Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

gave Green a fresh listen last night, and I'm not as down on it as fgti, but it's always been near the bottom for me and i don't think that'll ever change. some lovely songs in there, and a couple of great rockin' performances in desperate need of more developed lyrics. but a lot of it feels underwritten and overproduced to me. like whatever it is that people don't like about Fables, that's how this album plays for me.

How the West Was Won is a bridge to Up. Not intentionally - that song came together quickly and was a breeze to work on, compared to Up's laborious, detail-intensive creation - but they share the same open-ended, downtempo coffee table feel. Definitely one of the two best free jazz piano breaks from a rock single around this time too (with The Heart's Filthy Lesson).

The only song I don't straight up love on Green quite as much as the others is the untitled one, which ig isn't part of the core body anyway, but that gets by almost entirely on spirit and feel - the sound of a group discovering a new way of doing things in real time.

Yeah! I thought that about “How The West”, it was obviously not Garson but it was inspired by him. What a great production that song is. Also AAAAAAAAAA.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082274490319

Siri wouldn’t play “Up”, it kept putting on Ariana Grande instead, so I asked it to play “Reveal”. I don’t like this. It sounds like Robbie Williams demos. Stipe is clearly doing the work tho, the songs are nice.

I'm one of this board's lone Reveal defenders. I really love how of its time it sounds - in the sense that most of it embodies this sunshine pop feel that is *very* much my version of 2001 (liminal early childhood sounds) bcuz of its similarities to Gregg Alexander's genuinely great hits with Ronan Keating and Texas, or something like Travis' Sing which has this lite-psych production with lots of sonic details dancing warmly over the music.

hate the hot takes in this thread, “e-bow” is so shudderingly beautiful, my favorite rem song for a while (still???). these corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet

the mellotron!

i guess on the surface it is a super weird and ungainly thing to release as a single but the titular e-bow and patti smith’s vocal just glow

god knows why anytime stipe does a spoken word thing i am like banging my hands on a table and hooting and hollering

All the boys and all the girls
Sweet-toothed
Each and every one a little scary
I said your name

Yeah, "E-Bow" was the last R.E.M. song I loved (or even really liked, I guess).

I was on a boring camping holiday and travelled two hours to buy “E-Bow” on cassingle, the day it came out, at Norwich Our Price. The glamour!!!

I love it but the end section where Patti sings “tastes like fear” always pulls me out a bit, because it’s a bit silly, and I always sing “tastes like feet”. Otherwise it’s fantastic. It’s one of those classic REM songs that doesn’t sound like anything else.

“Reveal” (and “Around The Sun”) had me hyper-aware of Stipe’s confidence-growth as a songwriter, there is a moment toward the end of “Saturn Return” (on Reveal) where he’s just so exposed and confident and it felt like the total inversion of the early IRS records, where he was the appealingly shy guy in front of a taut and extroverted backing band

The last song on Reveal, “Beachball”, is kinda lovely, but the real faceplant is “I’ll Take The Rain” right before it, it’s almost a heart warmer but something about it just trips and falls. I don’t think I noticed before that “Imitation Of Life” is somewhat of a clips episode, lyric-wise, lots of little nods to previous songs, what a great song

Oh and that second song? “I’ve Been High”? Wow. What a series of bad production decisions. Jaw-dropping!

Around The Sun is really specific in its failure, the entire production/songwriting has shifted away from “every part is essential” to being this kinda mealy fruit salad of “things”. It’s very under-mixed compared to the other albums, lots of room, and I kept wondering what it’d be like if it was as punchy and compressed as, say, Out Of Time, but truth is none of the instrumental components are/were worth bringing to the forefront. Could be a casualty of early-ProTools creative tendencies? Either way, like Reveal, Stipe sounds just as committed as ever. It’s nice to hear this band in its “falling off” stage and know it’s not because the songs themselves are weak.

I'm one of this board's lone Reveal defenders. I really love how of its time it sounds - in the sense that most of it embodies this sunshine pop feel that is *very* much my version of 2001 (liminal early childhood sounds) bcuz of its similarities to Gregg Alexander's genuinely great hits with Ronan Keating and Texas, or something like Travis' Sing which has this lite-psych production with lots of sonic details dancing warmly over the music.

Opening song “The Lifting” definitely did this for me, yeah, but the rest of it was pretty floppy

drawing patterns with a cork on the tablecloth
promising volcanic change of plot

a nice thing i'll say about reveal is that i adore buck's guitar playing on it, like "saturn return" is a hard song for me to enjoy but his guitar work is full of these clear yet desperately bent notes clawing out of this noisy mass and it's imo the the peak of the kind of composition and tone he'd been working toward since monster

The best REM song I heard today was “Leave”. It overstays its welcome and ends half-heartedly but I don’t care, what a wonderful send-off for Berry

The worst REM songs I heard today were all off of “Reveal”. Either “I’ve Been High” or “She Just Wants To Be”. And the song on ATS with Q-Tip on it, it’s not conceptually bad but the rap stinks and so does the song before it

And yes ivy. you are otm

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

― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, November 17, 2023 12:37 PM (yesterday)

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

The Micky Dolenz EP is nice. He brings out a lot of cool elements of the songs and the fact that it spans "Radio Free Europe" to "Leaving New York" is a nice way of making it all one.

