R.E.M. news - yay

yeah, i remember that too. nye 1999 was going to be the last show. now we get to see a bloated peter buck do imitations of the child molester from that 60s group.

are they still working off that megacontract signed right before berry left?

Presumably. It was signed right after Monster, and none of the albums since then have sold as much. It's doubtful Warners would choose to re-up with them after so many eh-selling albums.

on't necessarily think a Mike Mills solo album would be great but I think its almost embarrassing the guy hasn't made one yet.
it is weird -- has an interviewer ever asked why he hasn't? doesn't seem like he does much of anything outside the band these days.

if you spend all your time on the band, why should it take years for an album to come out, i wonder.

dunno, not like the other people in the band don't have 20 other things going on besides REM.

REM's famous mega-deal must have been so much more lucrative than those similar mega-deals accorded Motley Crue or ZZ Top.

That's a interesting point. What DOES Mike Mills do outside REM, other than play golf? Peter Buck, as we know, tours with Robyn Hitchcock, hangs around Portland, and breaks my heart by working with the Decemberists and the bloke from Snow Patrol. But what does Mike Mills do? I envision him living a Curb Your Enthusiasm style bored millionaire lifestyle, doing the rounds of the country clubs, going to charity dinners and the like. I'd hope not though. He's a bit of a mysterious one. Mike Mills, what is your life?

Er, anyway, this new single. Oh dear. The guitar intro is ok, but the tune is completely unmemorable and takes some gimmicky and rather unpleasant turns. Jacknife Lee's production sucks as well. I wish they'd see sense and get someone like Jim O'Rourke in. Or produce it themselves. Up! was overlong, but it had some good songs and an interesting sound, suggesting a more interesting future than the one they've taken.

My understanding is that Mike Mills lurks in the shadows of Athens, catching the eyes of girls who SHOULD have been paying attention to ME, but I might be sort of biased on that point.

http://www.contactmusic.com/pics/m/REM_2_260309/mike_mills_of_rem_1803183.jpg
Mike Mills, man of mystery

Haven't heard the single yet, but to my ears the biggest problem with post-Berry R.E.M. is the band clearly playing to a rigid click track. It just makes everything so lifeless and precise. Then again, I can understand why they might do it this way. First, they probably got in the habit when they started working on demos post-Berry, sans drummer. And these days I bet they record in the studio one at a time. Because they hate each other and stuff.

I wonder why more bands don't produce themselves? Dylan's done a great job with his last few albums. Hasn't Neil Young produced or co-produced nearly everything he's done?

Anyway, R.E.M. should do a no-fuss live in a church album of elegiac new songs - Berry can guest on piano or something - and then call it a day. At least until true inspiration strikes, because working with Jacknife Lee is the opposite of that.

Yeah, live in a church with Berry sounds good. I guess by bringing in Jacknife Lee they think they're remaining relevant by getting a hot, punchy modern commercial rock sound. But it doesn't suit them. All the mystery is gone.

Sort of fascinating belated appreciation of REM from Robbie Fulks:

http://robbiefulks.com/blog/posts/185-some-music-that-sounds-good-and-why-does-it-

they hate each other?

I can only assume, right? Their interaction level on stage or otherwise out and about is pretty nil, and recalling the conflicts circa "Up" re who gets what songs on the disc and how many, it doesn't sound like a band prone to compromise and cooperation at this point. Recent REM has always seemed to me two very different songwriters who live far apart from one another, linked by Stipe. But that's cool. I assume most bands together as long as REM hate each other. Like, the Drive-By Truckers, my current fave - those two guys apparently literally never speak between tours and records, but they've stayed together for decades. Decoding the Keith book, he and Mick never buried the hatchet after the early '80s, if not earlier, but they know how to work together.

those two guys apparently literally never speak between tours and records

to be fair, these guys tour constantly

if I spent ten months of the year on the road with my best friends, i wouldn't want people to assume i hate them if I hung around the wife and kids the other 2 months.

Fair enough. What's the Pete Townshend line about the ironies of being in a successful rock band? About how when you first get together to play you have no idea you'll be forever linked to these three other often very different guys?

made the same exact sigh that hot lava hair made when i read that quote too.

just last summer, mills was playing with Buck in Steve Wynn's Baseball Project, for at least a few shows.

well there's a pretty well documented rivalry in the band, but they certainly don't *hate* each other check this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4HnrS0nCFg

that was the rescheduled end-of-tour London gig that was originally cancelled because of the 7/7/05 bomb fyi.

stipe should have done a little snoopy dance on top of the piano

I guess by bringing in Jacknife Lee they think they're remaining relevant by getting a hot, punchy modern commercial rock sound. But it doesn't suit them. All the mystery is gone.

this is 100% otm (tho, to me, the mystery was gone around document's release, though the band made some very good -- if somewhat indistinct -- rock albums during their midcareer period).

