Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

I saw them a bunch in the pre-Warner days. The tour for Green was the last time I caught them. It was clear something had changed; the show was a lot more polished, and as a result the awkward weirdness that was part of what made their earlier gigs so good was gone. I feel kind of the same about the albums. So, I'd say that of these, Document would be my pick.

I agree with these results but I might switch Green & Document. It's pretty close. The quieter songs on Green are so good, "You Are The Everything" is definitely on of there best slow jams.

"The voices talking somewhere in the house, late spring
And you're drifting off to sleep with your teeth in your mouth"

Sigh.

I went through a couple years in high school where I thought I was bisexual, mainly because I was so swoony for Stipe. Eventually I realized it wasn't a sexual thing, I was just so fascinated by him.

jimb- really cool you got to see them "in the early days" as it were. i always rewatch that clip of "so.central rain" from letterman because here they are on national television and, dave: "what's the title?" band: "lolidk" very classic.

lots of other thoughts re:green, but "orange crush" still kinda usurps all of em. big tune.

anyway 4 of the band's current top 5 on spotify come from automatic or out of time. lots of chat about the band's legacy - do people just consider the 80s records quaint beginnings with their dedicated cult at this point?

Inspired by this thread, I am listening to Reckoning for the first time in ages. It still sounds fresh and surprising.

it's their best.

"You Are The Everything" immortalized in Beverly Hills 90210 episode where Dylan McKay dreams about his dad.

new adventures is the clear choice here

otm

1. NAiH-F
2. AftP
3. Document
4. Monster
5. Out of Time
6. Green

^ that's how I'd rate them

Sometimes I feel like there is only really one sister-city as far as R.E.M. is concerned and that is James

1. Green
2. Monster
----------
3. AftP (tho I never really listen to it anymore)
----------
...I don't like the others very much

New Adventures would walk this poll in 2023

Sometimes I feel like there is only really one sister-city as far as R.E.M. is concerned and that is James

James opened for them on the . . . Life's Rich Pageant tour? Sometime around then.

Camper Van Beethoven also opened for them in the mid-80s, they were kinda sorta in the same vein.

OOT
New Adv
Document
Monster
Automatic
Green

Maybe I need to go back and give New Adventures another shot. I remember liking the song with Patti Smith.

1. Document
2. Green
3. Out of Time

but not sure where I rank them after that. Agree with others that NAiHf has risen in people's estimation a lot. It's still, for me, a record with high points that I never ever feel like listening to straight through. Document, on the other hand, has lost nothing for me in the what, 35 years since the year I spent listening to it every day.

The quieter songs on Green are so good

hard agree - my keepers off this would be hair shirt, world leader pretend and you are the everything.

and the wrong child! that's on green, right?

Yeah, and I think it’s my favourite on it

On my long drive today I’ve been listening to the entire discography in order. Haven’t heard some of these albums in 10+ years

Reckoning not as good as I remember, Fables is worse than I remember; Murmur is perfect, Life’s Rich Pageant is perfect. That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far

It’s really interesting to hear how formulaic the band are on Murmur, all the songs are Stipe-Buck call and response, same tempo (except a couple). Lyrics oblique always. Interesting to hear topicality develop on Reckoning (esp “Rockville”). Interesting to hear what a minor-key mess Fables is, poorly mixed too, but also the template for so many later REM slow songs (“Wendel Gee”) and some gems I’d forgotten. Pageant is good as hell dunno why people underrate it

lifes rich pageant is their best, a refinement of everything that came before and managing to sound bigger without losing anything like they started to with document

Love all these albums and pretty much everything on them but here's my ranking

1. Automatic
2. Green
3. Document
4. Out of Time
5. Hi-Fi
6. Monster

Yeah, moving on to Document was like getting whiplash. Litt set the band on fire. “Finest Worksong” sounds like they’re nuking the IRS offices. Document feels like 12 attempts at a #1 single, the “2nd (and 3rd) verse, same as the 1st” writing is annoying but it weirdly works on “The One I Love” because of the subtle variations in Stipe’s delivery, and the strength of the lyric, I guess. “It’s The End…” contains a higher word count than the rest of the album combined (with repetition excluded). Every song feels one reprise too long. Man tho “Finest Worksong” is such a hit

And yeah Pageant is so, so good. I think the highest point of R.E.M. v1.0 remains the A-side of Reckoning, but Murmur and Pageant are the best overall

It’s shocking listening to Murmur again, all I remembered was Stipe in mumblemode but listening again it’s all about the Wire’d up band, it’s exhilarating

1. Out of Time is ridiculously beautiful throughout, the electicism is the point, the KRS-One vocal is great, Mike and Michael never sound better, I love every second.

