actually laughed out loud at those results, that has to be one of the most lopsided five-way polls ever
― Doctor Casino, Friday, 30 January 2015 01:58 (nine years ago) link
who voted for around the sun
― mookieproof, Friday, 30 January 2015 01:59 (nine years ago) link
For the relative goodwill for the last two they didn't exactly run away with 2nd and 3rd.
― Master of Treacle, Friday, 30 January 2015 04:04 (nine years ago) link
Meh, I'll still always prefer Accelerate
― You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart (Turrican), Friday, 30 January 2015 13:46 (nine years ago) link
It's all relative...I was an Up voter who prrrrrrobably would have gone with Accelerate if Up was out and this was just "the four REM albums with no street cred" or whatever.
― Doctor Casino, Friday, 30 January 2015 14:30 (nine years ago) link
Honestly I think Reveal is a great album. I can understand people diminishing it with the post-Berry asterisk but I'm baffled by the opinions that place it at the same depths as Around the Sun.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, 30 January 2015 20:22 (nine years ago) link
A problem with Reveal might be - for those still buying REM albums into 00s - the sound, approach and production wasnt what a lot if fans wanted at that point. Berry's gone, Up's not heavy on the guitars, what's going on?
― Master of Treacle, Saturday, 31 January 2015 03:41 (nine years ago) link
I was actually into the idea of Reveal - okay, they've done this colder-feeling thing, now there's this warmer-feeling thing, and both seemed more 'electronic' and concocted-in-the-studio than their previous records... and I dig some of the recordings on Reveal even, maybe partly under the influence of positive reviews at the time that framed it as this wash of summer haze and production lushness. The thing is it just doesn't have the songs - the ones that are meant to be the anthemic waypoints in the tracklist (especially "I'll Take the Rain") fall totally flat, so lesser songs that might have survived being kinda interesting album tracks (were they next to stronger material) end up seeming underwritten and superfluous to the catalog. I basically think it wasn't a fertile period for the band in terms of songwriting - or maybe, that they really didn't know how to write songs together without being a band, in a room, with a drummer.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 31 January 2015 05:38 (nine years ago) link
Accelerate > Monster. Come on now.
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 19:06 (five years ago) link
ILM 90s mindset I see u
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 19:18 (five years ago) link
They’re all bad, but — Up > Around the Sun > Collapse > Reveal > Accelerate (it’s unlistenable)
― yuh yuh (morrisp), Saturday, 9 March 2019 19:46 (five years ago) link
How long must we try to correct each others wrong REM rankings? Just go back and see my ranking.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 9 March 2019 20:17 (five years ago) link
Monster is listenable to the extent that I’m not inherently put off by what sounds like ‘90s major label alternative band demos.
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 21:09 (five years ago) link
don’t point your finger
― L'assie (Euler), Saturday, 9 March 2019 21:41 (five years ago) link
lotta wrong opinions in this thread bump
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:06 (five years ago) link
Euler not addressed to anyone in particular but I think speculation about constructs for our perceptions in general can be fair game.
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:29 (five years ago) link
You know that's not my thing
― L'assie (Euler), Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:31 (five years ago) link
The reason I feel like this particular matter might involve constructs just comes from listening to Accelerate and thinking that there's just no way that those songs are inherently inferior
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:31 (five years ago) link
They seem to accomplish the same exact things, nothing is missing
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:33 (five years ago) link
I can't picture how any of the songs sound like if I look at the tracklisting of accelerate. I registered to the discography like a month ago
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:34 (five years ago) link
I hammer at my own constructs all the time - I know we all do
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:36 (five years ago) link
I'm primarily into early REM. I consider monster to be a bit later in the discography for my liking and dont hold it in hugely high regard.i vastly prefer it to all of the post berry albums
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:45 (five years ago) link
Mr. Richards and Supernatural Superserious are both as good as What's the Frequency, Kenneth
― timellison, Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:53 (five years ago) link
i like accelerate and know that isn’t true
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, 10 March 2019 00:29 (five years ago) link
nothing on accelerate as good as “crush with eyeliner,” like at all
In what possible sense?
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 00:45 (five years ago) link
Up >>>>>>>> Accelerate >>> honestly whomst even cares
― Simon H., Sunday, 10 March 2019 02:24 (five years ago) link
idk there’s a looseness and charm to “crush” that’s all gone by accelerate. if you don’t like “crush” that’s fine but imo monster is just a great glam rock record with amazing guitar tones
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, 10 March 2019 07:11 (five years ago) link
Up > Around the Sun > Collapse > Reveal > Accelerate (it’s unlistenable)
An R.E.M. ranking I nearly agree with for once, though I'd swap the last two (it's very listenable).
― geoffreyess, Sunday, 10 March 2019 07:21 (five years ago) link
The only album here that is out-and-out bad is Around the Sun, all the rest are good to very good records.
