Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

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

and "Bittersweet Me"'s use of the fuzz on the chorus is the entirety of Monster's ethos perfected.

Monster, for better or worse, sounds like they tried to make a 90s Sonic Youth record (outside the main singles).

idk, the notion of the “glam” tag on Monster has always seemed laughable, even more so trying to tie it with NAIHF

yeah i have no idea what they ever meant by the 'glam' thing, or the notion that it was "rock in quotation marks"?

they were definitely more successful at rocking on new adventures

I say this a lot but Monster sounds pretty Britpop to me. Echobelly as an influence does make sense. My friend thinks it sounds like 90s Fall a bit too, which I sort of hear.

But as 'glam', Kenneth, Eyeliner, I Took Your Name etc are quite timid and boxed in next to The Wake-Up Bomb and Undertow. Developing the latter songs live may have helped. Maybe ditto being friends with Radiohead (the song The Bends is a good analogue I think)

a lot of britpop and britpop adjacent stuff sounds pretty glam rock anwayway - Suede, Denim, Your Arsenal era Morrissey. Oasis sounded more like Slade or ELO than they did the Beatles, there's lot of Blur stuff that sounds like Bowie or Roxy Music

Well yeah that's the thing. Every Britpop (or adjacent) band of note has glam stuff. This feeds into R.E.M. anyway because Pulp and Suede were specific influences on Monster, at least according to Stipe when the 25 set came out, and Blur and Oasis opened for them in 95.

Specific inspirations might be closer actually

Star 69 really sounds like Blur to me, it's got that queasy fairground waltzer thing - it's funny to think about REM being indirectly inspired by Cardiacs

pulp being an influence on monster would be pretty weird just given the timeframes

Yeah agreed. Michael might be getting the reality a bit mixed up but who knows.

Ivy otm re: Patti Smith

And I like that girl-as-boy lyric on the page, very much, it’s just delivered so non-specifically in the song that it loses any potency. Glad other people like that song! I don’t even like the instrumental

I misjudged my driving-to-flight schedule today and had to make a 2h30m drive in 1h45m. I pushed this Passat to the limit and averaged 180-200 km/h in the left lane on the autobahn while appropriately listening to Accelerate

I was mostly interested in Jacknife’s production, he is the finest of the “stock rock” producers and it was great to hear him make everything two-dimensional after the under-thought over-overdubbed blurriness of Around The Sun (which I didn’t hate). Jacknife is such an efficient rock producer and the band and Stipe just sounded extremely quotidian in an excellent way.

The songs just kinda passed by without much impression. I seemed to recall somebody citing “Hollow Man” as a late-period clunker but I didn’t mind it. I disliked “Houston” but I dislike any lyric that tosses off place names or celebrity names without any real reason. “Mr Richards” was fun, not quite acerbic enough to match Morrissey but good nonetheless.

I was mostly preoccupied with a theoretical, like, “what if REM worked with Albini instead on this?” The drumming was harder but less agile than Berry and I thought it might’ve been an interesting late-stage experiment…

… and then suddenly “Sing For The Submarine” started and I was grinning wildly, what is this? And it just ramped up harder and faster and I think Michael actually sang “fuck” on “Horse To Water”? (A first?) and I think I have a new favourite post-Hi-Fi track. “I’m Gonna DJ” reminded me of the cynical early-90s “make a joke, score a hit” songs, but the joke was funny and I felt thrilled! Like thrilled!! and then the album ended suddenly and segued into “Sex Type Thing” and I never felt so disappointed, just when it felt like the band was about to break the sound barrier.

Those three last tracks are so good, maybe my favourite run-of-three of this band since the 80s. For them alone this might get my vote for “best post-Berry album”.

Collapse Into Now sucked in comparison. “Oh My Heart” is great, the Peaches duet is great, the Marlon Brando song is better than people made it out to be. The rest is mostly pass-able (as in “I’ll pass”)

“All The Best” is a real shark jump, lyrically. I just googled it and it’s “I’ll show the kids how to do it / fine, fine, fine” but when Stipe sings it, it’s “I’ll show the kids how to do it fine” and I made a face. Maybe not as bad as “leaving was never my proud” but it’s pretty bad.

Overall it was nice to hear a lot of Mills bgvs and some nice mandolins stuff. I really don’t like “Discoverer”.

“Blue” was a cool last-ever album track, the song isn’t much of anything but it sounds like Stipe is frantically flipping through his lyric sheets and blathering a bunch of gems he never found a place for. Patti works well here, she sounds like Charon in a death scene, carting Stipe away into the afterworld. I was left feeling satisfied…

… but then Buck comes in for the final word? God no, it’s a fucking reprise of “Discoverer”. Go away REM! I’ve had enough!

My shame is that I’ve never listened to Dead Letter Office (or Chronic Town!) and I will but for today it is:

Murmur
Automatic
Reckoning
Hi-Fi
Pageant
Out Of Time
Document
Monster
Accelerate
Up
Around The Sun
Fables
Collapse Into Now
Reveal
Green

wow that's really low for fables. chronic town is maybe the very best thing they ever did. dead letter office on the other hand is not that interesting as far as b-sides comps go

Michael actually sang “fuck” on “Horse To Water”? (A first?)

