REM: Classic or dud?

I think Mills is the key to both songs—his playing anchors “Perfect Circle” and gives it weight; and “Camera” is this static, mysterious ballad that somehow turns into a country song, thanks to his bassline in the chorus.

Michael Stipe needs to hear “doot doot”

isn't Berry on Perfect Circle piano, too, on the album? there's like two pianos? I think I read that. It's his song for sure

You Are The Everything is a later example of this mood, and I think Berry also had a hand in it

“Camera” is the most effective 3rd-Velvet-Underground-album pastiche ever.

this is a great observation, had never thought of this

Luna is the best at appropriating the VU sound, imo. REM would be ranked 3rd for me out of Luna, YLT and REM for successful VU pastiches.

In addition to his duties as a drummer, Berry contributed occasional guitar, bass, mandolin, vocals, keyboards and piano on studio tracks. In concert, he sometimes performed on bass, and supplied regular backing vocals. Berry also made notable songwriting contributions, particularly for "Everybody Hurts" and "Man on the Moon", both from Automatic for the People. Other Berry songs included "Perfect Circle", "Driver 8", "Cant Get There from Here" and "I Took Your Name". The song "Leave" was also written by Berry for R.E.M.'s album New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), which was his last album with the band.

bill berry: one of the best songwriters of his era imo!

That’s funny, because Peter Buck once said that thing about being able to write “Driver 8” in his sleep.

most rem songs were written in a dream [citation needed]

maybe he was throwing shade at Berry xpost

Somebody's not goin' all the way to Reno...

― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, November 10, 2021 8:44 PM

i stand by my initial post because: that song is so forgettable, i thought you were referring to the fact that i used to live in reno.

really confused for a moment there. like, "what does that have to do with it????"

"The Outsider" is REM's worst song by two country miles.

poor Tip.

I've given every album a good, thorough try, but at least for the post-Berry material, I can't even remember how a lot of those awful songs actually sound. Like I have no idea how the choruses or melodies to "The Outsider" go - the only thing I do recall from that same album are the two tracks I saved for my reference compilation covering the post-Berry years.

That’s funny, because Peter Buck once said that thing about being able to write “Driver 8” in his sleep.

Maybe because Buck was asleep when Berry did the bulk of it?

take a break, peter buck

I figure he meant it was really easy for him to pull out those secret agent man type riffs

I wasn't super into REM so didn't listen to any early records in their entirety til long after they came out, so I had no idea that 'Camera' was an REM song because I thought it was a Pavement song.

I also never knew 'Strange' was a Wire song until I heard Pink Flag years after hearing Document.

Following this pattern there's probably something I think is a Wire song but is actually a cover.

Pavement’s take on “Camera” is the only R.E.M. cover I truly love & think “measures up.”

karl since you are jamming "these days" today i just wanna drop this red hot lifes rich pageant tour date here. I've come to especially love listening to shows from the lrp tour and this is an awesome example:

https://archive.org/details/10-shaking-through

i've been listening since you posted that! 32 fucking songs, amazing! this is like right in my prime era of my favorite songs by them, where they're playing a mix of stuff all the way from their debut all the way up to the songs they had just released on LRP. there's no song i wouldn't like them to play

ok sorry not 32 songs - there are 32 tracks on the recording and some of them are the intro, stage banter, stuff like that

still, it's just an amazing setlist

Yeah exactly it’s just the right stage in their repertoire and temperament for them to be touring small stadiums with long ass set lists

There’s also a post on Archive called Pageantry that combines a bunch of 1986 bootlegs including much of this one

Anyway “These Days”, “Flowers” and “I Believe” are so good live

didn't realize they already had "The One I Love" worked out at this point

Yeah and the way they do the FIRE bit is interestingly different, more screamy?

i was wondering, listening to it, whether he was making of a wry reference to the idea of shouting FIRE! in a crowded theater. the way he screams it is different, almost more like that

This thread sent me back listening to their stuff in the second half of the 80s. I was never a super fan but really liked Life’s Rich Pageant, Document (which I had together on a cassette someone made for me) and most of Green.

Listening back, tho, it was so refreshing to hear someone espouse lefty politics that not only drops terms like McCarthyism and realpolitik but actually seems to understand them. I’m not saying Document or Life’s Rich Pageant are Chomsky or anything. Some of this was just the 80s – I mean, it was fashionable to crap on Reagan and, as a friend pointed out, Sting was name-checking Nabokov in his singles.

But it really struck me how used to knee jerk liberalism we’ve become and how well read and thoughtful Michael Stipe seemed to be by contrast. I mean, their whole orientation just completely distinct than anything I’ve heard in forever – but also not *so* nakedly political and intellectual that it becomes a chore to listen to. They’re still a fun band.

I also still completely adore “Pop Song 89,” which remains such a fabulous contrast and super sly updating of Jim Morrison’s “Hello, I Love You” come-on:

Hello
I saw you
I know you I knew you
I think I can remember your name.

Hello
I’m sorry I lost myself
I think I thought you were someone else

Should we talk about the weather?
Should we talk about the government?

I know it shows my hand as a former teen REM obsessive, but it is Lifes Rich Pageant. There is no apostrophe denoting possession.

For ten points—which movie did they take the phrase from? (I actually don’t remember offhand)

Pink panther

In that 9-27-1986 show, the extended sub set from Fables, stretching from “can’t get there” through “life and how to live it”, with “pretty persuasion” dropped in the middle, is just preposterously good

Yeah I also didn't know "The One I Love" was already around in Fall 86, and it's really different! I mean, it's exactly the same song, but with a completely different vibe.

based solely on their Richard Thompson cover of “Wall of Death” on the NAiHF reissue I’m pretty convinced Stipe could’ve gone the Darius Rucker country route post REM.

Country Stipe:

https://onesnladay.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/11-12-1994_1.04.32.11.jpg

Is that Gumby on his head?

It's Jay Mohr

Gumby in...Gumby in...Gumby into town

Talk about the passion

Ha, excellent!

I don't know what this is (obviously a bootleg; what was the broadcast?), but it just appeared in my streaming service queue... it's pretty good!

popped up on my Spotify too. Very odd. I wonder if it's unauthorized and going to get taken down? Somehow slipped through whatever their process is? But excited to listen to it tonight!

seem like it should be pretty easy to narrow down when that was broadcast/recorded

Some kind of TV program, they say pretty early on.

And "Driver 8" is a new song so...

sometime in 1984, although can't find set list that matches the sequencing

Could be a compilation of a couple of broadcasts

Yep

Possibly this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvhQqQ-AYgI

A recording of the show was broadcast nationally on US radio in late ‘84 or early ‘85.

I’ve been down in a massive live rem hole since the last time this thread was bumped btw

I didn’t mention before that I actually saw them in 86 which is the year I keep listening obsessively to.

Camper Van Beethoven was opening and I was there for CVB. I was too cool for REM by this point - had gotten LRP and felt it was a huge letdown. I barely even paid attention to REM’s set. What a dumb little pissant!