R.E.M. trio albums POLL

Their latter-day art director, Chris Bilheimer, lived in Athens about a block north and a block west of Stipe's sometimes-residence; I could imagine them being in regular touch over dinner or drinks or whatever, in a way that Pete Buck wouldn't be.

I like a lot of his stuff - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is great. For me his REM work peaks in the Monster/NAIHF era - has the right mix of evasiveness and blaring in-your-faceness for what I think the band was doing. The trio-era stuff doesn't quite match the way the records sound to me, or start to tilt too much towards the evasive/anonymous end of things in a way that sometimes makes the covers feel like they could basically be for any band. Which is funny, because their IRS-era covers are all pretty guarded and mysterious too, part of their charm really.

its weird to look at the New Adventures cover and then look at the album covers after it.

OK!

So I listened to Up for the first time since the first Bush term. Looking at the CD case I could hum at least five songs w/out help, and it remained the case when I played it.

First thought: "Why are these songs so long?" The album feels longer than NAIHF.

Second thought: "Why are the electronics so tame?" Stipe is front and center, often singing well, but I wanted tension. Most of the time it sits there, forcing you to listen to the lyrics (it's like the mixing decision matched the decision to include the lyric sheet).

Listenable songs: Hope, Sad Professor, Why Not Smile (I read at the time that it was Stipe playing lead guitar), At My Most Beautiful. The rest? I still don't know Parakeet and Diminished after playing them again. Suspicion goes nowhere and it's the third song -- bad sign.

I still treasure the sight of Stipe in a sarong dancing to "Airportman" at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in '98.

"falls to climb" is a gorgeous closer

Albert- I've got to look for that clip.

Does anyone else like "Suspicion" as much as I do? Guys? Pure magic I say.

So sorry!! Alfred not Albert!!

I'm listening to Collapse Into Now for the first time. it's pretty nice! of the last 3 albums, I only heard Accelerate at the time, and it was OK, but this is probably better. maybe I'll get up the nerve to listen to Around The Sun before the poll closes, although I can't think imagine I'll want to vote for anything besides Up, which I think achieved something really interesting and unique in spite of its obvious faults.

don't think i can ever revisit Reveal, though. have never heard a bigger dropoff from track 1 to the rest of an album than "The Lifting" vs. everything after it.

otm

still love "The Lifting." When the guitar solo kicks in it's like the shaft of light heralding a sunrise.

What do you guys think of "The Great Beyond"? I suspect britishes and Europeans will have a different impression. I bought the CD single, sat down, and forced myself to like it for 35 minutes.

pretty pitiful attempt to rewrite "Man On The Moon" i thought

I'm British and don't rate it highly.

lol the review that pushed me to attend a midnight release in May 2001 at the long gone Virgin Megastore, despite reservations:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/reveal-20010501

I'm british, I think it's very good. "Bad Day" was nice enough. I didn't like "Animal" much.

xxpost:

...and I bought the CD single at the time, too! I remember at the time that there were a few non-R.E.M. fans that I knew who were into the song, though. I always saw it as one of their more lesser things.

Sorry to say the last few original songs for the retrospective compilation didn't grab me much.

I like "The Great Beyond," and also bought the (pointless) CD single. I've elsewhere argued that if it is a "Man on the Moon" pastiche, it's legitimately updated to Stipe's 1999-era preoccupations - meditation on death, yes, but now in a kind of fuck-it, fighting way, swinging punches, kinda riding the pointlessness of things. I'm not articulating this well. Maybe it's just the difference between second-person (addressing the dead) and first-person, expressing the joy of creativity in the same breath as the quest for meaning. "Sidewinder" vs. "Hope" is the flipside of this.

I read a U2 interview in a British magazine in fall '01 after 9-11, at the peak of their second renaissance, supporting an album that I still find detestable, and Larry said something like, "We want REM to do well. If they go, we go too. But I loved the last album," etc. Couldn't help thinking it was U2's last triumph over the band they were tied to at the hip since 1991.

I like "The Great Beyond," and also bought the (pointless) CD single. I've elsewhere argued that if it is a "Man on the Moon" pastiche, it's legitimately updated to Stipe's 1999-era preoccupations - meditation on death, yes, but now in a kind of fuck-it, fighting way, swinging punches, kinda riding the pointlessness of things.

is that why it sounds like Grandpa at the mixing board?

