R.E.M. news - yay

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'.

Green's def my favorite.

Up until about 'Up' their career arc makes complete sense, it's only from 2000 onwards that they've really felt like they're dragging their career out far longer than anyone needs them to. Although I thought Accelerate was pretty good, production aside.

Best thing since 'Up' for me is the demo of Beat A Drum on the Best Of. Possibly the only great thing from the last 10 years :(

100% agreement with piscesx. Gorgeous song. The chorus gives me shivers. Such a shame they ruined it with that elaborate cod-Brian Wilson arrangement on Reveal. Thing is, Brian Wilson, for all baroque tendencies, knew when to let a song breathe. Rather than let the melody hang in the air, they smother it parping brass fanfares, killing off the emotional impact.

Reveal does have a few good songs, but the production tends to be overdone. The Lifting is really good, even if the middle-eight is a bit rote, and I've Been High is fairly gorgeous, even if the beats are a little ho-hum. Really don't like Imitation of Life. It's catchy, but there's something antiseptic about it. The real dog is I'll Take The Rain. I really wish they wouldn't try and be U2.

I've been revisiting Up this past week though, and think it's largely excellent. A better album that NAIHF, which I've always found patchy. Some really strong melodies and the arrangements are really interesting. Shame the cheap organs, analogue synths and ancient drum machines were replaced with increasingly bland keyboard sounds on subsequent records. You're In The Air is the one that particularly knocked me out, but Hope and Sad Professor are great too.

Monster was my first and then I worked backwards. It was only in college that Murmur really stuck. It's understandable how people who started with the 80s stuff can be turned off by the "new" R.E.M. but we're not talking about a Weezer-level meltdown here, just some weaker songwriting and occasionally strange production decisions.

A couple I like from later LPs I have but barely know: "The Lifting" from Reveal and "Leaving New York" from Around the Sun. Which both happen to be lead tracks--but I really did take the time to play the entire CDs. I also think "Supernatural Superserious" from Accelerate is a good song.

But they're not "Radio Free Europe," are they? Maybe I'm closer to Daniel, Esq. than I thought.

My biggest problem with Accelerate was that it was just presented as a slab of sound, with very little differentiation between each individual song...and that makes it hard to pick out favorites. At least the upcoming album seems to embrace a little bit of variety.

I'm a defender of Reveal... I think it's mostly great with a few bits of filler. It's a sunnier version of Up and I think the two albums make a nice pair. The last two albums, though... I think both have good songs but neither is compelling all the way through. Accelerate is the better of the two, but the production bugs me. From what I've heard of the new one so far it seems to suffer in the same way. I'm willing to give it a chance, as I am with all things REM.