i had a friend who went to iu at the time, she told a funny story about stipe showing up at hoosier parties.
― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link
interesting. i wonder if that's all it was then.
― josecanseco, Tuesday, 6 December 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link
No, because Fables was so damn slow and boring. It was good that they started rocking again.
LRP, no contest. I remember thinking at the time that, if not as mumbly as Murmur-but how could it be?- it was a bigger and better return to form.
― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― js (honestengine), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 14:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 17:40 (eighteen years ago) link
LRP for me. Begin The Begin and These Days make politically conscious arena rock sound like a good idea. Cuyahoga was magnificent when they played it on the Up tour. I Believe is ace and Fall On Me possibly my fave REM song. The goofy stuff is great too. Anyone who doesn't like Superman is a humourless curmudgeon. I remember getting the reissue of Horses with the My Generation cover and had one of those euraka moments with the "I'm so young, I'm so goddam young" bit. Document's a good album, but the production dates it. Still, some interesting G04 moves on there, as mentioned xpost. I'm a bit bored with The One I Love to be honest, but End Of The World is great fun (again, what sort of humourless curmudgeon do you have to be to hate this?).
LRP has infinitely better cover art too. Bill Berry's monobrow in a lo-fi collage!
― stew!, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
So was I, for a long time, until I first listened to the live acoustic version, which was the b-side of the ITEOTWAWKI single. (You can find it on one of the "IRS Vintage Years" reissues as a bonus track - that's where I heard it). It's not radically different, but it has a strong folk-country sound which gives the song a new flavor. In a couple of interviews I've read over the years, Peter Buck as described the song as an Appalachian folk ballad, or something similar. I had no idea what he meant until I heard the b-side version.
― James, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― stew!, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 19:46 (eighteen years ago) link
Document had "King of Birds" and a really grand set of acoustic B-sides, but not near the record that LRP is.
― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 15:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aaron A, Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Thursday, 16 March 2006 07:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 16 March 2006 07:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 16 March 2006 07:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Thursday, 16 March 2006 18:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 16 March 2006 18:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 17:21 (seventeen years ago) link
Nonetheless...
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 19:09 (seventeen years ago) link
YOU HAVE BEEN VINDICATED
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Wednesday, 4 October 2006 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link
LET'S BEGIN AGAIN
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 03:29 (sixteen years ago) link
birdie in the hand
― kamerad, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 03:45 (sixteen years ago) link
As for Docment...the second side is pretty damn weak. Only "Finest Worksong" and "Exhuming McCarthy" on the A rock/swing as much as, say, "Just A Touch."
Oh, that's too harsh. I like Side Two of Document. Fireplace and King Of Birds especially have a weird, hypnotic vibe. And, from Side One, Welcome To The Occupation, Exhuming McCarthy, and Disturbance At The Heron House are pretty powerful political screeds, for a rock band.
Worst thing about Document to me is that it's the first R.E.M. disc that really abandons their Southern Gothic rock sound. That sound wasn't too prominent on Life's Rich Pageant, but it's there. Frankly, to the extent that even small elements of that sound make it onto Document, they do so on Side Two (which is probably why it's the side I prefer on the disc).
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 03:54 (sixteen years ago) link
I've embarrassed myself elsewhere on ILM repping for side 2 of Document and won't reprise that here. But I'll take side 2 over side 1 of it, and even over side 2 of LRP. The songs on side 2 of Document are still so mysterious to me, and I think their lack of straightforwardness confounds the standard account that REM was "selling out" at that time. Those songs are just as murky as those on Murmur.
― Euler, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 03:58 (sixteen years ago) link
billboard's preview of the new album mentions '...pageant' as a reference point. it's less than 35 minutes long too!
― pisces, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:05 (sixteen years ago) link
I've been let down by those comparisons before ("New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a throwback to the early R.E.M. sound!"). I ain't hopeful.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:14 (sixteen years ago) link
(And mind you, I like New Adventures a lot, but there's no comparison to their early stuff. . . .).
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:15 (sixteen years ago) link
shorter, faster and louder is all well and good, but I dunno if recent songs would suddenly become great if they were shorter faster and louder.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:16 (sixteen years ago) link
i have both these albums on one CD-R now! I used to own them on cassette. Still probably would go with Document.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:17 (sixteen years ago) link
The second side of Document really feels "of a piece" to me in a way that no other sections of these records do (unless you count "Begin the Begin" and "These Days" as a section.)
"The insurgency began and we missed it" EERILY PROPHETIC SHOCKAH.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Have any of the songs from the new record been heard, e.g. live or leaked?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:19 (sixteen years ago) link
I think one is streaming on R.E.M.'s Home Page.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:20 (sixteen years ago) link
there was some song that someone put the youtube link on ilx it had a riff worthy of side two of New Adventures and Michael was standing sideways, reading the lyrics from a laptop. I stopped the video when I saw him visibly scrolling down.
