Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

Out of Time is the worst of the Berry era.

Very high highs interspersed with songs that are just OK at best, or "belong" at worst.

in the past i've seen s reynolds talk of 'hidden shallows' in stipe's lyrics which seems like the oddest person to pick on for the simple reason that he's the only songwriter i've ever seen explicitly acknowledge the necessity to *never* be that sort of lyricist.

s reynolds doesn't seem like a talented enough writer to convincingly sing a line like "night time fell at the opening in the final act of the beginning of time" so it all comes out in the wash. not to overly white knight michael, who doesn't need it any more than like dylan or his hero p smith

Out of Time is the worst of the Berry era.

Would probably pick Automatic for this one

I love “hidden shallows” that’s very astute

I just scanned the lyrics on the offending Green songs and they don’t look so bad on the page. Idk! I just sat there today listening and thinking “wow wow wow I hate this”.

Also this particular thing is hard to describe, but I can really pick up on when a singer hasn’t taken the time to super-absorb the lyrics to a song so that they feel second nature in their delivery. Considering the insane lengths that Stipe must’ve gone to do deliver a song like “Sidewinder”, with all its nutty tight “callmewhenyoutrytowake her up”s and melodic leaps, like, it’s incredible that he was able to sing it so magically, it sounds like he’d been singing it for years. Nothing on Green sounds like that, there’s a kinda “still figuring it out” quality to the vocal performances which makes the lyrical choices feel even more last-minute and inessential

I listened to Monster too and it’s fine, I can’t get over how that one very-pretty song sounds exactly like Everybody Hurts and how Bang And Blame lifts its melody note-for-note from Losing My Religion. Do people like Tongue? I thought it was cute and fun

re: Stipe becoming the best singer in the world overnight, i remember a Bono quote from the early '90s saying something about that happening, how he'd suddenly morphed into this amazing crooner, just becoming the best singer around at the time.

Out of Time is the worst of the Berry era.

Would probably pick Automatic for this one

― a (waterface), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

lol I think Automatic is their best, full stop.

one very-pretty song sounds exactly like Everybody Hurts

That song is called “Love Theme From ‘The Bear’”

I listened to Monster too and it’s fine, I can’t get over how that one very-pretty song sounds exactly like Everybody Hurts and how Bang And Blame lifts its melody note-for-note from Losing My Religion. Do people like Tongue? I thought it was cute and fun

― as a lyricist he is from hell (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I really like Monster and I think it's aged well in their discography - no other REM album sounds like it.

I listened to it the other day and I had the realization that (although I like the song), "I Took Your Name" is the point where Peter Buck goes back to the same well one too many times.

I know it's Rolling Stone album guide received opinion, but those three early '90s megaplatinum albums are unfuckwithable.

That's me in the controps...

Alfred is right.

I will never not love these records. Ranking them is like choosing a favorite child. If I somehow had seven children.

REM's first ten albums (green is the first one i was semi-aware of at release) is the closest i think i'll ever come to live-experiencing the beatles. they were such a good band

Tongue is easily my Monster fave.

Radio Song is my least favorite track from the Berry days. Sooooo square and corny; there’s no room in my brain for Stipe and hip-hop together. Plus I’m just not into KRS-One.

I didn’t know Belong was considered a dud, that was one that helped win me over. There’s not a lot to it, but they’ve done much worse.

"belong" is the curative sequel to the displacement tragedy of "the wrong child"

Radio Song is weird, the A-section is so so good. The rest just makes. me. sad.

Like the world is collapsing.

One thing I would say about the big Warners albums…I don’t necessarily think of those albums as being much stronger on one side or another.

I would say that’s an issue with Reckoning, Life’s Rich Pageant and Document at least, they are to one extent or another frontloaded.

Document is probably the one I listen to most despite having a couple throwaway tracks. The first side is nearly perfect and the second is pretty good. I just love the IRS stuff overall way more than any of the Warners albums.

Automatic is maybe the actual BEST album here, but I rarely come back to it outside of a few songs. Monster is close behind it.

I like Green even though it feels a bit half-assed. The only times I saw them live were at the beginning and then the end of the Green tour, I was a super fan at that point. The early show absolutely ripped and was amazing. By the end of the tour, they felt like a different band, it was very lackluster despite having a similar setlist.

Out of Time feels like half of a decent album, some of the tracks are good to great, others are just miserable. It also felt rather half-assed and unfocused to me.

I don't like New Adventures whatsoever, never got the ILM love for that one.

i love Belong!!!

I've been listening to all their albums this week and have arrived at this ranking, which I'm sure will never be questioned nor debated.

Automatic for the People
Document
Monster
Murmur
Fables of the Reconstruction
Green
Reveal
Reckoning
Lifes Rich Pageant
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Up
Out of Time
Collapse into Now
Around the Sun
Accelerate

Does it ever happen when you’re driving and listening to music that you think about what would happen if you were to crash, and spend the final 20 minutes of your life gored in an upended car while the stereo plays out the rest of the album you’re currently listening to?

I had Tourfilm on VHS and loved it. "King of Birds" on that was really good.

