This is the Thread Where You Bash REM's Monster

there's certainly a section of the fanbase that were lost by REM's move to stadiums, despite the many more they picked up along the way.

The arena moves by 1988/89 might have been a little much for some of the old guard but IMO it seemed all of a piece with the end of a prolific decade; a natural progression to the million seller that they had become - finishing off in Atlanta arenas seemed like a cap on everything that they had achieved. I feel like some of those along for the ride going into the 90s were alienated by the move to stadiums by 1994 and dropped off; the intimacy of even 1988/89 was lost.

(Buck was bringing out the Les Paul on the Green tour for 'Turn You Inside Out' and certainly a few others; I dont remember if he employed the LP on prior tours)

Also, if you listen to all of REMs albums in succession in a reasonably short amount of time (as I recently did), Monster doesn't sound particularly out of place as I'd remembered.

it gets a little normalized in retrospect by new adventures imo. but i listened to it for the first time a decade after it came out, after having heard most of the previous and following r.e.m. records, and idk, it still shocked me

it only recently struck me that "tongue" and "how the west was won" kinda take place in the same universe sonically

it gets a little normalized in retrospect by new adventures imo

yes but it's hard not to think of Monster as the turning point where REM no longer mattered. If Monster was their last album, their canon would remain intact. But...

i wasn't talking about them mattering, something i do not really care about

Monster felt like another move into intelligibility but bolstered by Stipe's increasing confidence with performance. I was noticing these things because I discovered Roxy/Bowie the previous year.

Hmm, he was pretty confident even by the Green tour but it also seemed to be him embracing his celebrity significantly more than ever before. Maybe that was hitched to him coming out or his wealth or maybe even just being in his 30s.

Not being a Roxy-phile (although I did also recently listen to the Roxy albums in the order presented on your blog), what's the connection you were making Al?

Seemed like he was just as intelligible or more intelligible on Out of Time/Automatic to me.

Side Two of Green was the "Metal" side and Bill Berry was saying they were getting more metal and it had "Turn You Inside Out," which could totally be a Monster song.

For all the talk about this being a nod to glam, I don't hear the musical joy of glam coming through at all.

Yes, Don otm.

All started with "Toys in the Attic"

i'd say monster is a calculated step back in intelligibility from automatic.

Goes through "Finest Worksong," etc.

ah yes who can forget that very metal r.e.m. song "hairshirt"

It was for "Turn You Inside Out" and "I Remember California" obviously

Just to be clear in case people had the CD or what have you, that's what the label said. Side one was air, two was metal.

I recall their original plan for Green was for one side to be acoustic, and the other electric — and they abandoned that, but kept those designations for each side (even though they were no longer operative).

the shift to les paul guitars is what mills identifies as the source of the change in tone in the new liner notes

anyway needless to say i think "finest worksong" and "turn you inside-out" are great big rock songs but are also v different from what they're doing on monster

and i always thought "air" and "metal" were arbitrary elemental designations for each side so thanks for that morrisp

He may have had it before (as was mentioned above), but I remember some interview from the time where he was saying, "I became a man today" because he had gotten a Marshall.

Curious in what ways you see those songs as different. Obviously, Stipe had changed his way of writing, but I mean musically.

i mean for one they're dronier and less playful and less flexible than anything on monster

the songs on monster are sexy

I think they're only very slightly dronier than "Crush with Eyeliner."

Oh come on

xp

Droney - "I Took Your Name"

tim why don't i just acknowledge that you're right so we can stop pretending you're having a conversation with me

You don't have to involve yourself in the conversation if you have nothing to say. I was genuinely interested in how you heard them as "v different from what they're doing on monster." Does it suit you to think that I wasn't?

just bc it only consists of two tremolo'd out chords doesn't mean i consider it droney. there's a kind of droning tambura effect to the way the guitar works in both "finest worksong" and "turn you inside-out" and that is not present in monster at all except idk maybe in "you"

when you respond to me with "oh come on" then i start to like... wonder why i'm even trying to explain this to you

Hmm, he was pretty confident even by the Green tour but it also seemed to be him embracing his celebrity significantly more than ever before. Maybe that was hitched to him coming out or his wealth or maybe even just being in his 30s.

Not being a Roxy-phile (although I did also recently listen to the Roxy albums in the order presented on your blog), what's the connection you were making Al?

― Joe Gargan (dandydonweiner), Monday, November 4, 2019

I hope I addressed these points here.

Yeah, and better than I ever could. Your blog is a joy, btw. It's hard to keep up with all your lists, but often I make playlists from them. You know, if that kind of shit matters.

That said, I really don't see much of the playfulness or sexiness that others often reference in Monster. I think that overall, I'm just not taken with the arrangements much at all.

The “loud rockers” on Document, Green, and Monster all feel very different to me; can’t really articulate why.

the mixes, the hooks, the melodies are typically more straight forward and anthemic.

(on Document and Green)

I would even go so far as to say that, until the band started to repeat themselves on NAIHF, it’s hard for me to imagine any song from an R.E.M. album fitting on a different R.E.M. album. Maaaaybe there’s a little bleedover btw. Pageant and Document.

BTW they recorded most of NAIHF on the Monster tour. I'd forgotten that.

I wonder if a (not-so-)secret reason they stuck all those weaksauce demos on this reissue was to make a point — “Look how hard we worked to avoid repeating ourselves... We threw out all this stuff!”

Yeah it opened them up creatively for sure - it was clear from the Document -> Green -> OOT -> Automatic trajectory that they were self-defining as "folk rock" pretty much, but Monster said you know what? not doing that shit any more, here's something else.

http://exclaim.ca/music/article/torontos_sonic_boom_used_400_copies_of_r_e_m_monster_to_create_one_hell_of_a_window_display

giving some thought to the notion that the new mix is a troll - this is what you wanted, right? there ya go.

What a joy of a review, Brad. Beautiful writing, colorful and passionate.

^^^^^

^^^^

^^^

thanks y'all <3

i become someone
on command

'Monster' is so fucking sexy. It's the sexiest REM album ever, and I have great trouble understanding people who categorically deny this!

The new mix - listened to it tonight - is shit though. Properly shit. Like Brad wrote, it removes or pushes back everything that makes Monster Monster. It smooths over all the rough and ugly and daring edges that made Monster what Monster is. I can't understand Litt doing this again and this being the result; even if it was in his free-ish time, come the fuck on...

It's a mystery to me how thousands of Monster cd's ended up in the $1 bins in the US. Perhaps here in Europe ppl were too ashamed to return their cd, idk? I'm not saying Monster wasn't rejected by some, but nowhere near on the scale like it was in the US. Regardless, this album still steams and rocks. One of those rare albums that will only gain praise and climb higher as time passes.

I watched this interview y'day; Michael & Mike say that the producers of Friends (the sitcom) wanted to use "Shiny Happy People" as the theme song, and the band said no, so NBC hired another band to do an "R.E.M.-style" song. (This has nothing to do with Monster, other than the time period, but I thought it was funny.)

Pretty good interview and track by track commentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJje9gA9jsI