REM: Classic or dud?

(xxpost) Plus the distribution that came with being on IRS wasn't the same as being on Twin/Tone or Reflex.

It's been a long while since I've listened to anything from Murmur beyond "Radio Free Europe"--played it constantly when it came out--but yes, I can definitely hear the Gang of Four in the jaggedness of the tracks posted above. Not so much in the vocals, though; for me, R.E.M. still come out of an Everlys/Byrds tradition of harmony, which would explain why I connected with Murmur immediately while the Gang of Four left me cold way back when.

The LRP reissue with All The Right Friends is worth picking up.

When the reunited Gang of Four played in Athens a few years ago, Stipe was there and acting all excited. He and Vanessa from Pylon sang backup on "I Love a Man in a Uniform."

Oh, boy - should I be afraid to read ur-rockist Bill Wyman's career assessment in Slate, titled "R.E.M.'s Revolution: How a post-punk band from Georgia changed rock 'n' roll forever?"

Yeah, couldn't make much sense of the piece. Like:

Still, in the overheated industry of the period, the band's sales were middling, and it wasn't as though the Replacements were moving product either. It took a few more years, until the rise of a band with a leader who plainly looked to R.E.M. for career if not musical inspiration, before the Amerindie movement could truly assault the industry. After Nirvana's Nevermind, everything changed ...

But this makes no sense, since R.E.M. was selling millions before "Nevermind," and millions of weirder records, at that. I wouldn't link the concurrent success of "Nevermind" and "Automatic" at all. They're almost opposites of one another in nearly every sense.

yeah that's just wrong.
and even if cobain professed to be an REM fan, it did not show in his music.

well, Document broke them to a Top 40 audience and OOT made them superstars, six months before the release of Nevermind. No wonder writers conflate REM and Nirvana's successes.

except Out of Time was released in April and Nevermind that fall, and didn't get big until that next spring

But he's saying it was "Nevermind" that changed everything, when if you go by R.E.M.'s success, it was R.E.M. that changed things for Nirvana. But again, I don't see the connection.

check out this insane picture

http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2066611/2281252/2303818/110922_MB_REMBand_EX.jpg

document (and the one i love) both made the top 10 iirc

I think ppl aren't picking up on Alfred's blatant sarcasm...?

yeah srsly guys

Now, per the writer's odd, rushed thesis, there is an obvious case for "Nevermind" making good on the failed promise of the Replacements and Husker Du, for sure. But in terms of breaking down the doors, R.E.M. was in the big leagues already.

rip sarcasm, rem

R.I.P.

RIP
an interesting thing about the our band could be your life book was how REM, to most of the bands of the time, were godlike rock stars, even from the early days. at least relatively speaking. from their perspective REM led some kind of charmed existence.

there's that quote from Cobain's last RS interview in which he praises'em for behaving "like saints" during their period of mass success.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1671211/r-e-m-michael-stipe-nirvana-kurt-cobain.jhtml

So looking back, I guess R.E.M. was already playing arenas by '89.

Might be covered in that article buzza linked, but weren't there tons of rumors flying around about a Cobain/Stipe collaboration around the time of Cobain's death?

Stipe used the project as an excuse to check on Cobain, Stipe said.

REM were def playing arenas in 1989, at least in the southeast. I still regret not going to the last show on the Green tour, at the Omni in Atlanta.

yeah, the tourfilm doc shows them playing a pretty large space.

I do think it odd that there was never any creative overlap between the Smiths and R.E.M. Contemporary peers, (broadly) similar sounds, (broadly) Marr/Buck guitar style, Stipe/Morrissey, all obvious analogs. Even now Marr and Buck live in the same city. But never the tween shall meet, I guess.

[2-disc grrrrrreatest hits coming out in Nov: Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011]

buck and marr both appear on robyn hitchcock's last album.

I saw them at Mud Island, a fairly large amphitheatre, in 1986.

when did stipe become bill murray?

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Michael+Stipe+2011+Can+Awards+Dinner+FWNewDHpoE4l.jpg
http://beardporn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/bill-murray-475x289.jpg

You know, there's a good case to be made that Metallica actually deserves credit setting the stage for Nirvana.

R.E.M. basically followed U2's trajectory, albeit on a lag, and with a more wayward approach. People forget they didn't even tour behind "Out of Time" and "Automatic," their two biggest records!

That's why the Monster tour was so huge with multiple nights at big arenas that sold out so quickly.

Smiths & REM: I lived in Atlanta in the late 80s, & when Strangeways the buzz in my hs was that Stipe & Morrissey were regularly seen in Athens holding hands, & that the end of "Unhappy Birthday" ("the one you left behind") was a sly note to Stipe. I don't know if it's true! But that was the word from kids going back & forth to Athens (I was too young to drive at that point).

when Strangeways came out, I meant

can't write today, trying to do too much at once

You know, there's a good case to be made that Metallica actually deserves credit setting the stage for Nirvana.
i think this is true ime. in 7th grade, during lunch hours on fridays, they let kids play music over the PA at my school. first it was the black album, and then it was nirvana. this seems like pretty hard evidence, i know.

R.E.M. certainly were like the American kings of having all sorts of crazy rumors flying around!

Mozz and Stipe used to be pen pals, I believe.

Stipe also befriended Morrissey in the early nineties; he had a Mother Hen instinct for stars-in-need.

Was Morrissey really a star-in-need at that point though? Iirc that was when he was doing really well (relatively) with his solo singles

Kill Uncle?

mozzz could always use a hug.

Okay fair point, but to be fair most of his 1990-1992 singles charted higher in the U.S. than any of the late 80s stuff did.

i saw 10ooomaniaks open for them in arena. that sucked. but saw feelies open up for them and arena rock feelies was heavennnnnz.

Time For a Witness is a great record.

10ooomaniaks

Is this another one of those goddamn ghostwave bands?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wESkX_ehgA

Busted out Monster from storage and am listening for the first time in yoinks...forgot Thurston Moore did backing vox on "Crush W/Eyeliner".

Michael Stipe played with a punk/new wave band called Bad Habits who were from St Louis, before moving to Georgia

The Minutemen were already on the REM tour and had completed it when D Boon died.

Bands I saw open for R.E.M. in early days - dbs (twice), Three O'Clock and True West, Guadalcanal Diary.