Kind of amazing to hear the "Finest Worksong" groove in this new one.

why not just listen to "finest worksong" instead?

though the band made some very good -- if somewhat indistinct -- rock albums during their midcareer period

REM was the first band I got into as a kid (well, aside from the monkees), so it takes some effort to imagine how their first 7 or so albums would have sounded to people who had a better comprehension of where these guys were coming from and how they stacked up against the competition (doesn't help me that the press was just as rapturous about them as I was). That "indistinct" quality is especially striking now in the mid-period albums. Wonder if the band is like "uhh, we shouted vague lyrics over ridiculously amped up rock for years - why are we getting shit for it now?"

it takes some effort to imagine how their first 7 or so albums would have sounded to people who had a better comprehension of where these guys were coming from and how they stacked up against the competition

to me, early r.e.m. sounded like it was beamed in from another planet.

Because I also think it's a pretty good song.

And I didn't hate the Jacknife Lee production on the last album, fwiw.

x-post

Accelerate certainly didn't sound like an album on Siltbreeze or something, but I think there was definitely an element of allowing a sense of decay into the production. I thought it suited their aesthetic pretty nicely and it seems like I'm hearing that again on the new one with, for example, the reverb on the lead vocal.

The way he's mixed on this song, Stipe has to really project and I think he nails it. It works.

I like the opening guitars but this sounds VERY laboured, a lot of that is Stipe's fault. He seems to be trying very hard to work a melody out of this without getting there. I really wish he'd give up on that barking. One. Syllable. At. A. Time way of singing, ditto the lurch upwards at the end of the chorus. They strike me as stock devices he uses these days and they just aren't very good.

One more new song is out there: "It Happened Today" w/ Eddie Vedder (although he seems barely audible)

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2010/12/20/rem-it-happened-today-stream/

Not quite as enthused by this one as I was the other one.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb3-9kgXU3U

this trailer is depressing me.

generic and unmemorable.

yeah, i gotta unbookmark this and move on, the dream is over (11 years ago?)

yeah, that's about right. really sad. this band meant so much to me. and now everything they do further tarnishes my memories, and diminishes them in my mind's eye.

You guys are nuts. This sounds excellent to me.

really?

xpost - really?

really what?

the dream is over (11 years ago?)

wouldn't say 11 -- clown me all you want but i think Reveal had some fucking great tunes on it ("Saturn Return" anyone?)

horrible.

also, it isn't whether the band has a good -- even great -- song or two on a new disc.

they're not special/unique anymore. that's what is so sad.

I dunno, I still get a chill when they do the "R.E.M." thing right, and I hear a lot of right in that youtube video.

that's kind of what i mean. i'm guessing you're much younger than me, and that your vision of doing the "r.e.m. thing right" is radically different from mine.

I'm 36 and I came to know them around the time of Document (although I think I'd heard "Fall on Me" prior to that). I don't like either one of the biggest albums (Out of Time and Automatic For the People) and don't ever ever listen to Reveal or Around the Sun, but think Accelerate was a passable return to form if a little aimless. This album seems to have aim.

ah! yeah, i'm 42. i grew up with them around the time of their full-length debut. to me, r.e.m. is chronic town; murmur; reckoning; fables; and to a lesser extent, life's rich pagent. document is a killer, albeit conventional, rock record, and automatic for the people was an exciting reinvention of the band's aesthetic, but those two -- plus a few songs on hi-fi -- aside, it's been a long, sad slide.

to me, r.e.m. is chronic town; murmur; reckoning; fables; and to a lesser extent, life's rich pagent.

I love all these albums retroactively, but yeah...I was still listening to Top 40 and contempo xtian music when they were all current. Once I did sink my teeth into R.E.M. around 1987, I fell hard for Reckoning.

I'm 49, saw them in a club in '83. Loved them right through to Document, lost some interest for a while, loved a few songs on Automatic, settled into liking one or two songs per album after that. (The songs tend to find me, rather than the other way around.) I sort of split the difference between the two of you; I always think I have zero interest in what they're doing, and I'm always surprised by how much I'll like the occasional song.

When did Andrew Sullivan start singing for them?

i'm 25... the first REM album i heard was Up soph year of high school. didn't think much of it. then I heard Green during a memorable overnight/drunken party of some sort, freshman year of college, went to bed w/ a stranger intending to yknow, do what college kids do after parties, but we just stayed up for a couple hours listening to Green. better than sex at the time, i swear... so, over the next couple years i picked up everything from Murmur through Up.

my all time favorite's New Adventures in Hi Fi, possibly my #1 album ever. played that sucker at least 100 times. so good.

I have such a weird love/hate relationship with NAIHF. Love the straight rock numbers like Binky the Doormat, but other stuff like Electrolite is emblematic of the shit-REM they were headed toward. LOVE 'Green'.