New Adventures in Hi Fi?

Wake Up Bomb and Undertow feel like they've fully realised their straight-up glam side whereas Monster is this weird, slightly stunted mix of things (not a criticism).

Hi-Fi was the first R.E.M. CD my mum didn't have so I get believing that this one was where things fell apart. I only knew about it when I was little through my uncle's CDs (ditto the next two).

yeah this always had a positive reputation but it was definitely the first R.E.M. album in awhile that didn't make any radio impact iirc. It didn't have big singles, it's entirely stellar deep cuts. Classic album.

R.E.M. from this point on did benefit from the way the UK singles chart's infrastructure changing though - lengthier gaps between radio and physical and crucially having built a dedicated enough fanbase helping contribute to the new climate of first week peaks and front-loaded sales (and the marketing and managing that pushed this change). Hence, E-Bow being their highest charter to date, despite probably having not been played on the radio since (and, if they could help it, probably not too much at the time either).

I've always wanted to call a song "E-Bola, The Virus" but never got around to it

I enjoy Monster now, but, when E-Bow came out as the first single, it was such as relief to have "the old REM" back. And "Electrolite" is so pretty.

These days I think New Adventures is very listenable but is also kind of... their first boring record? Almost everything sounds like another, older, better song.

I always thought "Low Desert" was an intentional Stone Roses' Second Coming pastiche -- the swampy riffing and the "hey heys".

Every good band releases one of these variety packs a couple times in their careers: a summa of what they do best (think Tattoo You, Lil Wayne's Funeral, any number of Yo La Tengo albums).

I adore this album. Well, except for “wake up bomb” and “bittersweet me”.

Do I think The Cure’s Wish might be one of these?

* I think, that should’ve said.

I was thinking the same thing ha. That's the first album with no genuine new territory covered (for all that there are shoegaze guitars and beefy dance-via-baggy rhythms on some songs). Rather it's a this-is-us-and-we're-top-of-the-mountain record.

it's a record of synthesis, not evolution. the fact that it was all recorded while on the road, and they were playing selections from all over their catalog, probably contributed to that (and also gave them an idea of the kinds of experiments that worked and did not)

Do I think The Cure’s Wish might be one of these?

― piscesx,

Why I love it best.

Adore NAIHF, loathe Wish

despite a half decade of the most intense Cure fandom preceding it