"Bittersweet Me" was great. I used to hear one of the other NAiH-F singles, "Electrolite" alot in grocery & drug stores. It made shopping pleasant.
― The Man With The Flavored Toothpick (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:03 (twelve years ago) link
That's a great list.
"Band and Blame" is my favorite second REM single of the 90s; Stipe's vocal is uncharacteristically tender & as Alfred said earlier, it exudes sexuality: open, vulnerable, wanting, "dares to cross your threshold".
― Euler, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:04 (twelve years ago) link
ack "Bang & Blame", way to miss the point, self.
electrolite gets a bad rap because it's played a lot in grocery and drug-stores.
but the hook and melody makes it an unforgettable earworm.
i hate band and blame with the heat of a thousand suns.
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:05 (twelve years ago) link
yeah "Electrolite" has had an unexpected second life as Muzak; I hear it far more than the other NAIHF singles.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:06 (twelve years ago) link
"Bang & Blame" is kind of interminable, imo everything it does well is done better by "I Don't Sleep, I Dream"
― some dude, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:07 (twelve years ago) link
"Do you give good head?"
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:07 (twelve years ago) link
and that terrific strummed electric hook.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:08 (twelve years ago) link
My favourite '90s song, with my favourite R.E.M. lyric ever: "You know, there's talk of time/Talk is fine."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_JnCWT-_O8
― clemenza, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:09 (twelve years ago) link
I adore Out of Time, which still doesn't get much love because It's The Big One. The marvel for me, as I wrote in my own obit, is how "Losing My Religion" sounded a hundred times more ambiguous with each radio play. I've never gotten tired of it.
And the record has all kinds of crinkles and filigrees. "Near Wild Heaven" I mentioned, but what about the loping "Endgame"? Those flutes!
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:09 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know if it's naive to hope for any fruitful side/solo projects at this point but i feel like one thing about the breakup is that practically any of them is more likely to make a really good record in the future outside of REM than they would have with the band
― some dude, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:10 (twelve years ago) link
bang and blame made me wish michael stipe's lyrics went back to being unintelligible.
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:10 (twelve years ago) link
And the record has all kinds of crinkles and filigrees.
yeah, this is kind of true. there's a mumblecore-type song on this disc that i liked. belong, maybe?
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:11 (twelve years ago) link
I listened to Out of Time today when I got the news. It's my favorite REM album. "Radio Song" gets hate here but I think the opening is thrilling: Buck strums a gorgeous riff, then Mills comes in with clear notes, then Stipe with lovely mystic nonsense.
― Euler, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:12 (twelve years ago) link
i hate radio song with the heat of a hundred suns.
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:12 (twelve years ago) link
it was around out of time's release that i realized i didn't love every song on every one of r.e.m.'s discs anymore.
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:13 (twelve years ago) link
Out Of Time has aged very very poorly for me and is probably my least favorite of the 90s albums but i love that goofy old "Radio Song"
― some dude, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:16 (twelve years ago) link
Green has some grisly stuff, and it's the first one I ever owned.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:19 (twelve years ago) link
the whole 90s period was so . . . okay but generic.
i come to celebrate fables of the reconstruction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBVVtNnHeEg
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:20 (twelve years ago) link
i will join your celebration. i like bits and pieces of 90s REM. i started with late-period REM and worked my way back. the first REM song i ever heard was actually Airportman (yeah, including Everybody Hurts and Losing My Religion and...well, i think i may have heard Stand in a supermarket when I was a kid). i had a strange upbringing, musically. but anyway, since i started with Up, and then worked backwards to New Adventures and AFTP, i used to be a big big fan of 90s REM. at some point i decided to see what 80s REM was like, and Murmur blew me away to such an extent that i can barely listen to the 90s stuff anymore. their first 4 albums are just unstoppable
― rebels against newton (Z S), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:28 (twelve years ago) link
"generic" isn't really a word i would use to describe 90s REM. there were times when they were relatively in step with the times but they never sounded anonymous.
― some dude, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:30 (twelve years ago) link
they became shape-shifting genre tourists, veering away from their distinctive jangle-y gothic southern rock sound.
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:31 (twelve years ago) link
just heard this but i think i prefer it to the album version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zgh0y9vTgY
― rebels against newton (Z S), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:34 (twelve years ago) link
they never struck me as Elvis Costello-style pastiche masters even at their most dilettantish, though. everything still went through a pretty heavy REM filter (or at least Stipe filter).
