Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

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.

If I was going to ask a random-REM-poll-type question, it would be "Make an album as strong as Automatic For the People" from post-Automatic tracks.

I don't think it's possible! But still wondering...

No.

what do you do if you think they just got better over the next three albums?

Releasing "E-Bow" as the first single feels like the same idea as F. Mac putting out the "Tusk" single--we're huge and can do anything we want. Unfortunately they weren't coming off their Rumours (AFTP), they were coming off their Tusk (Monster).

Don't forget that "Losing My Religion" was a "risky" first single (which the label hated the idea of)... I guess lightning doesn't always strike twice.

xpost

I enjoy Monster a lot but it's a weird one-off. Its disposability is, I've come to realise, its chief virtue.

But Up and NAIHF never synched with me - I think "Hope", "E-Bow" and "Electrolite" are the only post-Monster songs that measure up to their old stuff -- and those fun couple of tracks FGTI mentions at the end of Accelerate.

Also: E-Bow is a great single IMO, it has a brainworm chorus, what else do you need

I mean, in a way, E-Bow is a novelty song, and the UK charts are a good place for novelty songs

I was 10 years old when E-Bow came out and I still remember how bizarre it sounded in the context of 1996 rock radio. My mom called it "the weird talking song" lol

ergo, why it's a masterpiece. subvert everything.

Same year as “Pepper”; talking songs were having their moment…

aluminum

No way in hell NAIHF would've sold more with a different single. The radio climate had changed. Also: the Telecommunications Act already making playlists more conservative. R.E.M. as superstars were done.

Thanks for that joyous take on Accelerate fgti, loved the image of the bulleting Passat coasting on their late momentum. I still think you could drop “Horse to Water” onto Lifes Rich Pageant and it would fit in seamlessly.
btw the vinyl is SO MUCH NICER in mastering terms.

The only REM I own on vinyl is… Green. A director I was working with told me “I been listening to that album an lot” and it can be found everywhere for cheap so I picked it up. It is absolutely my least favourite album I own!

If I was going to ask a random-REM-poll-type question, it would be "Make an album as strong as Automatic For the People" from post-Automatic tracks.

Yes— but it’d be a rock album, not a soft-serve and sweet tea album like Automatic

Kenneth
Electrolite
Imitation
Oh My Heart
New Test Leper
Horse To Water
I Wanna DJ
Lotus
Hope
Wake Up Bomb
We All Go Back To Where We Belong (or Daysleeper)
You

That’s pretty good imo. Leave isn’t even on it and only two off Monster

Also leaves off Strange Currencies bc I like it more than Everybody Hurts but it’ll always sound like a clone to me

Putting Monster’s opening & closing tracks in the same positions is cheating! ;)

Hey man it’s a tall order so I’m keeping my top note and base note intact on this brief

… and then suddenly “Sing For The Submarine” started and I was grinning wildly, what is this? And it just ramped up harder and faster

I just listened to (half of this song)… He name-checks other R.E.M. songs in the lyrics(!) Surely you, fgti, must find that to be corny…

Make an album as strong as Automatic For the People from post-Automatic tracks.

I made a similar playlist - "make Rumours out of Tusk." I'll give this a shot, trying to match style and pacing, and every one of these replacement songs I prefer to the ones on Automatic.

Side one

"Drive" – Boy in the Well
"Try Not to Breathe" – New Test Leper
"The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" – Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
"Everybody Hurts" – Strange Currencies or Be Mine if you prefer
"New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" – Zither (if an instrumental is not required here, then Star 69)
"Sweetness Follows" – Around the Sun

Side two

"Monty Got a Raw Deal" – difficult, let's say Diminished
"Ignoreland" – Accelerate
"Star Me Kitten" – Suspicion
"Man on the Moon" – Bittersweet Me
"Nightswimming" – Parakeet
"Find the River" – Electrolite

(hmm - nothing from Reveal, it's too distant sonically)

Houston is a better match for Monty I’d say.

Uberlin is more upbeat but it's a clear descendent of Drive

I've made the Tusk/E-Bow comparison before. Tusk definitely set up the model for 'that' sort of lead single as lengthier album cycles were becoming a thing.

Houston is a better match for Monty I’d say.

You're right, I just find it musically undistinguished.

Uberlin is more upbeat but it's a clear descendent of Drive

That would be a good first track for a contemplative yet serene R.E.M. playlist. I liked the idea of starting with a dramatic dirge.

so i proposed this then didn't even bother to answer my own question beyond generalities. so after some thought, and of the ones i know well enough to rank...

airportman
harborcoat
drive
how the west was won...
feeling gravity's pull
radio free europe
pop song 89
kenneth
finest worksong
begin the begin
radio song
leaving ny
the lifting

Many xxxp, but to respond to morrisp’s q about self-reference in “Singing To The Submarine”; I only vaguely caught the references in listening, and in relistening w lyrics, I love it. Self-reference good, using place names and celebrity names generally bad.

The song itself seems to be more a comment on Stipe’s occasional tendency toward automatic writing for his lyrics— “Singing To The Submarine” = “Singing My Subconcious”

I generally am allergic to when songwriters claim/admit to having used a “stream of consciousness” approach in their writing— particularly Bowie when he does so, or reorganizes phrases or words on slips of paper. “Stream of consciousness” is just brainstorming, guys, it’s the first step in your songwriting process, not the last. If you want to make a name for yourself as a freestyle poet then there are outlets for that.

Self-reference on the other hand, rules. I can’t remember when it happens on Nebraska, but there’s a moment when one Springsteen character sings the same stanza as another Springsteen character from another song, and it gives me the impression that Springsteen sees these underclass characters as birch trees, individuals who are connected via the same underground subconscious. I love that shit

There are times tho when arbitrarily writing in a bunch of place names/celebrity names really works, in REM’s case it works when it feels goofy/funny rather than weighty/serious: “Hollywood is under me / I'm Martin Sheen / I'm Steve McQueen / I'm Jimmy Dean”

Fair enough… it struck me like, “We told you ‘bout the Seether before….”

That's both self-reference and a pastiche of "Glass Onion".

The Walrus was Louise Post?

Oh man, I never saw those Beatles lyrics… yikes!

Steve Miller also does the "I told you about" thing.

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

I'm Martin Sheen / I'm Steve McQueen / I'm Jimmy Dean

In my house we riff on this all the time. I'm Mister Bean / I'm Paula Deen / I'm Rachel Levine / I'm Ellery Queen / I'm a soup tureen / I'm Norma Jean / I'm Mean Joe Green / I'm David Lean

"Sing for the Submarine" is a cool deep cut that kind of flew past me back then. It's the one longer track on that album that seems like it's still in the New Adventures mode, although the chorus is a waltz. Mills' playing is nice on that.

life's rich pageant
murmur
automatic for the people
fables of the reconstruction
reckoning
chronic town
new adventures in hi-fi
document
dead letter office
up
green
reveal
out of time
monster
accelerate
collapse into now

around the sun

r.e.m. trivia (that i don't know the answer to): do the titles of r.e.m. lps appear in any of the songs? chronic town / 'carnival of sorts (boxcar)', but are there any others? i know i'm probably missing some obvious examples but none come to mind.

accelerate is a terrible album title!!

hi, zach!

the r.e.m. room is always nice and cozy, hi alfred <3

“begin the begin” comes close with “life’s rich demand”

“have i missed the big reveal” is in “i’ve been high”

i think that’s it

“Circus Envy” says “make way for monster jealousy”

as a kid i always misheard 'i never understood' on kenneth as 'i (something) monster'

suspicion has 'order UP another drink'. there may be others on that album but i'm stopping there.