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

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

I'm going Never Tear Us Apart because of the whirl of memory it stirs up with me and Claire Eldridge at the centre of it, dancing at the swimming club disco.

I like Try Not to Breathe, Find the River and NIghtswimming. Drive is fine. Man on the Moon was overplayed and it wasn't good enough to withstand that. Plus, I hate Andy Kaufman. The rest of the album is completely meh.

Star Me Kitten gave 11-year-old-me the fear

They should've gone full on Santo and Johnny on that song. Instead it bores the shit out of me.

I've never understood the "best album" thing. I may have thought about AFTP more than any other record over the years, so perplexing is this notion. I almost sold my copy early on. Previews on radio suggested a serious decline, but I was still pretty loyal in 1992 and bought it anyway. But the endless bars of thin, nothingy guitars going around in circles really bummed me out. The string arrangements were welcome but still insufficient to make certain tracks add up to much. I eventually took to programming a 25-minute album I did kinda like if I could avoid the rest. (I may have included "Man on the Moon" once, but it hasn't proved especially durable.)

Try Not to Breathe / The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite / New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 / Sweetness Follows / Nightswimming / Find the River

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

*sad montage of frowning Buck/Berry/Mills/Stipe*

When your day is long... and the night... the night is yours alone...

Wow. Everybody Hurts pulled in a lot more than expected.

^^^

I was expecting an even more brutal stomping.

Sometimes you kick... sometimes you get kicked.

"But if I hurt you
I'd make wine from your tears"

my whole life i didn't know what he was singing there, just looked it up

I also couldn't parse those lyrix for a long time (but eventually learned them somewhere).

terrible line lol

https://66.media.tumblr.com/11c3aac1f638a12bb36635d5eba52177/tumblr_oh1vghbW3c1r4poono1_250.gif

AH TOLD YOU