― some dude, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:35 (twelve years ago) link
beginning of the end was the speak-sing stuff
― rebels against newton (Z S), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:36 (twelve years ago) link
never noticed or was bothered by speak singing much beyond hating E-Bow
― some dude, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:37 (twelve years ago) link
oh man, that's way better than the album version.
stipe picks up a guitar and i thought, "does he know how to play any instruments"?
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:37 (twelve years ago) link
(i actually kind of liked e-bow, but i couldn't tell you why)
i love e-bow
― rebels against newton (Z S), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:38 (twelve years ago) link
and i'm not afraid to admit it
a track that got lotsa love on our big REM poll here was "Country Feedback", & it's a good song (lots better than "E-Bow", who love here I also don't get), but I think I hear the first version of the annoying speak-sing thing we're talking about on that song.
― Euler, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:38 (twelve years ago) link
and yeah, e-bow was speak-singing, but it was the Beginning of the end, see, so it was still R.E.M. near the top of their game
― rebels against newton (Z S), Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:39 (twelve years ago) link
E-Bow made me go back & reconsider why I dug Patti Smith.
― Euler, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:39 (twelve years ago) link
e-bow is great!
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:40 (twelve years ago) link
Though E-Bow, I'll take you over "How The West Was whatever"
― Euler, Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:41 (twelve years ago) link
that rockville clip reminds me that mid-80s stipe and late-80s slash and anytime-ever howard stern would have made an ideal hair-metal band -- or ramones cover band.
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 22 September 2011 02:42 (twelve years ago) link
never really a fan, even though they should have been right up my alley. i think i bought one of their WB albums and liked a few songs over the years. so i really have no reaction to this news.
― Bee OK, Thursday, 22 September 2011 03:49 (twelve years ago) link
'90s R.E.M. - or at least "Green" and beyond R.E.M. - is full of albums with 1/3 I hate, 1/3 I think are OK, and 1/3 I love. Which always makes listening to things like "Out of Time" a thrill; the dives and dips between high and low keep me on my toes. Like, "Radio Song," boo! "Near Wild Heaven," awesome! "Shiny Happy People," nah. "Country Feedback," yeah!
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 22 September 2011 04:02 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CERhzm6t7I
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 22 September 2011 04:03 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, Country Feedback still kind of haunts me in this weird way. just the way "IT'S CRAZY WHAT YOU COULD HAVE HAD" begins to turn in on itself or something.
― Sophomore subs are the new Smith lesbians. (the table is the table), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:04 (twelve years ago) link
it's taken me a while to realize that new adventures in hi-fi and monster are my favorite r.e.m. records but there you go
"e-bow" is so gorgeous, for a while it was my favorite r.e.m. song.
― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:31 (twelve years ago) link
"E-Bow The Letter" was awful and horrible. Absolutely despise so-called "speak singing" no matter who does it.
― Hongroe (Geir Hongro), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:33 (twelve years ago) link
"Losing My Religion" is awesome, but as an album, "Out Of Time" is much more uneven than "Automatic For The People", which doesn't contain a single bad track.
― Hongroe (Geir Hongro), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:34 (twelve years ago) link
monster had its production flaws, but it had a lot of very strong (if somewhat bland, for rem) songs
It does. I have no idea as I have never heard those songs. They are drowned in the production. The vocals are mixed way too low on that album, hardly possible to hear at all.
― Hongroe (Geir Hongro), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:37 (twelve years ago) link
It does?, I mean
also smh @ the "mike mills is the worst backing vocalist" stuff upthread
i first heard automatic for the people when i was really young and that's necessarily going to alter how i hear it now, but i'm still completely affected by his work in "try not to breathe"
― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:41 (twelve years ago) link
i am under the impression that the vocals are mixed decently high on monster except for "let me in" but whatev
still love how "what's the frequency, kenneth" is this kind of harder but still traditional r.e.m. song and the rest of the record is unhinged glam. one of my favorite red herring singles.
― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:51 (twelve years ago) link
also strange currencies > everybody hurts
― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Thursday, 22 September 2011 07:52 (twelve years ago) link
So, are they doing the big farewell, or not?
Big Tour, Final Album, Valedictory Glastonbury Ending?
If so, that's gonna take 2 years...
― Mark G, Thursday, 22 September 2011 08:29 (twelve years ago) link
haha losing my religion is a fucking huge benchmark for middlebrow pop pretension. can't stomach that shit. anymore.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 22 September 2011 08:35 (twelve years ago) link