I have Up last but I like it a lot. It has fricking "Hope" on it, come on.

I was surprised by Dolenz' version of "Man on the Moon," actually. It's idiosyncratic, and not a real anthemic version.

gave Reveal a fresh listen after all the talk. it's still a very mixed bag and i still only really like the same handful of songs i always did. but for the last few days I've had all these different bits stuck in my head, of songs I *don't* like --- especially All the Way to Reno and Chorus and the Ring.

so i guess i have to admit that there's great melodic material scattered all throughout the record... let down by lugubrious tempos and some really dull, over-repeated refrains. the verse and prechorus of Reno are fantastic, and all the dreamy-buzzy-bee accents add a lot. but then that chorus arrives and i'm instantly bored.

The Lifting is so good though. i think of this as such a keyboard-and-production album, but as with Airportman on Up, those smeary waves of fuzzed-out guitar are really really essential. pretty straight line from Monster to "Be Mine" to where he ends up on these albums, as far from his previously iconic sound as George Harrison when he switched to the slide.

Document has been a rough relisten- half of the songs sound like they would’ve been better by the B-52s (they would’ve fared much better with the “Strange” cover imho)

The Bear confirmed that "Oh My Heart" is a great last-gasp REM song.

^Yeah, that got me interested to at least revisit the album.

Oh My Heart bugs me just because it's a callback to "Houston", and the melody of the verses on both songs doesn't really seem worthy of two songs. But I do like the chorus on both.

I may like both "Walk It Back" and "Every Day Is Yours to Win" better than that one.

"oh my heart" was the thing that got me to go back and check out everything from the beginning. i still like it.

i made a list
of things to say
but all i want to say
all i really want to say is

You gotta hear Micky Dolenz do this part of "Leaving New York"

And all not lost, still in my eye
Shadow of necklace across your thigh
I might've lived my life in a dream, but I swear, this is real
Memory fuses and shatters like glass
Mercurial future, forget the past
It's you, it's what I feel

Was on a 7 hour solo car drive and went through their discography and I can still confirm Up rules. “The Apologist” is something else.

I took a break from my big listen-through but I’m gonna finish today. It’s been nice hearing REM ambiently (in grocery stores, in restaurant playlists) and have this deeper familiarity and affection for the band

i really like collapse into now now, it’s better realized and more consistent than accelerate, my only issue is the tempos feel a little rushed throughout, which obv makes me continue to miss bill berry, a drummer i often think of as nervy and taut in the post-punk tradition until i remember what he’s doing on stuff like “how the west was won” and “drive” is soo patient and spacious

there is a moment toward the end of “Saturn Return” (on Reveal) where he’s just so exposed and confident

I'm having a hard time picking up what this thread is ranking, and searched for eephus and found a lot of baseball posts.

Sometimes I wonder if a 28 year old find early REM like early Go-Between's. Like, what is this weird jangle band?

anyway, did they have a more anthemic chorus than "here we are"?

when I was a kid just getting into alternative rock, REM seemed like rock music for “smart” people

Sometimes I wonder if a 28 year old find early REM like early Go-Between's. Like, what is this weird jangle band?

no? there's a long history of jangle-pop in indie rock so those have always made sense as the beginnings of that tradition

Up kinda rules. I haven’t heard it in 20+ years. The biggest surprise is all these secret string arrangements hiding in the mix, all super interesting but barely they’re like an intricately painted matte backdrop. “Hope” is amazing! I wasn’t aware of the L Cohen connection but it was extremely obvious without any foreknowledge, and I was listening and thinking that the song elevated both Cohen and Stipe as songwriters rather than feeling like a lift, it more felt like Stipe made a pilgrimage to drink from the same fountain. Generally the songs consistently plod and feel, well, not unfinished, but they lack the same investment and worshipped-feel that Hi-Fi had. As “lesser albums” go you can’t really do better than this imo

*barely there

*workshopped-feel. Man my phone doesn’t agree with my style choices

up is way better than you would expect from 'the drummer left the band and they all got into synths & drum machines', especially given how unsuited on paper they seemed to that pivot. not everything works on it (there's definitely a tendency to plod) and i don't know if all the ideas on it really hold together overall but it's definitely a success. i wish "daysleeper" had a gorgeous overlapping backing vocal part from mills, that's what would elevate it to greatness.

"Hope" is by far the best song on the record for production/melody/singing/whatnot, IMO. It might be the only keeper for me.

"You're in the Air" is gorgeous, but, like "Diminished" it doesn't feel fully-formed. There's sort of a pre-Arcade Fire template to several of the songs on this album - all these mid-paced rock songs that start to accelerate and build as they go on... but I don't love Arcade Fire and REM don't really have the stupid swagger to pull it off.

There's a nice demo of "Why Not Smile" that I prefer to the finished version:

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

always on board for some up love. if we polled best rem album opener, "airportman" would get my vote.

That would be an interesting poll.

How the tracks were polled and where it got us

I think it’s the best possible opener for Up but there’s no way I’d vote for “Airportman” over RFE, Harborcoat, Finest Worksong, Pop Song 89, Drive, HTWWWAWIGU, or even The Lifting, I’m afraid!

It’d def beat out Radio Song tho

Lol @ fgti.

I ate the POLLtus

Oddly even tho I rate Harborcoat higher as an REM song overall, “best opening track” has to be Finest Worksong imo