Best of the platinum R.E.M. albums

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.

ivy and morrisp immediately providing the knowledge, thank you :)

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

it does, but...up is also a bad album title

i can say this because i love r.e.m.

(I always assumed the bear on the cover of Monster further referred to “Circus Envy” and its “animal”…)

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

― This field is required (morrisp), Sunday, November 26, 2023 8:19 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i am so bad at parsing the lyrics to “circus envy” so i don’t think i ever knew this, thank you!!!

oh and stipe says “collapse into now” several times in “blue”

"i believe" is a top 10 r.e.m. song

Kenneth does mention Green, which has a song that mentions Up in the name. They're on some XTC jumbled title drops trip.

I think “I wore a shirt of Violent Green” references some Seattle band of that name (fwiw)

“monster” is mentioned TWICE in “circus envy” (“this monster in me makes me retch”)

monster is a great album title, maybe one of the greatest

“monster” is mentioned TWICE in “circus envy” (“this monster in me makes me retch”)

feels suitable somehow that it's on the song with the lowest mixed vocals on possibly any album

It’s hard to express how Monster made R.E.M. feel cool and almost “sinister” when it came out (particularly “Circus Envy,” and the “Bang and Blame” bassline); and how unexpected that was after the mellowness of AFTP).

up is also a bad album title

More appropriate for Peter Gabriel and Shania Twain?

and Right Said Fred

what are you thinking for the title?

i don't know, maybe...down?

*record label exec* hey i know...what about up?

*everyone in room high fives*

*guy who hasn't talked until now says 'forward'*

*crickets*

It’s hard to express how Monster made R.E.M. feel cool and almost “sinister” when it came out (particularly “Circus Envy,” and the “Bang and Blame” bassline); and how unexpected that was after the mellowness of AFTP).

― This field is required (morrisp), Monday, 27 November 2023 01:59 (fifty-three minutes ago) link

i hadn't listened to it in probably 20 years and my first thought was "oh, they tried to make their version of a sonic youth record." could totally have seen kim singing "crush with eyeliner."

“The Apologist” also has the line “I've skirted all my differences / But now I'm facing up”

“monster” is mentioned TWICE in “circus envy” (“this monster in me makes me retch”)

monster is a great album title, maybe one of the greatest

― ivy., Monday, 27 November 2023 01:36 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'd always passively assumed the title was used as a noun, however I think going forward I shall choose to believe it was intended to be read as a verb.

could totally have seen kim singing "crush with eyeliner."

Thurston Moore is already playing and singing on it!

Gonna listen to Monster again brb

i’m straight i’m queer i’m bi

xxp xp well that's one for the "things you were shockingly old when you learned" thread

my intro to Monster, and REM for that matter, was when I was 12 and invited to a birthday party at a mini-golf course by a classmate I'm sure I was trying to impress. Having no money, my mom took whatever suggestion I'd said - my best guess is a coded "A CD by a band because I'd heard this band called The Offspring sing curse words at the playground so that must be cool." So she came back saying she'd asked the person behind the music section at the local K-Mart for any "age appropriate" (i.e. NO SWEARING) and that's what she was recommended.

that classmate could not have been less impressed when he unwrapped it at the birthday party. I swore off the band despite never having heard a note of their music.

"REM? Who invited that kid?"

i've watched the children come and go!

my feelings are fluid, but today

fables of the reconstruction (they may hate it but i dig the joe boyd production on one of the finest set of songs i've ever heard, front to back)
murmur (this is maybe the greatest debut album in english-speaking rock history)
life's rich pageant (this has their best songs)
"chronic town" (if this were an album with another five songs this good it would be their best)
new adventures in hi-fi (rivals the cure's disintegration as an all-time awe-inspiring 'how are they still this awesome this long into it?' album)
green (the first one i heard in real time, too young to have a problem with anything i liked)
out of time (this has some of my favorite songs not on any of the aforementioned)
reckoning (this is still better than most bands' best album)
automatic for the people (the last two songs stick the landing the best in a canon full of amazing album closers)
document (despite it being this low i still love this album -- side 2 continues to grow on me however many years after first feeling disappointed by it)
monster (this is still better than most bands' best album)

the post-bill years remain elusive, but i still think it's me, not them

One of the things I like about the last two albums is that, when they go back to more rock per se, it's not the rooted in the '70s hard rock of Monster/NAiHF. It's something smaller, and while it's not really confined to whatever parameters define garage rock, it's kind of more in that ballpark. And that's what they were originally, too. It's a good use of Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin.

The thing about that "Do it one more time/Show the kids how to do it fine" bit criticized above in "All The Best" is that, when he's singing that, he's singing it over fucking "The One I Love."

"Every Day Is Yours to Win" - last Velvets style jam

listening to dead letter office a lot the last few days. it's kind of a move to cover VU THREE TIMES

but i also wasn't around when it came out, which i think was right around time the VU (1985) album came out, kind of an eara of relative rediscovery of the velvets, maybe? maybe covering them 3 times was more like covering a kind of obscure band?

If you covered them three times, Lou Reed blew you.

xp I think they were covering VU from the beginning(?) Here they are in '84 (I'm sure there are earlier clips):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEEDxQ-xl40

Apparently "There She Goes Again" was the b-side of the IRS version of the "Radio Free Europe" single (which I didn't realize).

kind of an eara of relative rediscovery of the velvets

Definitely. The Polygram reissues of the first three albums came out in '85 as well.

also while relistening to DLO, i've thought more about my assumptions of the pylon cover. "crazy" is one of the greatest songs of all time, i fucking love pylon. i assume that r.e.m. was trying to do pylon a favor by making it track #1 on DLO, but have they ever talked about it?

peter buck's famous anecdote about r.e.m. and pylon releasing records on the same day, so he went out and picked up the pylon album to see what he was up against. paraphrasing: "i was so disappointed that their record was so much better than ours."

lol

I'm pretty sure Buck thought, "....but we're gonna outsell you four to one."

all told, pylon's og is clearly better but rem's take is hardly disrespectful.

Pylon opened for R.E.M. a few times (including a leg of the Green World Tour). Also, when Rolling Stone called R.E.M. "America’s Best Rock and Roll Band" in 1987, Berry apparently insisted that title belongs to Pylon (though I don't see that quote in the archived article; maybe it was a sidebar).

(I have the actual issue in a box somewhere...)