pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

That’s cool to hear…

Old millennials were probably the last micro generation to be radicalized/partially radicalized by R.E.M. because I don’t think ‘New Adventures in Hi-Fi’ and ‘ Up’ were bringing in new recruits.

Is the perception/reality that REM's rep has fallen with younger generations who "weren't there"?

As opposed to Pavement who I think have maybe grown in stature with people who "weren't there"?

Radicalized by REM? They were the coffee table band of my teenage listening experience but tell me more

Interestingly, “Leave” from Hi-Fi might’ve been some manner of formative experience, but I’m not sure; amazing album tho

for me the song from Hi-Fi was "New Test Leper," I just remember listening to that song over and over again

sorry to break topic here but in today's archive review of the ace of bass album, they say the group's success was "preposterous." fan-tastic use of the word. i'm not even joking, what an absolutely perfect summary of how it went.

anyway, it made me chuckle. as you were.

Boygenius and Timothée Chalamet Play Troye Sivan in SNL Sketch: Watch

This is like one of those competitions to see how many words I’m not interested in can fit into a single headline

a generational shibboleth

this is a good way of putting it. i was born in early '90s, REM was an adult contemporary band that my parents liked; didn't realize they had "cred" among e.g. record collector folks and music obsessives until i was an adult and started having friends 10+ years older than me

Is the perception/reality that REM's rep has fallen with younger generations who "weren't there"?

i'd say so. i really don't think anybody under 30 gives a fuck about REM or even knows who they are.

fwiw i can't stand REM. to me they just sound like the most boring possible band. their appeal only makes sense in the context of the austerity of 1980s midwest when there probably just wasn't a lot of interesting "rock" music available besides the dinosaurs

Yes, but when midwesterners heard R.E.M. back then the often burst into flames.

But kudos for making a 2001 style ILM post in 2013

I love when Vernon Reid (I think) described hearing Nirvana as like a cross between Metallica and R.E.M.

lmfao wow

It was in an SFJ article apparently!
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/r-e-m-breaks-up

Twenty years ago, I spent an afternoon shuffling around Rocks In Your Head, a record store that once did business on Prince Street. (It closed in 2006.) My friend Jim worked the counter, and we were listening to a new album, over and over: Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” At some point, Vernon Reid—the guitar player and founder of Living Colour—came in. He listened to four songs, nodded approvingly, and approached the counter.

“Metallica plus R.E.M. That’s really smart.” He bought a copy and left.

Like an observation so perfect that it leads an article about another band entirely.

irrelevant interruption: i recall ozzy osbourne describing nirvana in a similar way: "led zeppelin meets the beatles." (not much better than vr's, tbh)

anyway shrug, i'm 43 in a few months and my most intense rem fandom was about a decade ago. i definitely remember the big early 90s hits and at the time i just figured them to be another pop band. when "losing my religion" was popular, there's no way i knew about "radio free europe" or even "end of the world" so there was no history for me. that was also just... not the kind of music i liked. i only went back and got into them properly because i was bored in my early 30s. they're definitely a classic band with some total barnstormers in their catalogue tho.

and idk, michael stipe has always looked weird to me. i guess he was quite dreamy for the time. doesn't mike mills look sorta like thom yorke these days? i mean, without the gammy eye and with glasses ofc.

Ha when I first heard Helmet on the radio, the DJ introduced them as a cross between Metallica and Nirvana.

Helmet is a cross btw Kustom Karnal–era Unrest (who recorded w/Wharton right before they did) and being boring.

morris pls clarify: do u mean the act of being boring or the pet shop boys song of the same name?

new romantic-influenced free jazz STOP STEALING MY RAD IDEAS

okay, i'm gonna start flagging myself for such flippant misuse of the h tag. anyway -- morris?

i'd say so. i really don't think anybody under 30 gives a fuck about REM or even knows who they are.