At the time, I had no clue what "After Hours" was, I hadn't heard the Velvets yet.

my surely never questioned much less debated ranking

Murmur
"Chronic Town"
Fables of the Reconstruction
Lifes Rich Pageant
Green
Reckoning
Document
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Out of Time
Automatic for the People
Monster

post-Bill, in no particular order (Reveal; Up; Collapse into Now; Around the Sun; Accelerate)

i've watched the children come and go
a late long march into spring
i sit and watch those children jump in the tall grass
leap the sprinklers

she held the child
and whispered with calm, calm BELONG

i'm not supposed to be like this
BUT IT'S OKAY

it has been established that there is no incorrect REM album ranking, they are all correct in certain ways. even a strictly chronological ranking would be correct in some ways. my current power rankings are:

life's rich pageant
murmur
automatic
chronic town
reckoning
fables
document
green
new adventures
out of time
up
reveal
collapse, accelerate, around the sun

will gladly listen to any in full on a car ride except for that bottom line, and those have their moments

Fables is often underrated. Feeling Gravity’s Pull is great.

When the world is a monster
Bad to swallow you whole
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in
Throw your trolls out the door

and if the wind were colors
and if the air could speak

Holy shit, there is a bootleg of the first show of theirs I saw

https://archive.org/details/REM_1985-11-02/1985-11-02+CU+Events+Center%2C+Boulder%2C+Colorado/CD+1/Track+01.flac

27 songs!

will gladly listen to any in full on a car ride except for that bottom line, and those have their moments

― i really like that!! (z_tbd), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

At least Accelerate and Collapse put their worst songs at the very end, so the car ride would generally be tolerable until you just end the album early.

Do not get the hate for Accelerate, 3-4 tracks up there with their greats, for me.

xp

tbh i'm not sure i've ever even gotten to the end of those two, despite enjoying them more than around the sun.

xp

i don't hate accelerate, could never hate any rem, can't imagine it :)

btw, this is probably a very good place to ask this:

what is the relationship between rem and smashing pumpkins? i feel like i should know this, that i've known it and forgotten it, or something. but i was reminded of it when listening to the bonus disc of the Up reissue, which was the Party of Five show. at two different points in the set, stipe talks about smashing pumpkins and billy corgan. in the first, he reminisces about seeing smashing pumpkins at the same place and how it ruled. in the second, Stipe seems to mock corgan's vocal delivery on "disarm", and even says “I’m gonna write a melody that motherfucker will never touch in his life…and this is how it goes: “, before performing a not great, showy version of disarm with his own melody. the crowd cheers, and he says “can you imagine?”. that seems...extremely rude to do?

but then i google (which sucks now) corgan/rem and mainly see that they really respect each other?

excuse me, this is probably not possible, but is there anyone on the music forum that is familiar with the lore of underground bands rem AND smashing pumpkins?

Despite having been a huge teenage fan of both bands, I wasn’t aware of any connection beyond Mike Mills playing on a Siamese Dream track (“Soma”).

Is he to be reached?

there's an interview from 2011 (https://www.chicagotribune.com/redeye/redeye-qa-smashing-pumpkins-billy-corgan-20111011-story.html) where they all seem like friends:

Q: Obviously you’ve heard about R.E.M. breaking up. I’m guessing you’re someone who can appreciate the difficulty of keeping a band together over the long haul.

Corgan: I also know all those guys personally. Not, like, BFFs, but Mike Mills played on “Siamese Dream,” I’ve known Michael (Stipe) since 1991 and I’ve been to Peter Buck’s house and hung out. I know them as people, and I’m really surprised because if you said, “Name a band you don’t think will ever break up,” I would think of them.

so maybe the stage banter on the party of five show is just really ironic and i didn't pick up on it. hell, it's on the party of five thing, probably near L.A., perhaps corgan or his agent was in the crowd or something

R.E.M.'s session drummer at the time, Joey Waronker, got his "start" (beyond his music-biz family) in the band Walt Mink, who felt their career ambitions were derailed by Caroline label-mates Smashing Pumpkins. Maybe he put a bug in Stipe's ear...

Also, three of the R.E.M. guys had recently played on Whitechocolatespaceegg by Liz Phair – who is, like the Pumpkins, from Chicago (and doesn't seem like she would have been tight w/Corgan, if they know each other at all). Just grasping at straws here!

joey waronker also played drums on "Perfect"!

this is also beck's fault

honestly though, curious if anyone else who listened to that party of five recording thought stipe was trying to be cruel (that's what i thought, on first listen!) to corgan re: "disarm" or if it was a joke that didn't land with me (happens constantly!)

Fables still my favorite. Barely. In the “which one could you never ever part with” sense.

Do not get the hate for Accelerate, 3-4 tracks up there with their greats, for me.

― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, November 17, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I don't hate Accelerate, even as I put it last in my ranking. Each of the last three have one or two songs that I really dislike--a rare thing for an REM album! And each has three or four that I think are great. So the difference between them ultimately comes down to the middle pack of songs - how many are just average or just a little better than average? So it's really all just a matter of degree.

OoT from the platinum menu

joey waronker also played drums on "Perfect"!

He was taking 'em down from the inside!!!

i just listened the bit on the up reissue bonus disc where stipe briefly does "disarm" (it's after "i'm not over you"). he talks about how he'd written his first ever song on acoustic guitar and showed it to corgan backstage at the tibet house benefit concert in 1997 (where they'd performed together, doing "e-bow the letter" with patti smith), who pointed out that the chords were just disarm (which stipe briefly covers there), and stipe said he took it as a challenge to write a better melody than "disarm", which he then performs wordlessly - i guess he never turned that idea into a full song? it's just stipe telling a funny story about how he accidentally ripped off corgan when writing a song. they're friends, it doesn't seem mean-spirited at all.

He (unconsciously) ripped off "Disarm," and then happened to play the song for Corgan? What a weird story