New Adventures in Hi Fi?

I think my favorite recent instance is when he sings "Leaving was never my proud" in "Leaving New York." That's fucking hilarious.

'e-bow the letter', 'bittersweet me' and 'leave' are also fantastic.

i relentlessly get out of bed to go to work five days a week. doesn't mean i enjoy it.

yr not rich. rem is.

i don't see it. especially from buck -- distant, never looks like he's having fun. seems like a guy who'd tell you not to look at him even as he's playing an instrument in front of you.

probably think they are making good records

the first two words are the key, huh? they say it every album they put out -- "best we've ever done" bullshit. they have to say it. press laps it up and spits it out verbatim cuz, well, it's r.e.m. for godsakes and they got to sit in the same room or on the same phone line with them for 25 whole minutes! all to themselves!

based on buck's prior goal of making an album as good as astral weeks (this long after they'd already put out murmur and reckoning, which he didn't think measured up), i can't see how he thinks they are getting any closer.

i guess i'm just amazed by how much it seems berry was the pivotal member keeping all their worst attributes (stipe's attentionwhoring, mills' cheesiness, buck's...i dunno, surliness? personality?) in check. if the rumor is true and he's back in the studio with them...well, just please let it be true.

On Up:
I think the songs are our best group of songs

On Reveal:
It might be the best record we've ever done.

On Around the Sun:
as good a group of songs as we’ve ever done

Buck said basically the same thing about New Adventures, but at least he got it right that time.

i kno

I love about half of this album and usually end up skipping most of the other part.

Will you show me something that nobody else has seen?
Smoke it, drink - here comes the flood!
anything to thin the blood.

awesome!

this is still the REM album i enjoy the most. even more than green or murmur or automatic. i hardly listen to them anymore, except for tracks off new adventures. e-bow, electrolite, how the west was won, bittersweet me. all some of their best.

So very classic. I just lost an auction on ebay for a sealed vinyl copy. =(

Also, my best friend bought this cd for me on my 16th birthday. Even more classic!

Still an excellent album.

'binky the doormat' ... best song about a doormat ever.

WORD!

I downloaded this on the recommendation of ILM yesterday-- some pretty good stuff on this, but good God, the "rockers" are incredibly painful ("The Wake-Up Bomb" for example).

OOoohhhhhh the wake up bomb.

This is my favorite REM album, bar none.

i think it just might be one of their best. certainly their last really good record.

It's way below their best early to mid-career work, but it's half a terrific album and yeah, it's "certainly their last really good record."

way below their best early to mid-career work

strongly disagree w/this, I think these songs are some of their best

half a terrific album
I would say 2/3 terrific 1/3 good to decent, which considering the length is impressive. Still their longest release by far and quite varied, it's almost like their version of Sandinista.

Great album. Will it also take six years that people will discover how phantastic "Reveal" is?

OTM! Reveal is also excellent.

The end of a really bad period for R.E.M. It wasn't as bad as "Monster", but still had the same weaknesses. They would get better on "Up" and really good on "Reveal".

oh my peer your veneer is wearing thin and cracking
the surface informs the underneath -- the underneath is lacking

my favorite r.e.m. lyric!

i couldn't taste it. i'm tired and naked
i don't know what i'm hungry for. i don't know what i want anymore

"Bittersweet Me" is my favorite forgotten R.E.M. singer. I love when bands crank out singles that on first listen sound effortless and dull but are in fact distillations that they couldn't have written at any other poitn.

*single

Stipe should legally change his name to "Bittersweet Me".

am i a bad person if i say this is my favorite r.e.m. album? i recognize it's not their best, not by a longshot, but i've probably listened to it more than any of their other albums.

i am already dying for the NAiHF reissue. the monster tour seems to have curated their last great songs. "electrolite" is a high quality "all of my love" level sign-off and i am eager to hear whatever else they demoed to get to this

I am never eager to hear demos, especially for albums as long as Hi-Fi, which I hasten to say I love.

austin, this is my favorite r.e.m. album

murmur and monster hot on its heels

from what I remember this is the era when the Brits took to R.E.M. hard, embracing this and Up.

bill's final tour. the secret ingredient pre-retirement. capture the fleeting magic

so many bangers on this. undertow, leave, bittersweet me, etc. etc.

"e-bow" was my favorite rem song of all time for a while, maybe it still is. "low desert" vastly underrated or at least undermentioned

prob my favorite set of r.e.m. music videos comes from this record too