― budo jeru, Monday, 13 November 2023 00:18 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Their rep has fallen - no one has R.E.M. shirts - but this isn't true at least among under 30s who (to use the above counterexample) know about Pavement

But kudos for making a 2001 style ILM post in 2013

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Sunday, November 12, 2023 6:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i aim to please!

fwiw i can't stand REM. to me they just sound like the most boring possible band.

this is me w/all the REM that everybody considers classic -- the mystical kudzu mumble jangle stuff. I get a little interested with "green" and after that I like some of the singles, like when they let Bill Berry loose a little it's fun, but I'll just never get the love for the other stuff, didn't understand it then, have tried and had people tell me where to look and what they hear in it, it's just very boring music to me.

under 30 here: rem are just a good-not-great band who became far less interesting as they got bigger. none of their albums are classics but the first four are all pretty good, and they still had their moments until up. the best thing about them was their vocal arrangements with stipe/mills/berry all singing often largely-unrelated vocal lines, but they largely abandoned that approach around the time of document. i don't really understand the level of acclaim they used to have and i don't really have much fondness for their hits or anything.

i thought in 1998, and continue to think, that up isn't nearly as weird an album as it is usually claimed to be. it has basically the same dark contemplation punctuated by humor thing that automatic for the people has (but with five more instruments on every song), and that record never takes any shots.

this should probably be taken to an REM thread at this point, but whatever.

i honestly think they would've had a much more favorably looked on legacy if they'd kept following those avenues they began exploring on Up.

i'm also under 30 and r.e.m. are maybe one of the.. nine or ten bands I have sorta built a social life around

none of their albums are classics but the first four are all pretty good

I’m surprised you wouldn’t acknowledge the first few as classics (even if you’re not personally a fan)…

“none of their albums are classics” belongs in controps thread.

Stipe is an interesting lyricist. One can't really describe his lyrics as "bad" because they're not, really, it's more that they're free of "tangible content" or "tangible meaning", more about creating a mood than actually saying anything. I personally like meaty lyrics and think of Stipe as somewhat antithetical to what-I-look-for-in-a-lyricist, but can't deny his influence on latter-day "we're not here to say anything" lyricists like Matt from The National. There are some days that I think of this lyrical approach as being apolitical in this kinda rich-kid way that I can't really explain (it's more of an impression than an argument) but that's really the only broad crit I have of this fantastic band.

Reckoning and Life's Rich Pageant are the classics, to me; Murmur rules but the production and mix lets it down; Document through Automatic are "the very popular albums that I don't want to listen to"; my controp is that Green is "a bad album"; Monster is great and underrated, Hi-Fi is as much of a classic as those early albums imo. Moments of loveliness on every record that follows Hi-Fi. I'm loud in my love of "Imitation Of Life" as being one of the best late-career singles ever recorded by any band.

I love "Imitation Of Life," its title a good metaphoric summation of late-era REM.

Saw a good convo starting tweet from Elizabeth Nelson re: "Document"

"A brave and radical gesture from a great band on the precipice of mainstream acceptance, REM’s ‘Document’ is the record that formally untethered southern rock from Lost Cause hangovers and pointed toward a progressive future. As powerful as anything by Fugazi. An ur-text for DBT."=

I continue to find REM's non-mystical influence intriguing. Wild that a group could prove so influential on bands as diverse as Pearl Jam, Radiohead and, yeah, Drive-By Truckers. It's like the idea of REM made as big an impact as the music, but I'm still not sure what the idea of REM even is.

I’m surprised you wouldn’t acknowledge the first few as classics

murmur and lifes rich pageant are certainly their best and come pretty close to being classic but probably aren't quite there for me. reckoning has "harborcoat" which is the best song ever but the songs generally aren't as strong as murmur.