Accelerate > Monster. Come on now.― timellison, Saturday, March 9, 2019 7:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― timellison, Saturday, March 9, 2019 7:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I like Monster more now than I ever did in the '90s, but this is indeed true. I'd rank Collapse Into Now higher than Monster, too.
nothing on accelerate as good as “crush with eyeliner,” like at all― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, March 10, 2019 12:29 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, March 10, 2019 12:29 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
This is bullshit. Sorry.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Sunday, 10 March 2019 07:37 (five years ago) link
Anyway, my only issue with the results here is that Up took it in a landslide. IMO, the votes should have been more spread out with Around the Sun a distant last.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Sunday, 10 March 2019 07:40 (five years ago) link
you’re not sorry
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, 10 March 2019 15:01 (five years ago) link
"Up" is like a different band fronted by Michael Stipe - one I wouldn't mind hearing more from. The rest of these albums are clearly sub-prime REM that I'll never bother going back to.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Sunday, 10 March 2019 15:30 (five years ago) link
There are great songs on every REM album. I love "Mr Richards" and "Supernatural Superserious" and "Accelerate". But I like Monster more. I have a big soft spot for Monster which I've probably said elsewhere in this thread. It's sort of an alien within their discography but it's cohesive unto itself and I really dig a lot of those songs--Crush, King of Comedy, You, Kenneth, etc.
I feel like they experimented with a new sound for "rock mode" REM on that album, which they then carried over to New Adventures ("Wake Up Bomb" sounds like it could be on Monster without a blink, for instance). But for the most part they ironed out some of the quirks on New Adventures (ie turned off the tremelo effect on Buck's guitar). Accelerate and Collapse, insofar as they "return to rock", sound to me like they were trying to reclaim what they were doing on New Adventures more than any other past REM album.
And I think the thing that nags at me about those last two albums is that they feel like the only two albums in the entire REM discography that saw them looking backwards more than forwards. That's one reason I'd never say Accelerate is better than Monster. For whatever faults you can assign to Monster, REM were being ambitious when they made it, trying to break out of the box they were being put in by the mainstream and also trying to make a rock record that didn't sound like one of their older more rock-oriented.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 10 March 2019 16:27 (five years ago) link
That's fair, but there's something brilliantly transcendent about the looking-back-as-farewell on Collapse Into Now. That record is magic.
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 16:31 (five years ago) link
For whatever faults you can assign to Monster, REM were being ambitious when they made it
This is where I disagree a little. I don't know as that I ascribe significant ambition to the change in direction with Monster or with Up. I don't know as that I feel that the approach to the last two albums involved less ambition overall just because it wasn't totally new.
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 16:44 (five years ago) link
Live “Let Me In” is the only thing I’d save from the Monster era.
― brotherlovesdub, Sunday, 10 March 2019 17:14 (five years ago) link
The post-Berry albums are so boring, ppl don’t even want to discuss them in their own thread 😂
― yuh yuh (morrisp), Sunday, 10 March 2019 17:29 (five years ago) link
There are 245 posts!
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 18:10 (five years ago) link
But we do go over the album hierarchy every year or so, in the various REM threads. I'm sure I've said what I have to say about Up many times, I love it forever, and I will defend Reveal quite a bit (the atmosphere and humid sunny blaze still impresses me) even though I understand the idea that it feels like the start of a stagnation
pgwp- those are good points.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 10 March 2019 18:48 (five years ago) link
I really like about half of the individual tracks on Reveal, but the whole thing is too soporific to listen to in one go
― soref, Sunday, 10 March 2019 18:49 (five years ago) link
It's the nooks and crannies of the career that poke at you on Collapse Into Now, ending with "Country Feedback" in a big Radio Ethiopia mess with Lenny Kaye.
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 19:06 (five years ago) link
Ha, I'm listening to it now - forgot the "Finest Worksong" reprise at the end
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 19:10 (five years ago) link
still can't stand collapse but i do like your enthusiasm for it tim. maybe one day
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, 10 March 2019 19:16 (five years ago) link
however i could mount a defense of about half the tracks on around the sun so
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, 10 March 2019 19:17 (five years ago) link
Someone who knows more about the band’s history than I could answer this better than me, but what I get from every R.E.M. album from Chronic Town to Reveal is a band that was constantly anxious about falling into a comfort zone. Every album or pair of albums seems like a purposeful move away from the previous pair—an approach that got harder and harder to maintain the deeper into their career they got, as I truly feel they didn’t ever want to repeat themselves. Whether you like specific albums or not, I think this is true.
Maybe that can be said all the way up to the last pair of albums too. But from what little I’ve read about that period, they had really stopped writing songs together—Stipe came in and just reacted to things the other two created and then he wrote lyrics. And it’s no accident that the minute they fulfilled their extraordinary contractual obligations, they stopped. If Reveal or Around the Sun could have been their last record I think they would have been. That’s what I mean when I say that the last few albums—even though they contain great songs!—lack an ambition that imbues the rest of their catalog.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 10 March 2019 21:25 (five years ago) link
Thought Up etc. tunes came from Buck or Mills demos, too, Stipe adding parts after. Not sure how the process changed.
― timellison, Sunday, 10 March 2019 22:00 (five years ago) link
Yup. And on New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and on Monster, and on Automatic for the People, and on Out of Time, and on Green etc. etc.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Sunday, 10 March 2019 22:20 (five years ago) link
I kind of wonder if I tried to make a best-of with tracks from this era if I could get to 12 tracks.
― campreverb, Friday, 15 March 2019 00:15 (five years ago) link
i find that baffling but i am an Up stan. the challenge is more in sequencing, to make the couple of tracks from the last couple albums feel of a piece with the chamber-pop of Up and Reveal.
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Friday, 15 March 2019 00:36 (five years ago) link