Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Bow_the_Letter#Release_and_impact

Some interesting quotes here

Many a time I've seen people say 'they should have gone with Bittersweet Me'/'The Wake Up Bomb'. Come on

In the UK, hardcore fans buying the CD single definitely did not mean popularly was peaking

Yeah that's my point. It was the charts that were changing.

Having said that, releasing something like Bittersweet Me or The Wake Up Bomb would be a case of Monster II or songs that sound like single #3 offerings, so why not go for the more out there offering

'96 was a year for it - The 13th, Who You Are, What's in the Box?

"e-bow the letter" is a fucking masterpiece. among the best of their best.

single or no.

the most obvious hit on hi-fi to me is “electrolite,” even tho it wasn’t one lol

it was in the UK. Actually reckon it would have been a decent shout for the lead single

The best songs on NAiHF are "Undertow" and "Departure" fwiw, both rockers but neither in any way Monster redux, they're just kind of their own thing that the band decided to do for this record and didn't really return to

xpost Electrolite was indeed not a big hit but a single of moderate success here. I suppose like Bittersweet Me it doesn't scream return or artistic rebirth like Kenneth etc

"E-Bow the Letter" is great if you're the kind of person who thinks "Country Feedback" is the best song they ever wrote, and I do recognize that some members of the band are this kind of person.

idk. Out of love for ivy. I gave “E-Bow” another shot but it just sounds worse and worse to me after repeated listens. Bonorap was too kind really, the lyrics even look OK in places but just come blustering out and it’s bad, it’s bad! “Maria Callas… wherever she is” she’s dead. This is the second time of many that a lyric is just a celebrity name and whenever a songwriter does this I think of Italian restaurants with celerities on the walls, Stipe looking around the photographs for lyrical inspiration. If this song came out and I ran into a Michael Stipe I’d grab him by the shoulder and say “Maria Callas: name ten songs”

I think the glam on Hi-Fi is more fully realised and confident than on Monster. Which isn't a criticism of the latter album at all, mind.

As for me, despite the number of times I've listened to this record, I had to go back and play "E-Bow" to remember which song it was. Oh yeah, that one!

is it worse that it’s actually:

dreaming of maria callas
whoever she is

Never can forget Andy Partridge referring to it as 'E-Bow Shite'

And an album late as well. He was talking about it in 1999 like it was still their latest thing.

this fame thing
i don’t get it
i wrap my hand in plastic and try to look through it
maybelline eyes and girl-as-boy moves

about a billion million times better than anything bono ever wrote imo

To be fair I can't really get behind releasing your uncommercial artistic statement single first if it doesn't actually cause any fireworks beyond your hardcore fans. Is there any point whatsoever, beyond not having an suitable/'interesting' lead single

*a

To be fair there is also the parallel 90s alt rock thing of having a specific fanbase-catering first single before the second single is there to set things up properly. Losing My Religion and Smells Like Teen Spirit were both intended as such. Key word is intended ofc.

Drive would be another that actually was just the fanbase single before Man on the Moon and beyond got it going.

i think: whatever, it’s an amazing song, buck’s e-bow part is such a light-viewed-through-smoke kind of thing it deserves to be name checked in the title, and as a lead single it is ultimately representative of hi-fi’s vibe, bc it sounds like something that fell out of someone’s mind at 3 am on a tour bus on a long ride from nowhere to nowhere

I believe that the likes of Losing My Religion etc had a shot in the dark, whereas E-Bow was more here's an odd album track that's 'different'

I guess because it was just by now 1996. R.E.M. hadn't realised, or chose to ignore, that doing that wasn't really on the cards for them anymore (as it wasn't for the Cure, Pearl Jam etc)

Indeed

“E-Bow” is a whole vibe… I guess you either feel it or you don’t. I can’t see picking apart the lyrics; their delivery and the music just works so well for me.

(An exception to the rule: Depeche Mode? Because I'd say (at least in the UK) It's No Good is certainly better known, such as it is, than (the higher charting bcuz 1997 etc) Barrel of a Gun.)

(sorry, I didn’t mean to echo Ivy‘s recent post, the whole thread hadn’t loaded yet… and it’s much better than mine, lol)

Anyway yes E-Bow is perfection

I might have a fonder view of E-Bow song had it not been the lead single. Who knows

Fwiw, I don’t like the rest of the album at all, so I disagree that it’s representative

E-Bow is all about that Patti Smith finale, Stipe’s lyrics take a big backseat otherwise.

Barrel Of A Gun I remember being a song that charted high based on the fact Dave Gahan was still alive, which in hindsight might have been unfair

It took a tumble from 4 > 23. Worse than E-Bow's 4 > 15 but generally consistent in light of Blur's intervening 1 > 7 and U2's 1 > 6. Suddenly Iron Maiden weren't such a punchline anomaly anymore.

Beyond Horses and maybe including some of that, I've come to think of Smith as more a vibe than an interesting artist - her actual music is pretty dull for me, Springsteen cover, "People Have the Power" etc are just shrug inducing. Having read M Train I came away thinking there wasn't anything I had missed, she's an example of self-belief as self-actualisation, nothing to declare but oneself. A long way of saying I find "E-Bow" and her contribution pretty slight. I do like the lyrics ivy cited tho, and if it was just a deep cut on NAIHF I would like it more.

I'm prepared to be schooled tho.

i don’t enjoy her work as a memoirist but i don’t think that impacts how i feel about her music, she has several great songs and albums beyond horses

going for an unconventional lead single with "e-bow" was the wrong move after monster was relatively poorly-received - "bittersweet me" would have been the safe choice yeah, or even "electrolite"? they could manage to have "drive" as a lead single coming off the huge success of out of time, but couldn't get away with something like that after monster.

I mean they knew what they were doing, it just didn’t pay off (commercially) this time:

MICHAEL STIPE: We did have an ability to release the most unlikely songs just to push radio as far as we could push them, get more good music on the radio. And there was… for a while. “E-Bow The Letter” sounded the death knell for us being able to do that! But I think it represents some of my best writing.

“Bittersweet Me” sucks IMO, it sounds like R.E.M. half-assedly writing an “R.E.M.-sounding@ song… a real “the gig is up” moment. Even the bad songs on OOT were adventurous, in a way.

their ability to succeed with challenging songs on the radio was limited after monster was a relative flop, which is why it was the wrong move. if "e-bow" had followed aftp then they'd have been much more likely to get away with it

“Bittersweet Me” sucks IMO

you continue to be wrong about the album and this song. love the kind of shimmy-across-a-deserted landscape feel of this song (“i move across the earth in my new pattern shirt”) and it features one of the last great mike mills backing vocals

oh my peer
your veneer is wearing thin and cracking
the surface informs the underneath
the underneath is lacking

^^^ my favorite rem lyric ever

I like the way the verse, prechorus and chorus are in three different keys that they manage to weave together naturally.

their ability to succeed with challenging songs on the radio was limited after monster was a relative flop

I get what you're saying, OOT was a huge smash and so they could afford to be risky with "Drive," but they were intentionally pushing the envelope with "E-Bow" and not worrying about these considerations. Maybe "Bittersweet Me" wouldn't even have done so (modestly) well if it had been the lead single instead of the follow-up? Idk

Just speaking as a fan, "E-Bow" had me super excited (I bought the CD single before the album came out)... if "BM" had been the pre-album single, I would've been like, "uh oh"

I think the glam on Hi-Fi is more fully realised and confident than on Monster. Which isn't a criticism of the latter album at all, mind.

― you can see me from westbury white horse,

otm