You Wore Your ExPOLLtations Like An Armored Suit: REM's "Monster"

Yeah, but thanks for participating, everybody! I'm just always glad to see oddball album tracks performing so high. Next poll up shortly.

pretty close to right, i think

"Star 69" got no votes and it's the shortest song!

Deeply enhanced by the misreading on "Kiss This Guy" way back in the day: "I know RuPaul, I know RuPaul..."

Correct order, best to worst:

Let Me In
Tongue
I Don't Sleep, I Dream
You
What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
Circus Envy
King of Comedy
Strange Currencies
Crush With Eyeliner
Bang and Blame
Star 69
I Took Your Name

i disagree but i also just remembered that i do kinda love "I Don't Sleep" and sort of wish i voted for it instead of "Strange Currencies"

Top 2 are right, to my surprise. But I should have voted for the unjustly neglected "Star 69" instead of wasting my vote on Kenneth.

i never thought i'd give this another listen..

used to love "let me in" but the guitar sounds really bad now to my ears.

i still like "what's the frequency," "i don't sleep," and "circus envy," i can leave the rest though...

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2019/09/03/rem-monster-reissue-box-set/

That is cool news, but I’m not sure about this(?):

on this alternative version the guitars are pulled back and the vocals pushed forward to create a more open sound and showcase often-revealing lyrics

I’ve never listened to that album and thought — “This needs less Buck, more Stipe”

Listened to the remixed “what’s the frequency Kenneth,” why would you take out the tremolo bit in the chorus? clearly someone needs to re-remix it to add even more tremolo.

The guitar on this record sounds terrible

The new remaster sounds nice.

The remixed "What's The Frequency, Kenneth", yeah, who was asking for this? What a waste.

The guitar on this record sounds terrible

― calstars, Wednesday, September 4, 2019 10:28 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the guitar tone is one of the five best things about this record

yeah was gonna say

I love "Bang and Blame" so much, just rises in my estimation year after year. maybe their only psychosexual drama? plus the chorus just pops, maybe even more than before with the new remaster, or else I just had it on fucking loud

listening to "Circus Envy" now, my god the guitars

brad otm about the guitar tone

I love how “crush with eyeliner” is just being constantly sliced open by that ultra distorted hard tremelo-d guitar

I did an A/B listen of the two versions of "WTF,K?" – and while the new one sounds fine, yeah, I don't see the point.

It sounds slower somehow

This new anti-canonic Kenneth remix kinda defeats the purpose.

listening to "Circus Envy" now, my god the guitars

R.E.M. were such a tight band.

I mean, the Bill Berry R.E.M.

Listened to the remixed “what’s the frequency Kenneth,” why would you take out the tremolo bit in the chorus? clearly someone needs to re-remix it to add even more tremolo.

― JoeStork, Thursday, 5 September 2019 07:24 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The new remixed version is 20s shorter, weird, song has a cold end too so there must be a few bars missing somewhere.

Mine is even shorter but it leaves out all the non-essential bits.

Wasn’t there a reissue of Music from Big Pink recently where they included a completely new remix for no apparent reason? What a weird trend for reissues

I’m no rem stan but the guitar tones in their early jangly stuff or mid point like in “one I love” and “orange crush” for example are so much more crisp, exciting, nuanced, treble happy than the midrange middle aged bloat of Wtf, K

The fuzz and tremolo on this album are the noise equivalent of the jangle in the early work, c'mon

Pearl Jam remixed Ten by taking off the post-production effects (digital reverb etc.).

and those drum machine intro/outros, no?

I believe so. Anything that screamed '1991' (aside from the actual music).

One point about the original Monster album is that it is very well-sequenced.

I hate to be 90s-fankid, but is it likely that "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" was titled to share an acronym with "wtf, Kurt?"

I mean I know the Dan Rather story of course

One point about the original Monster album is that it is very well-sequenced.

^ Absolutely.

The big stupid guitars are the best part of this album!

I've got you covered

― dorsalstop,

I'm going to listen to the remaster once tomorrow and then doralstop's remix for the rest of the 7 hours.

Coulda used a little more tremolo, tho'.

earned the reputation as one of the most ubiquitously traded-in discs of the CD era.

I scored my copy by accepting it in trade for a copy of Siamese Dream. I originally got Siamese Dream through a trade where I gave up the s/t Social Distortion cd.

Somehow I never got around until now to listening to live recordings of "Kenneth" to see how Buck did the solo (backwards on the album) in a live context. Pretty interesting to hear the song with an entirely different solo. (I'm too tired to break down whether it is in fact a retrograde.)

Pretty much agree with calstars. I think if Buck wanted to do a heavier thing, he could have been a little more thoughtful about his tone.

R.E.M. were such a tight band.

― cpl593H, Thursday, September 5, 2019 3:01 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, the Bill Berry R.E.M.

― cpl593H, Thursday, September 5, 2019 3:01 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ugh, the Bill Rieflin R.E.M. were a tight band.

xp I don’t think he was going for “heavy”; but instead artificial, glammy, whatever. I assume he got the exact tone they wanted for the aesthetic they were going for.

Accelerate is the sound of a band that no longer gaf what their guitars sounded like.

Can't wait for the Exile on Main Street remix where they boost the vocals and take out all the horns.

^the 2010 remaster added some overdubs(?)

this "Kenneth" remix is like idk okay for the verses, but losing the tremolo is nuts (make it sound like a demo, no call-and-response to the chorus takes away a major hook!). at no point does it sound like an object from 1994. why do that? pretty pointless exercise IMO.

Oh wow wtf I do not want to hear that. I don't even really know what the point is of doing a digital remix/remaster of an album that was released in the CD era. I love the guitar tones on this album; they are my favourite aspect (certainly more than Stipe's weird scansion). I didn't think of it as an attempt at 'heavy' at all; closer to their take on shoegaze, maybe. Although it's in some ways v different from the early sound, it was a return of sorts in terms of burying the text a little more.

wow, i love that shoegaze connection. so if anything what would be cool is a remix that tries to make it sound more like loveless... further bury stipe's vocals (turning down the volume and/or adding chorused layers to them), maybe try to muffle the drums... could be amazing

Can't wait for the Exile on Main Street remix where they boost the vocals and take out all the horns.

― pplains, Friday, September 6, 2019 6:51 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

^the 2010 remaster added some overdubs(?)

― #YABASIC (morrisp), Friday, September 6, 2019 8:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

They only overdubbed the 'new' songs (which they did again on the Some Girls reissue), going so far as to bring in Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman for recording new parts.

Jagger did say he had to resist the urge to remix and clean-up the original album.

i know it's not but i always heard it as "your Benson dream"

their sexiest album

And I think it was the first time they ever sang directly about sex? Some of the results were a little, er, dorky ("I've got my telescope head in the haystack"); but it worked overall.

"fuck me, kitten" and all that key-lock stuff wasn't about sex?

No. About kittens, duh

I've got my telescope head in the haystack
I'm getting tired of your dodgeball circus act
Put pepper in my coffee, I forgot to bark on command

I never thought of this as a direct song about sex at all?

(Admittedly, I also never knew what most of those words were until now. Always thought of it as a hate/jealousy song, though, and that still mostly seems to work, looking over them.)

yeah i'm with sund4r there... "telescope head in the haystack" like being on paranoid lookout, alert to everything, but also sifting through irrelevant info (needle in a haystack), or... something

lol, I always thought it was a cringey sex metaphor, but maybe that’s on me

(Also, mea culpa on “Star Me Kitten” – forgot about that one)