POLL: "Never Tear Us Apart" (INXS) vs. "Everybody Hurts" (R.E.M.)

It was the 90s: at first you thought they were faking it, and then you realized they were beyond fake, they're the real thing.

I can see this in a sense where they believe what they're saying is too important NOT to spell it out. But for me, they came off as earnest folkies, or a less funky Three Dog Night.

and while marketed as a "Southern"-band named an album after Reconstruction.

In 1985 they weren't marketed as anything other than a band that college kids would like (to the extent they were marketed at all), and they happened to be from Georgia. To say they were marketed as a "Southern" band -- especially compared to Tom Petty's Southern Accents tour and album around that time (Peter Buck publicly called him out on using the confederate flag) -- is a stretch.

I don't really see it as more of an unsubtle piss-take than "Shiny Happy People", which was on the previous album?

I suppose, but that seemed like an ironic wink...or at least, that's how I heard it. But I didn't like Out Of Time much.

R.E.M. is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I will defend nearly their entire catalog with great gusto, but "Never Tear Us Apart" really is the superior song here.

Also REM get thee one (1) saxophone

I was wondering about that y'day, and realized they did get one (1) -- here!

There was a sax quartet in "Can't Get There From Here"!

after an ILX poll alerted me to “Don't Change", which is an astonishing song.

I had never heard “Don’t Change” until it was used in that movie Adventureland — I was like, omigod, this song!

There was a sax quartet in "Can't Get There From Here"!

Are those all saxes?? Cool 😎

I'd take R.E.M.'s discography over INXS's any day of the week but it's clearly 'Never Tear Us Apart'.

I played alto sax and oboe in HS and was super stoked about the oboe on Nightswimming when it came out. I am never stoked about the sax.

INXS

It's more of a performance that I enjoy every time I hear it.

Everybody Hurts might be my least liked song from the singles on Automatic.

Recently heard Nightswimming, and thought it was still awesome.

“Unchained Melody” was big around this time (due to Ghost), and I think of “Everybody Hurts” as a kind of art-school take on it, both embracing and eyerolling it. Also an analogue to “I’m on Fire” starting as a “Folsom Prison Blues” joke/game.

I’m quite impressed by the consensus against EH. I totally understand why one would dislike it but didn’t expect that wave of hatred.
I like it. It reminds me of my teenage years. It’s moving.

Yeah - when I played it again for this poll, I was surprised by the presence and power it still carried.

you may have had better experiences in your teenage years than other people did. that song felt like cold comfort to me at the time. many years later, i am not hateful or bitter, but i don't find it particularly moving or comforting or anything really.

Everybody Hurts is the main reason I don't understand why people love AFTP so much. That song is such the turd on the brazier.

<3 take comfort in your friends <3

xp I don’t know about anyone else, but most of my experiences in my teenage years involved... listening to R.E.M.!

They became my favorite band of all time at age 12! But I liked hs...and the south.

I gotta say the time I enjoyed EH the most was when I had a decent amp and speakers and I cranked it to apocalyptic levels - the drama of the strings and the crescendos of sound really took it to a new dimension.

The music is fine. It's the lyricism.

The time I enjoyed EH the most was riding with a friend who had lost too much at the Indian casino and felt rotten about it, and we sang along with “Don’t throw your hand!”

I like that when making EH they approached it like an old Stax ballad

Still never want to hear it again

It’s also an impressive vocal performance (if you care for Stipe’s vocals; I know many don’t).

I was 23 and celebrating my first wedding anniversary when ATFP came out so it had a little different context for me than for anyone a bit younger. (My R.E.M. high school angst album was Life's Rich Pageant. ) But I'm also the weirdo whose favorite song on the album is Ignoreland, so.

Both songs are great but NTUA for me. Even love that cheesy Tall Paul coffee table remix.

Didn't realize there was so much hate for Stipe round these parts.

i thought people adore Stipe but just hate this one song. xpost About the STAX vocals, I almost said he was trying for a "take us to church" moment and it was just flabby.

Well, one person called him a whiny bitch and another called him a personality-less sucking void and well-poisoner.

Ha, i just went back to find these posts. I am very good at ignoring people because I had no recollection of these.

R.E.M. threads tend to get frothy, for some reason.

Poll: "Everybody Hurts" video vs. Van Halen "Right Now" video.

^^^ key questions of, well, hm, "our time" doesn't seem quite right

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Maybe P Gabriel's "Don't Give Up" vs. "Everybody Hurts" would've been more of a competition.

I love NTUA and hate EH. I hated Everybody Hurts when I was a wallowing teenager, which I was when it came out and I still hate it now. Dunno just grates on me, always has.

I'm also the weirdo whose favorite song on the album is Ignoreland, so.

ban eliza d

I also like Ignoreland and not sure why it's so bad and hated but I don't really like that album much at all so

Ignoreland is a needed respite/counterpoint in AFTP

otm

fwiw songs I like off AFTP:

Drive
Ignoreland

songs I think are OK

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
Man On The Moon
Monty Got A Raw Deal

songs I don't like

everything else

I'm conflicted about 'Drive' because it lied to me. The rest of the album just isn't as good.

I've said this before, but I started reposting on ilx again because I was so confused about the glowing reviews/remembrances about ATFP on its anniversary. That album is so meh bleh. I was trying make sense of this stupid reality I was living in.

ts: ignoreland vs electioneering

anyway, nightswimming is grebt, man on the moon and find the river are good, sidewinder and drive are okay, the rest are whatevs and occasionally worse

Is "Ignoreland" hated? I always liked it.

xp
Glad you made it to this thread, mookieproof! It owes its existence to you

Anyway, I’d place “Man on the Moon” far higher on the “never need to hear again” scale than “Everybody Hurts.”

I have recently come to like « Try not to breath » following a thread linking to an interview about how the song was built.
Basically regarding AFTP, I like the beginning and the end but the middle drags a little.

Oh, "Man on the Moon" is very skippable.

there's a really good 25-minute AFTP documentary called Unearthed on YT for anybody interested

i'm more into the mumble & kudzu REM, but still think AFTP is stone cold classic start to finish

The R.E.M. guys looked so grizzled to me in those Anton Corbijn liner-note booklet photos, but they were probably like f’in 32 years old.

This thread is beginning to bum me out. AFTP is REM’s best album, or at the very least the best of their albums that feature enunciation. I think it is one of the unassailable classics of the decade.

yes! AFTP is definitely a classic, their best album since their debut full-length imo, but their earliest "mumble & kudzu" records (Chronic Town EP, Murmur) are also classics and will always be my favorites because I heard them first