New Adventures in Hi Fi?

ehhh disagree

this is doubling back but i actually think what works about the Monster and NAIHF "rock" songs is that most of them are not actually "rock" songs and maybe not even trying to be. yeah they have loud guitars, sometimes with a wall of tremolo effect and stuff... but they're almost being used more like the strings on Automatic, for a blanket of atmosphere. this is a band whose origins were playing frantic sweaty college art kid dance parties; they definitely know how to play energetic, propulsive, nimble rock music. but i really think they weren't interested in that by the 90s. instead they were making loud, electric chamber music.

obviously there's all the talk of putting down the mandolins and breaking back out the guitars and all, but i still think that shift is there. and it's maybe why the gritty rock textures on NAIHF feel of a piece with the rest of the record, for me. or maybe Buck (and Berry?) really were trying to rock, but had gotten bored of their punk and new wave records, and wanted to be in an imaginary 70s glam arena band, idk.

i like achtung and zooropa and especially passengers but bono’s “baby’s first irony” act is the worst thing about them

i know wishing u2 had a less godawful lyricist is missing the point of u2 yet

dc otm

Bono's lyrics on AB and Zooropa are best-ever, though. He never tried again.

but they're almost being used more like the strings on Automatic

I think Star Me Kitten is the song on Automatic that sounds most like a pointer towards Monster despite being one of the least rocking things on the album, with the gauzy wall of sound and the sexual frankness

I definitely feel like the reason Monster works so well is the production/sound of the thing, it's not the same at all as New Adventures In Hi-Fi 'live in the studio'/recorded at soundchecks thing - Monster reminds me of a bit in the Simon Reynolds Glam Rock book where he talks about glam sounding ragged and rough-hewn but not in a rootsy, naturalistic way, in an artificial plastic way Live versions of Monster songs usually sound a little underwhelming to me, the same with those remixes on the re-release that made them sound more like trad REM songs. I feel the same way about The Wake-Up Bomb, it could have sounded great on Monster but the New Adventures version kind of falls flat

Bono's lyrics on AB and Zooropa are best-ever, though. He never tried again.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, November 4, 2021 6:35 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they're his best. grading on a curve

I think Mumur's arrangements & orchestration of the instruments (that may be the same thing) are what makes it timeless. Reckoning and Fables are both a little more straightforward "rock band" albums where Murmur reminds me of the first two Gang of Four records, where the instruments and vocals are kind of all going off in different directions sometimes while still maintaining cohesion.

Think about the first minute or so of Pilgramage (or heck the last minute or so) there's nothing even close to that on the next two

That's a sharp way of putting the Go4 influence in context. Also: bass lines! The only other contemporaneous Amerindie band with comparable ones is The Minutemen.

Monster makes me imagine introverted teenage Michael Stipe in the 70s living out his fantasies and desires through these sexually ambiguous glam rock records, and this is how they bridge the gap between mumbly early REM and the fact that they were now literally the biggest band in the world, pretending to be a rock star while also being a literal rock star - I love the way it's exhibitionist and introverted at the same time, it reminds me of Morrissey with the focus on the idolizer imagining themselves as the idol or maybe becoming the idol.

"Finest Worksong" is the height of Go4 worship, so great

Also the song title is very Minutemen

ah yes bass lines. Mike Mills is so underrated in that band. as is Bill

the three four descending bass notes right before Stipe starts singing Worksong are *so Mike Watt*

The feedback at the start of the third verse of New Test Leper is my shit.

soref post upthread (re: Monster) very interesting & OTM

yeah great post soref! i like The Wake-Up Bomb as-is, but would definitely be interested in a more artifical, shiny, Monster-type version of it. lyrically it feels VERY appropriate for that album as well.

https://i.imgur.com/3kgJcTN.png

still wish Lady Gaga had gone with my "climb atop David Howell Evans's shoulders shrieking 'I'm on The Edge!'" music video treatment

I think I also just find something off-putting about Wake-Up Bomb's positioning on the album as the second track after How The West Was Won, although they do something similar with the first two tracks on Up - slow, low key, atypical opening song with Airportman, then swaggering suggestive rock song with Lotus. I think Lotus was the last time they did anything in the same style as Monster? I'm not that familiar with the last two albums so maybe I'm forgetting something on one of them.