"star me kitten"!

+ Country Feedback, Ignoreland, What's the Frequency Kenneth, Departure, maybe some others I'm forgetting

Yeah I don’t like Fables really at all, it’s an “ugh turn this off” album; mostly because of the mix, the guitar so loud and the rhythm section non-existent. “Driver 8” is irresistible tho, I feel like everybody always says exactly this about Fables

What’s The Frequency, Fuckwad? a poll of every REM song in which Stipe sings the F-word

"life and how to live it" too! it's the weakest of their first four and the mix is worse but it's still very good, no real duds and the highs are up with their very best

Artists who had UK No. 1 albums in the 90s with F bombs but no Parental Advisory sticker*
R.E.M. - 4
Suede, Pink Floyd - 2
The Cure, Carter USM, the Cult, Nirvana, Prodigy, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Pulp, U2, the Verve, Manics - 1

*the ones I can think of anyway

a lyric is just a celebrity name

Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein

Yeah I don’t like Fables really at all, it’s an “ugh turn this off” album; mostly because of the mix, the guitar so loud and the rhythm section non-existent. “Driver 8” is irresistible tho, I feel like everybody always says exactly this about Fables

― meaner stinks meat bake it cone (flamboyant goon tie included),

My man.

I’m not crazy about the mix on fables either but jesus the material is so good it just doesn’t matter

(I’ve settled on a vinyl rip as my go-to FotR version these days)

There was discussion about a rerun of the R.E.M. poll, hopefully we haven't exhausted the topic here. Or maybe we don't run polls anymore?

i think rogermexico has been listed to do it for ages, i'd be interested in it for sure and could help with tabulation

@ Jon Not Jon it’s not just the mix, it’s the endless minor keyness of it all, the jangle replaced with distorted lead guitar, it’s pleasureless to me; Pageant feels of the same piece but in every way a corrective

I have a lot of thoughts about Stipe and his decade-long development as a lyricist, I typed like 5000 words on my phone during takeoff. I think he settled, around Automatic, and onwards, on a very specific kind of colourlessness, he sought to “create a mood” rather than say anything meaningful. I think it’s an influential approach (The National, Grizzly Bear) and I can think of few precedents for Stipe’s “thing”— less Cohen or Smith, more T-Rex era Marc Bolan

bolan is a good call

xp morrisp I don't agree that NAIHF sucks per se, but I think you're right that there are cracks in the facade on this album.
To put it succinctly, I think their ability to objectively value their material begins to slip here. NAIHF has a surge of lesser material (what is the difference between 'Wake Up Bomb' and 'So Fast, So Numb'?) releasing ebow as a single, leaden setlists from this era, etc.etc.

the kind of quality control problems of the National begin here.

what is the difference between 'Wake Up Bomb' and 'So Fast, So Numb'?

The first has a sterling hook, the second does not.

no way, the latter has an amazing chorus

i don’t think there’s a single bad song on hi-fi tho. they could’ve cut “binky the doormat” i guess but i love the mike mills “go away” counterpoint in that one

as i’m so given to say, the sprawl suits it. it’s a road album, road albums should be a little long and unwieldy (the only other example i can think of is lonesome crowded west)

new adventures is too long but largely gets away with its sprawl somehow and is one of their most consistent albums for sure. i noticed recently that the start of the verse in "leave" sounds like "when doves cry"

it’s the endless minor keyness of it all, the jangle replaced with distorted lead guitar

yeah fables is very much their Post-Punk album but i enjoy their take on it. not many post-punk albums have mills on backing vocals doing his incredible thing and it might just be their best album for that. so many tracks have really cool overlapping vocal parts!

Halfway there: no objection to a poll as long as it gets titled "Feeling Gravity's POLL."

^That name was already used for a Fables poll thread!

xp morrisp I don't agree that NAIHF sucks per se, but I think you're right that there are cracks in the facade on this album (…) releasing ebow as a single, leaden setlists from this era, etc.etc.

I’m glad someone agrees! (lol), but I’m still nonplussed by the critique of releasing “E-Bow” as a (first) single. It’s far & away the best song! And even if you disagree – they made the album they made, and were a super-famous band… would it really have sold much better if the singles were switched around?* I think it’s admirable they were still trying to “push radio forward”… anyway, they had already re-upped w/Warner so had nothing to prove.

*I guess it really could have & I could be totally off-base here.

Morrisp dang, I should have checked. Upon reflection I am not surprised.

Have we done Automatic for the PeoPOLL?

POLL On Me? DaysleePOLL? New Test LePOLL? Shiny Happy PeoPOLL?

i was once a member of the fables cult and swore up and down it was easily their best. i've cooled on it over the past little while, but going back to their best openers: "feeling gravity's pull" is very important to that conversation.