REM: Classic or dud?

how so, it was 2001 not 1991...

all this 'never into rem' talk. 'unimpressed,' 'comfort zone music.' 'rem sucks eggs' is hard to relate to. like someone trying too hard

boy i sure do hate that college rock

oh, that was this minor phenomenon called "indie guilt", I believe we may have addressed that on a thread before...?

could be

I suppose it's been long enough that any/many of the posters on this thread were born when the band was already huge, so I suppose that would affect perspective. I mean, someone born when the band was already playing arenas is graduating from college now. Someone born when "Losing My Religion" was everywhere is only now old enough to drink. They never had the chance to "discover" R.E.M. or be possessive about R.E.M. or whatever. R.E.M. belonged to everyone - and was over-exposed, and starting to go downhill - their entire lives.

When I was listening to Monster earlier, I realized it could be defined as "Mid-Period" REM.

They were starting to go downhill their entire lives. That's nice.

Wild card question!

"like someone trying too hard" = ILX in 2001

E-Bow The Letter wrote the rulebook for releasing the 'experimental' first single, a la 'Pyramid Song', because the band assumes they just can.

I don't really believe this is the case - I think they were genuinely surprised to hear it referred to as uncommercial. If you listen to it immediately after Strange Currencies the similarities are obvious, they were probably just thinking along those lines.

all this 'never into rem' talk. 'unimpressed,' 'comfort zone music.' 'rem sucks eggs' is hard to relate to. like someone trying too hard

Radical theory but maybe they just didn't like them that much? I'd hate for my opinions on Morrisey or Bowie or other huge respected artists I dislike to be dismissed in those terms.

But there was definitely a thing during the first phase of C or D when people (most of whom don't post anymore) lined up to say dud about every major artist without much of an argument. There was a lot more generic poptimist canon-bashing.

It all changed when Taking Sides: Holly Valance Vs The Ramones

I think it's partly because the Classic crew for any given artist just weren't that interested in debating, it was literally just people going 'classic' or 'dud' with varying qualities of reasoning.

They went shit at Monster imho. One or two peaks since. "......Reno" was good for example.

Got sick of hearing of their return to form album that sadly never was

Have you actually listened to it? At least the first half of Accelerate is one big slab of New Adventures Style Rock, admittedly with 80s REM songs underneath.

I tend to skip those, as they are really horrible, but my impression is that more than half of "Accelerate" is acoustic ballads og semi-ballads dominated by acoustic 12 string, mandolins, accordion and strings.

If you're only listening to Houston, Until The Day Is Done, Mr Richards and Sing For The Submarine then I can see why you'd think that, but the rest of the album is very rocky so you're making a call based on very selective listening.

The acoustic tracks on that album SOUND fucking horrible incidentally, Jacknife Lee is a terrible producer and folksy acoustic guitars should really not be turned up in the mix to that extent. You listen to the acoustic guitars on that record compared to, say, Automatic For The People and the production isn't even in the same galaxy let alone league.

E-Bow isn't exactly a catchy singalong (no very discernible chorus or obvious "hook" for that matter), whereas Strange Currencies is the song that immediately started playing in my head when I heard REM split up and I haven't been able to get it out my head since.

Isn't that the unspoken truth, too? That R.E.M. lost its inertia as soon as it parted ways with Scott Litt?

their inertia?

Inertia - Wikipedia,

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. ...

i.e. their motion forwards is (was) their inertia.

but inertia means the opposite of that as shown by your quote

Didn't you ever take remedial physics? It means the band was propelling itself along, resistant to slow-down, until it experienced a counter-force: losing Litt.

Newton's first law of motion, etc.

"Newton's first law of motion states that "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." Objects tend to "keep on doing what they're doing." In fact, it is the natural tendency of objects to resist changes in their state of motion. This tendency to resist changes in their state of motion is described as inertia.

Newton's conception of inertia stood in direct opposition to more popular conceptions about motion. The dominant thought prior to Newton's day was that it was the natural tendency of objects to come to a rest position. Moving objects, so it was believed, would eventually stop moving; a force was necessary to keep an object moving. But if left to itself, a moving object would eventually come to rest and an object at rest would stay at rest; thus, the idea that dominated people's thinking for nearly 2000 years prior to Newton was that it was the natural tendency of all objects to assume a rest position."

Josh in Chicago is correct w/r/t physics, incorrect w/r/t common English usage.

Look what the dissolution of R.E.M. has done to the English language.

Scottlittinger's Cat

Losing My Inertia

Feeling Gravity's Pull. Oh, weight, I mean, wait ...

They split up and the following day the known laws of physics are busted open. I suspect we'll see Stipe at CERN sometime soon.

I don't mind the acoustic guitar on "Houston." I tend to think it's supposed to sound cold, right? To go with that organ part? Compare it to the sound on "UBerlin."

Will stick up for Jacknife Lee in general. Would not prefer to hear a theoretical Collapse Into Now produced by McCarthy or Litt.

fact: cobain has funtimes lost night with stipe
fact: nirvana released an album called nevermind on september 21, 1991
fact: r.e.m. breaks up on 20th anniversary of release of nevermind
fact: coincidence?!

I think Geir is confused again. Acoustic guitars and mandolins and strings would much better describe songs on Collapse Into Now rather than Accerlerate iirc...

xpost Do you mean Jacknife Lee in general re: REM? Because that producer sucks. Sucks the life out of everything.

wasn't Nevermind released on the 24th, andrew?

KABLOOEY

I liked JNL's remix of "Born Again" Badly drawn Boy, more than the orig but it remains unreleased.

Or do you mean his actual productions?

His actual productions, dunno, I think REM even at their worst merited a producer whose approach extended a little further than 'turn everything up as loud as possible as all times and then hope for the best'.

Oh, I've argued it before. I think they intended to have a raw sound on Accelerate. It's no worse than the production on Monster. Collapse Into Now is quite nice sounding overall.

Reggie, I probably would be more inclined to peek at them if Austin hadn't played the shit out of them. Once at the Union movie theatre the projector stopped working and they tortured us all by playing Losing My Religion over and over for an hour before telling us the projector broke and to just go home. REM was always playing at some movie theatre before the trailers. But even before that it was the soundtrack to all my teen angst and along with bad poetry and sad high school thoughts....yerch!

mills sang 'little darlin' at karaoke last night, seemed in fine spirits, someone sang 'stand' as a joke, everybody laughed, i sang 'wichita lineman'.

E-Bow The Letter Tusk wrote the rulebook for releasing the 'experimental' first single, a la 'Pyramid Song', because the band assumes they just can.

the soundtrack to all my teen angst and along with bad poetry and sad high school thoughts....yerch!

So funny to me that R.E.M. would have this resonance for some people, but I guess if you mostly knew them from OOT and AFTP -- or the ambient presence of those albums' singles -- I can see it.

up is a great record everybody; reveal is sleepy yeah but underestimated, has some of their most beautiful songs; i actually like around the sun but expect no one else to ever; accelerate was cool at the moment and then i forgot about it?; collapse into now is the first record i really didn't like by these dudes, so melodically and lyrically lazy

REM has major resonance to me. oot and aftp are two of my least favorite albums they recorded with bill. the IRS years still shiver my timbers

now that the show is over, i am going back and listening to 'up,' 'reveal,' etc., figuring i was wrong about them. the fresh prospect of there never being another album from them is already changing my feelings about these later songs

this is my go-to track from around the sun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHPzD8C-gGw

don't mean to turn this into a relentless youtube thread, but they also completely enlivened the up tracks live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ46Y6xt2pU

"enlivened" "live"

you know