and think it really works with those two tracks on Up, so idk why it doesn't quite come off for me on New Adventures

zach i'm stealing that for the memes thread.

up fucking rules.

hmm

just got the vinyl, playing it now

WOW, they did such an amazing job on this, hats off to Kevin Gray who remastered and cut the vinyl

modern vinyl can be such a crapshoot, but I tell ya what, when they hit it out of the park nowadays it's as good as vinyl has ever sounded. this sounds huge and i'm noticing little things in the mix i never heard. dead quiet, no bullshit black vinyl, high quality plastic sleeves, A+

especially noticeable during the quieter stuff, new test leper really blew me away

anyway if you've been thinking about the vinyl i would definitely pull the trigger on this. on the bad and hated hoffman boards, praise for the new pressing/master seems almost universal which is rare

thanks for the heads up! buying now

Listened to this quite a bit during my final year of high school in 1997. Returning to it today, it's definitely patchy, but that said, Electrolite could be one of their best songs. I'd completely forgotten about it.

wow, did not realize the original had become one of those $200 records for some reason. tempted to shine mine up, sell it off, and grab the new one, but it's not really how i relate to my stuff.

I fucking love this record.

ty for the nudge ums, i hedged and bought the package with both the vinyl and cds

aluminum, it tastes like fear

idk why i thought this album had a bad reputation (must have missed ivy's p4k review lol), but i listened for the first time ever today and it might be my favorite post-reckoning r.e.m. album? combines the best aspects of automatic and monster with fewer clunkers and higher highs

like "undertow" in particular sounds to me like they're subconsciously saying, "sorry about monster we have actually figured out how to use feedback now"

it's always been one of my favorites, i think it has a pretty strong cult following

It got great reviews on first release, did better business in the UK, and has never gone away.

my parents had out of time, automatic, and monster on cd, but not this one. maybe that's what tricked me

Wake Up Bomb and Undertow feel like they've fully realised their straight-up glam side whereas Monster is this weird, slightly stunted mix of things (not a criticism).

Hi-Fi was the first R.E.M. CD my mum didn't have so I get believing that this one was where things fell apart. I only knew about it when I was little through my uncle's CDs (ditto the next two).

yeah this always had a positive reputation but it was definitely the first R.E.M. album in awhile that didn't make any radio impact iirc. It didn't have big singles, it's entirely stellar deep cuts. Classic album.

R.E.M. from this point on did benefit from the way the UK singles chart's infrastructure changing though - lengthier gaps between radio and physical and crucially having built a dedicated enough fanbase helping contribute to the new climate of first week peaks and front-loaded sales (and the marketing and managing that pushed this change). Hence, E-Bow being their highest charter to date, despite probably having not been played on the radio since (and, if they could help it, probably not too much at the time either).

I've always wanted to call a song "E-Bola, The Virus" but never got around to it

I enjoy Monster now, but, when E-Bow came out as the first single, it was such as relief to have "the old REM" back. And "Electrolite" is so pretty.

These days I think New Adventures is very listenable but is also kind of... their first boring record? Almost everything sounds like another, older, better song.

I always thought "Low Desert" was an intentional Stone Roses' Second Coming pastiche -- the swampy riffing and the "hey heys".

Every good band releases one of these variety packs a couple times in their careers: a summa of what they do best (think Tattoo You, Lil Wayne's Funeral, any number of Yo La Tengo albums).

I adore this album. Well, except for “wake up bomb” and “bittersweet me”.

Do I think The Cure’s Wish might be one of these?

* I think, that should’ve said.

I was thinking the same thing ha. That's the first album with no genuine new territory covered (for all that there are shoegaze guitars and beefy dance-via-baggy rhythms on some songs). Rather it's a this-is-us-and-we're-top-of-the-mountain record.

it's a record of synthesis, not evolution. the fact that it was all recorded while on the road, and they were playing selections from all over their catalog, probably contributed to that (and also gave them an idea of the kinds of experiments that worked and did not)

Do I think The Cure’s Wish might be one of these?

― piscesx,

Why I love it best.

Adore NAIHF, loathe Wish

despite a half decade of the most intense Cure fandom preceding it