Does he have a memory disorder? Is there a reason he's incapable of memorizing songs he's written?
― da croupier, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:21 (sixteen years ago) link
He's distracted.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:24 (sixteen years ago) link
I began listening to live versions of a couple of the new songs on Hype Machine. Couldn't even get through them. Again, I'm not hopeful for the new disc.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:25 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRVxOmu87MA
― pisces, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:26 (sixteen years ago) link
THERE it is, that desperate thing.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:28 (sixteen years ago) link
It's been a bad decade, please don't take a youtube.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:29 (sixteen years ago) link
there was a better one shot close-up where stipey looks very very clearly like he'd just got off the old white train before taking the stage but it appears to have been taken down wouldn't ya know it.
― pisces, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 04:34 (sixteen years ago) link
I think "Superman" is their absolute high-water mark. So Life's Rich Pageant it is.
― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 07:21 (sixteen years ago) link
I've been let down by those comparisons before ("New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a throwback to the early R.E.M. sound!").
Congratulations to REM on reaching the Best Album Since Blood On The Tracks stage of their career (aka winning at rock'n'roll).
― rogermexico., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 18:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Yes! Let their Dylan-esqe late stage career revival begin now.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 18:28 (sixteen years ago) link
YIKES, that new song is truly awful.
― Z S, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 18:31 (sixteen years ago) link
I say they've reached their "Shaquelle O'Neal 2008" stage of their career (aka anything decent we get from them at this point is a bonus).
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 18:46 (sixteen years ago) link
That was true until Fables of the Mumble-Mumble; then it became clear that Mr Stipe needed either speech lessons or emergency surgery to remove the giant kudzu stuck in his throat.
It was the label. IRS figured the only thing keeping R.E.M. from mainstream success was Stipe's mumbling, so they insisted he start enunciating.
― Sara Sara Sara, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 20:43 (sixteen years ago) link
major label correct non-shockah
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 20:57 (sixteen years ago) link
S'gotta be LRP - classic mid-early-late vintage material! The one thing i can add about the Document-era releases is that they finally starting putting out those live acoustic versions of tunes like "The One I Love" that exposes the seething underbellied truth of an otherwise sing-songy Top 40 hit. These proto-Unplugged tracks might reference the Dylan-esque penchant for reinterpretation, but my hindsight sees a crew running out of spunk.
Daniel Esq notes the loss of the "Southern Gothic rock sound" and while i don't necessarily identify with the terminology, the Farmer's Almanac brand of black magic that they wielded became only a waning influence after they began mainlining their sound & image. Moving to the city (if only in sprit) was certainly a measure of it's time and maybe even a fashionable construct - nonetheless, it was most certainly a world away from the backwoods shacks and headlight-lit two-tracks that inspired their inception. Too bad, tracks like "King of Birds" packs the full weight of their skill and hints at something that could have been a truly foreboding and ominous (if not completely inaccessible) force.
― christoff, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 21:14 (sixteen years ago) link
For whatever reason, Document is the one I listened to least of everything through Monster. I mostly know it from it just playing in the background at parties in college (I wish I had gone to better parties), even though I've had it for a long time. So Lifes Rich by a long ways.
― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 21:59 (sixteen years ago) link
They played something from Document on the radio today and I just kinda rolled my eyes "oh man they were so past their prime by then". Lifes Rich Pageant is still a fantastic album, but I admit the production hasn't aged very well.
I'm sure there's a couple of decent tunes on Document, at least that's the way I recall it, but I really feel like to sit through that entire record again would be a waste of my time.
― Bimble, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 04:51 (sixteen years ago) link
AND WE'RE TRADING O'NEAL! If only R.E.M. could be traded for something more vital, as well.
― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 6 February 2008 06:57 (sixteen years ago) link
Document was always my least favorite of the classik R.E.M. albums -- it's the only one I never even bothered to buy on CD, even at the height of my high-school fandom (I just made do with the cassette) -- but I've found myself compelled to listen to it lately. It sounds oddly good to me now, fsr. (I still think there are some whiffs on side 2; I'm not into R.E.M. gettin' funk-ay, etc.)
― i’m still stanning (morrisp), Wednesday, 25 July 2018 17:25 (five years ago) link
I like it better now than I did at the peak of my R.E.M. fandom. Sure, it's frontloaded and drops in quality a bit after 'The One I Love', but I'll take things like 'Fireplace' over lesser tracks from the post-Berry albums.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Wednesday, 25 July 2018 17:33 (five years ago) link