REM: Classic or dud?

nothing beats how embarrassed i was when i went and saw the tom tom club in like 1990. oh my god someone's parents were drunk and having a crazy funky luau party in a club in philly and it was not easy to watch. how far the mighty had fallen...

Peter Buck used to talk about how they never wanted to fall into rock star dinosaur band cliches, specifically mentioning the Who. This was before he was arrested for drunkenly trashing an airplane cabin and attacking a flight attendant, and before they did a GREATEST HITS! tour without their original drummer.

I think even late on REM are still quite odd, but not weird.

Man, over-analyzing the word "weird" here. Just meant quirky, not, like, "Swordfishtrombones" or whatever. Though certainly "Murmur" has its share of weird, and for top selling major label breakthroughs I think "Out of Time" and "Automatic" are, yeah, a little weird. Same with "New Adventures. Of course, whatever they did weird they made normal, which I guess makes it not weird, but that's hindsight. I do agree they got lame when they went big, but that whole post-Berry period is like an afterthought or echo.

seems weird that stipey has never made a solo album. seems like someone who would REALLY want to make a solo album. maybe we should applaud his modesty.

Liked him with Golden Palominos.

i'm more surprised mike mills hasn't made a solo album

his guest stuff has always been fine. he should do a duet album. no more sea shanties with courtney though.

i liked when he would just pop up in the background in a no big deal way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge26Aybem2M

and this one of course...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfW4-nP2G1Q

a your ghost-like duet album could be nice!

I'm not sure Stipe was ever much of a songwriter, I always got the sense his job was to write/sing the lyrics and look enigmatic and let the others deal with the music. There was a very specific alchemy that collapsed when Berry left.

He is genuinely more likely to direct a film than release a solo album.

Totally agree with Matt DC. I'm not sure Stipe on his own has much to say through music; so much of R.E.M. was collaboration from Berry, Buck and Mills. I remember seeing some rockumentaries showing how R.E.M. wrote their music and it was very much a collaborative effort. I think I remember there even were lyrics in signature songs that Stipe didn't write (wasn't most of Perfect Circle written by Berry?)

Hindsight's 20 20, of course, but R.E.M. were such a tight unit, it's easy to see why they crumbled down after Hi-Fi.

I just remembered their appearance in the VMAs 95 and Stipe saying "If anyone on this foursome leaves this couch right now, the other three would be more comfortable, but we wouldn't be R.E.M.". Which sounds like a cliche, but ended up being totally true in their case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTklT8u0L7U

but that's him in the spotlight! just would have figured he would have wanted a solo diva moment. although i mentioned the collab/duet thing cuz i think that comes more naturally to him. so maybe he is a shrinking violet after all. remember when he was the shy one? hiding behind the hair. they are all the shy one though in a way.

Berry is or was the most obstreperous and out-there personality of the four; they fell off hard when he left and took most of their rock attitude with him

Im not really interested in looking out for Stipe related material, new stuff anyway; maybe the other three reined him in but he was a compelling enough frontman in the 80s and 90s but from the millenium onwards hes been terrible imo

yeah i'm not saying anyone would listen to it, just seems like a natural thing for a front-singer guy to do. videos, artwork, the whole vision thing. don't call me crazy. it totally is a normal thing for lead singers of bands to do.

yeah! it's surprising he hasn't made a solo album produced/masterminded by like moby or nigel godrich.

Maybe he should a Fred Schneider and bring Albini in

Should do a

maybe he should just bring fred schneider in!

imaginary 90's stipe album would feature patti smith rapping on it probably.

flea contributing scintillating funk bass

CD single with future sound of london remix...

Best Stipe appearances - Hitchcock and Hersh as shown above, but also his Golden Palominos tracks and one with the Blue Aeroplanes. Any others of note?

i remember the neneh cherry one being not great.

neneh cherry would have been on the 90's solo album. scatting with q-tip.

stipe (in a skirt!) w/ thom yorke at the tibetan freedom concert in '98 blew the mind of little teenage me.

oh yeah baby...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4oE5h4Z7Zg

little fluffy clouds it ain't...

there are like 4 songs on that utah saints album with stipe samples for some reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vkSt2fePvs

(wasn't most of Perfect Circle written by Berry?)

That's one, and "Driver 8" is another supposedly written completely by Berry.

kinda nice. doesn't sound like they were in the same room but what do i know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP0Sd8Cyy9c

Kind of feels like Wilco pretty much picked up where REM left off in a few ways, especially as heartland/experimental/conventional albums that each have a distinct aural/visual concept to them.

Stipe's backing vocals are "you broke up my neighborhood" are good

Argh iPhone.. his backing vocals on billy bragg's "you woke up my neighborhood" are good

Argh iPhone.. his backing vocals on billy bragg's "you woke up my neighborhood" are good

XPS And Wilco opened for them on the UP! tour! #Symbolic

i saw the feelies open up for them once. i like to mention that.

also saw 10,000 maniacs open up for them which was not as thrilling.

XPS And Wilco opened for them on the UP! tour! #Symbolic

and their greatest hits tour in 2003. one of the best shows i've ever seen between post-yankee wilco and the ridiculous setlists r.e.m. assembled for that tour (they opened with "world leader pretend")

i saw luscious jackson open for them :'(

I saw the Neats open for them. They were ok. A couple years later, saw the dB's open. They were better (than the Neats, not R.E.M.)

Stipe did an EP called In The Sun, which was just different versions of a Joseph Arthur song, for charity. I think he's done a bunch of covers for compilations but its usually someone famous with him (I guess it's a collaboration when it's a famous person but solo when the backup band is lesser known).

My obligatory contribution to talk of late REM: Up is amazing, my favourite by them.

yeah up is amazing, i've probably said as much on this very thread

it holds up!

up is a great record everybody; reveal is sleepy yeah but underestimated, has some of their most beautiful songs; i actually like around the sun but expect no one else to ever; accelerate was cool at the moment and then i forgot about it?; collapse into now is the first record i really didn't like by these dudes, so melodically and lyrically lazy

― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:01 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me otm

around the sun is really the only one that actively bothered me ... though i can't really remember anything about collapse into now.

To me, Fables Of The Reconstruction is their strangest album.

I'm fairly confident that in 20 years (if the world is doing relatively okay) Up will be considered among their top 7 albums. And hopefully more people would vote for "Suspicion" in a song poll.