trash aesthetic of Achtung Baby, while drawing on their love of Bowie and Iggy, but not really pulling it off. Yet it's that wrongness that makes the album all the more intriguing for me.

I can't deny my personal relationship with Monster or New Adventures either. They were the first two new REM albums to come out after I became a fan on the back of Automatic, so I'll always have a sentimental attachment to them, especially as they came in those formative teenage years. I heard Monster a few months before any of the IRS stuff, which might seem like an odd way in. I was really excited for New Adventures and I remember waiting to hear E Bow with fevered anticipation. I still think it's one of their best songs. Listening to it recently I came up with a semi-serious notion that it's their oblique hip-hop song. Talky verses over a shuffling beat, then a female vocalist on the chorus, except being REM it's Patti and not an r 'n b diva... the bit just before the second or third chorus where Stipe goes 'here we go again' reminds me of the way 90s rappers might introduce a pop chorus.

such a thrill for me to watch and hear them play "E-Bow" at the Tibetan Freedom Concert, the Thom Yorke part not so much.

I love Monster. I think it might be the most unique, alien album within REM's entire discography.

E-bow is a classic. I always feel sorry for the rem fans that hate it so much

E-Bow The Letter is about the only REM song I like from, I dunno, the 90s or something.

xpost Mike Mills and his glamming up circa Monster. I know it's not really rational, but I think that's the great signifier of REM ceasing to be the band they were, and losing the way, albeit gradually. Nothing says, "Being a rock star has gone to my head" like someone who used to look like a teaching assistant dyeing their hair and wearing spangly shirts. Sometimes I truly believe that Mike Mills glamming up was actually the cause of REM going shit.

when did peter buck add that "sexy lady" decal to his guitar

http://reviewstalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/REM-Automatic_for_The_People-pic-300x240.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EFUMGAE9qUE/Ti-1pFOzImI/AAAAAAAAAHc/LpjyGNo_qfY/s1600/REM+-+Group.jpg

why is Peter Buck wearing that shirt and allowed to stay in the band?

tbf if they'd stuck to the goobers in vests look they would have been left behind like most late '80s college faves

tbf if they'd stuck to the goobers in vests look they would have been left behind like most late '80s college faves

― da croupier, Monday, November 12, 2012 3:11 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's not only fair but very true. However, having been used to the way the band looked circa Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, it did feel like a very sudden (even jarring) change, and it did take a little while to get used to! I remember them coming back with 'What's The Frequency, Kenneth?' and seeing how the band looked and thinking "hang on, what the fuck is going on here? This doesn't feel right!". I appreciate they had find ways of 'moving on', though, and doing different things, and I eventually got used to it. At the time though, it was a bit of a surprise!

Stipe went downhill as a frontman when he got rid of the hair tbh. Over-obvious, silly face paint, terrible lyrics. He became in your face when even in 1992 he was a lot more reticent and at least trying to retain some enigma.

They wouldn't have been 'left behind' because they were already way beyond the late 80s college bands anyway.

This is true. It's not like they were Scruffy The Cat.

Tbf, Stipe was going overobvious silly face paint as far back as the Fables tour. Saw them in London, and he had a peroxide crop, enormous amounts of eyeshadow and the world DOG written backwards on his forehead in magic marker.

They wouldn't have been 'left behind' because they were already way beyond the late 80s college bands anyway.

― Master of Treacle, Monday, November 12, 2012 3:40 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They would have still undoubtedly sold records, especially on the back of Automatic For The People, but they definitely would have looked incredibly out-of-sync with what was going on at the time. I suppose in their earlier years, they always DID look incredibly out-of-sync with what was going on at the time, and seemed content to be themselves. Around the time of Monster, though, it seemed this attitude changed and the emphasis was on holding onto that success and trying to remain as 'current' as they possibly could.

I remember a quote by Michael Stipe that I read somewhere: "I used to think “timelessness” was superimportant. Now I don't."

i think chalking the sound and look of the Monster period to attempting to be 'current' is oversimplified. sure, it was a shrewd time to turn up the guitars and rock out again, but it's not like they did anything to more resemble the long-haired grunge bands that had all already paid their respects to REM as forefathers, glam rock being a hip influence was still at least a couple years off from having any significant revival. .