Odd to think that PSA dates back to a time long before Stipe was any kind of paparazzi fodder.

Well, R.E.M. have definitely triumphed over U2 by stopping when they knew their time was up, whereas U2 continue to carry on and look silly.

idk i think the last two U2 albums are very good. the previous two were a bit alarmingly paint-by-numbers ('how to dismantle an atomic bomb' was their worst album by some distance imo not counting the live tracks from 'rattle and hum', def their 'around the sun' imo.)

I've a soft spot for "Great Beyond," as it seemed like REM's sweet millennial goodbye song, as good as any from the period. But "Bad Day" really grates for me.

all this has me wanting to revisit Accelerate & Collapse. I tried to like both of 'em at the time & neither worked at the time.

U2s most recent two were unfocused messes. But I definitely feel the band at least was fueled by conviction, whereas REMs low points were largely lifeless and joyless.

i'd disagree, i think 'no line' was messy (albeit good), the new one is vv focused albeit disastrously released. 'ATYCLB' was a-ok, 'giving the fairweather fans what they want' stuff, 'atomic bomb' was kinda 'giving the fans what they want but not what we want'.

has the new one even cracked 100k in the U.S.?

Wrote on "The Great Beyond" a few years ago:

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2010/07/rem-great-beyond-2000.html

Voted up, which is honestly probably my favorite R.E.M. album. Haven't heard the ones after that in full.

I'm listening to Around The Sun for the first time in a while and my god, this album is a mess. There's the makings of a good song in 'Electron Blue', but the production and arrangement really prevents it from being the track it should be.

I would say that U2 are fuelled by this:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2256/2368329234_f3b6a02a74.jpg

Oh my fucking god, that stretch of 'Make It All OK', 'Final Straw' and 'I Wanted To Be Wrong' near-enough sent me to sleep. Then 'Wanderlust' comes on and it's like... eurgh... off.

I don't think Stipe could play guitar to save his life. On the Work tour, he 'played' on Oddfellows Local 151, and youtube, ever helpful, has a fairly complete concert from that tour up:. (These Days rips btw).
http://youtu.be/2Xq2XxmIDHM?list=PLxn-k7OqSA-9gq69L6gLDP0UfCaMCLYOX

He's in one of the Monster documentaries playing guitar on 'I Don't Sleep, I Dream' too.

Up by a mile, though it's overlong and dirgey. A song of the quality of, say, Suspicion or AMMB would be unimaginable from then onwards. I'd actually probably choose Around The Sun as the best of a bad lot from the 00s stuff. There's a songwriting muscle on things like "Boy in the Well", "Aftermath" and "Ascent of Man" that is absent from say Reveal or Accelerate - the latter truly is their nadir, one of the dreariest albums ever.

the very great This Way UP docu (impossible to find, never released on DVD/VHS) is on YouTube FYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i65t6cqdCM

Great Beyond was a *number 3* hit by the way in the UK! their highest chart entry.

Just watched that documentary, I remember I saw that on tv and taped it, I remembered as soon as I saw Stipe in the party hat. Around the time of Up and Reveal I must have taped 3 or 4 different documentaries about them.

Radiohead and REM seemed a lot more similar back then. The were my two favourite bands for quite a long time. I think my love of REM has lasted a lot longer in retrospect, I'm slightly more picky about what I like across Radiohead's output.

This is either the first one or the last one, with Accelerate a close runner up. And the others are horrible.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

but i like the berry the best

It boggles my mind that anyone could consider Stipe's voice to be at its best over those last few albums. Like I'm fine with the increasingly gravelly nature of his voice itself but his phrasing and enunciation are a big part of why those later records are so underwhelming.

It was at its best on the early Warners albums imo, technically anyway

yeah i'd go with that; The W

(oops) The Wrong Child and You Are The Everything on Green are some kind of high point IMO.

Disturbance At The Heron House for me, that lovely vaulting high vocal melody, kinda telling that he never sang it the same way live.

oh but it was better live! that take on the '91 Unplugged is their best song imo

Have to admit, I never liked that alt vocal melody, I guess I felt kinda cheated, plus conga drums are nagl

I get that. What about Mills' harmonies on that take? they weave together in a way they rarely accomplished otherwise

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

dang

well, that's pretty definitive