2. Automatic has many of their best melodies, the sequencing is their best since Murmur, some points off for the lull around the start of the B-Side. Also, I massively overlistened to both OOT and AFTP as a a teenager, but OOT still sounds fresh to me.

3. Green! It's great. All the slow stuff is amazing. The Untitled track is very sweet. I don't really dig the stadium rock/pop bits.

4. Document has a lot of filler beside the obvious classics. It clicked with me as a kid, but not as an adult.

I like but don't love ther other two.

Or: Out of Time > Murmur/Chronic Town > Automatic/Reckoning > Fables/Paegant/Document >>>> The rest

The second side of OTT has some of the band's most beautiful music up to that point, and I include the kudzu tunes of Murmur. It took a decade to figure out how to write "Me in Honey" and "Half a World Away."

This'll be easier for me - songs I'm not so bothered about:

Actually no it's just one: I Took Your Name. Which is still perfectly fine, and was a great live opener. But I don't think the album would lose much were it not there.

I am going to controp here.

Out of Time

Green

Fables

Document

Automatic

But of course I love all of those so much that the ranking is absurd and subject to change. Plus I don't even know where to put Up, Reckoning, Murmur, Monster, Dead Letter Office. New Adventures.

All I know is that I was hooked instantly by Fables, but they'd lost me before Around the Sun, with one exception. "Imitation of Life." Still the only post-Up song I can stand (in the place where I live)

Christ I forgot to put LRP in but it's somewhere close to the top

I’m curious why you guys like LRP so much (not that it’s an option in this poll). That album is so “mid”… it kicks off with a muddy, somewhat generic midtempo rocker, and never really improves much from there.

have you even heard “these days”

the only time i saw rem live (2003) they opened with “world leader pretend” and “these days,” i didn’t own either album they belonged to at the time and i was like WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

these days-fall on me-cuyahoga is as good as it gets imo

I’m curious why you guys like LRP so much (not that it’s an option in this poll). That album is so “mid”… it kicks off with a muddy, somewhat generic midtempo rocker, and never really improves much from there.

― Phair · Jagger/Richards · Carl Perkins (morrisp)

It kicks off with their crunchiest rocker to date, helped largely by Don Gehman's mix. Stipe sounds so confident as a rock singer. The first three tracks are boom boom boom.

I've heard "These Days" (ha ha), but I don't find it to be a ton more distinctive than "Begin the Begin." It's fine! I never really want/need to hear these songs again, tho

“BtB” is like riding an express train, whereas “These Days” is like surfing a train derailment.

The first four of the b-side of LRP are also spectacular. Not a fan of Swan Swan H or the last track

I like "Superman" and I am always surprised to learn it was a considerable college hit in '86.

this is perfection in every way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcP7TxLnd9M

So is "Endgame."

The abrupt stop of "Begin the Begin" -- you take a breath, just still in the process of realizing the song is really over -- and then the guitar of "These Days" just fucking HITS

I like the trivia factoid that the original "Superman" by The Clique was based off a riff from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The REM version obscures this relation so that most people wouldn't notice it.

Re-listening to those opening tracks of LRP, I guess I hear them as early (and somewhat clumsy) attempts to write/record the kind of rock anthems that they eventually perfected on Green.

I do really like "I Believe," forgot about that one... though I feel like it could have been recorded better, something about the album's sound is just flat & dull.

there aren't many r.e.m. b-sides that are fully fleshed-out songs so i'm always a little blown away that out of time has two and they're two of the best r.e.m. songs ever, "fretless" and "it's a free world baby"

My college station played "Fretless" a lot thanks to the UTEOTW soundtrack.

Near Wild Heaven is the best R.E.M. song

And one of my 20 favourite singles by anyone ever