R.E.M. disappeared for years in the small world of the student deejays I oversee, but the ones who still like rock these days will acknowledge them as a formative dad rock band handed down to them by their parents (they have the same cachet as Fleetwood Mac).

a big difference is that fleetwood mac have excellent hits while it's hard to have much fondness for most of rem's

A big similarity is that both have killer rhythm sections and boast singers who specialize in babble.

My longstanding theory re R.E.M. fandom: the generation gap of record store clerks is way narrower. It seems to exist in 3-5 year spans (not coincidentally, more or less the length of a four-year undergrad degree). For instance, I always found it fascinating that indie nerds five years older than me all worshiped R.E.M. and indie nerds five years younger than me all loved Godspeed. Which sorta makes me, born in the mid seventies, part of Generation Pavement, I guess (though I think I narrowly prefer R.E.M. to Pavement).

If you're my age R.E.M. were a big gateway act. Especially if you lived in a town without a college radio station. You'd hear R.E.M. on an FM channel and that would lead you to the Replacements, who would lead you to Husker Du, etc.

a big difference is that fleetwood mac have excellent hits while it's hard to have much fondness for most of rem's

i guess that settles it!

rem were my third favorite band after smashing pumpkins and radiohead in high school so i have no objective perspective on this. they were the first band i ever encountered with an enormous discography where every album seemed worth hearing and like a distinct step forward from the previous

stipe was a big deal to me as a lyricist too, even in the later more lucid albums i loved the way he just tightrope-walked on the edge of sense. i was a stupid bisexual teen obviously aware of stipe’s queerness but i never thought about it much when i listened to the music; now a lot of it kinda reads as gay shit that never outs itself as gay shit*, something that resists direct translation or legibility. “bittersweet me” is prob my favorite lyric he ever wrote, god knows what’s going on there but all those words sound so good together

*except of course kinda-sorta on monster, god it was amazing to watch interviews with stipe in the monster-era while researching the pfork piece i wrote, nothing has changed (derogatory)

i have brought this up in rem threads before but i was a big enough fan that i convinced myself to love around the sun in hs. i never feel like revisiting it but i remember thinking at the time it was the only post-9/11 album i’d heard that was appropriately depressed and insomniac about it

It's their worst but it's not actively bad - Reveal (which I love) if almost nothing on it was as good as the actual Reveal. Pleasantly reminds me of when it was released, really.

I always found it fascinating that indie nerds five years older than me all worshiped R.E.M. and indie nerds five years younger than me all loved Godspeed. Which sorta makes me, born in the mid seventies, part of Generation Pavement, I guess (though I think I narrowly prefer R.E.M. to Pavement

I was an R.E.M. nut in high school and became a Pavement nut in college, but I know that transition wasn't universal (my h.s. buddy, who was/is even more gonzo about R.E.M. than I am, never really got into any indie rock I think). I realized (much later) that I technically first heard Pavement due to R.E.M. – the Born to Choose comp, which I bought for "Photograph," also contains "Greenlander." I don't recall that song making an impression on me at the time (despite it being one of Pavement's best), and it certainly didn't send me running to check out their stuff... I wouldn't get into them until a few years later.

Time After Time was my least favourite song
Time After Time was my least favourite song

Time After Time has always been my favourite. One of many ways me and Malkmus do not get on.

I doubt he meant it.

It’s funny that Pavement have been brought up because they’re a band that never really clicked with me, I think because the rabid fanbase vs quality of actual songs always seemed like a howling void

IDK, part of the appeal of Pavement is the deceptively slipshod quality that makes a listener think "I could have written that!" It collapses (or appears to collapse) the band/audience barrier, makes the experience of listening to them feel more intimate. The whole indie rock thing of "we're not rock stars, where just regular schlubs like you." It's a real parasocial relationship kind of thing. Especially if you first encounter them as an adolescent and the whole smart-but-slacking, impish smirk sort of vibe resonates with you (as it did with me).

For my part, I never clicked with REM! Outside of a handful of hits which are undeniably great, they just don't move me.

so we have consensus