REM: Classic or dud?

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

thanks. those are great

so sad to see the exuberance of peter buck in the early 80s compared to his stage demeanor in 2000s, when he's basically just wasted

I study hopelessly title after title on Reveal, unable to recall a single hook -- and these songs are mostly over four minutes long.

I was thrilled by my first hearing of "The Lifting", with its strange bass sound, but Stipe's hoarseness undercut the would-be hook. The production's very much of its time, circa the late 90s Beach Boys renaissance / Dave Fridmann era, & it sounds very dated now...though we're due for a revival of that sound in the next five years so maybe this record'll be a touchstone again soon!

so sad to see the exuberance of peter buck in the early 80s compared to his stage demeanor in 2000s, when he's basically just wasted

he's a lot older now. probably isn't as easy to move around so much.

yeah "The Lifting" is the only thing from Reveal i liked at all

I'm still fond of "I've Been High", for its melody & Stipe's delicate (!) vocal.

yeah i like i've been high. that whole album, though, i find myself thinking, "wait, what band is this?" not necessarily a bad thing, i guess. highs and lows on reveal, that's to be sure. "i'll take the rain"! worst REM song ever?

yes

"Saturn Returns"! It's embarrassing.

"Beachball" I mean wtf?

I do like "The Lifting" and if I'm feeling generous might consider it one of their strongest opening numbers; but the mix is lifeless, you know?

Aw, I like the sound on that. Drums sound good.

I'll Take The Rain - definitely the worst. Although there might be something worse on Around The Sun if I could be bothered sitting through it all.
Saturn Returns is quite an interesting experiment in medieval folk, a couple of years before that sort of thing became commonplace in certain underground circles. Maybe not entirely successful, but certainly not an embarrassment. I'd rather hear REM doing prog-folk than U2, which is what I'll Take The Rain is.
Beachball is a rather dreamy bit of Beach Boys/Les Baxter exotica. It's a wisp of a song and arrangement, but again, far from embarrassing.
I think the Lifting is one of the few on that album where the busy mix actually suits the song.

The Reno song is a real dog, & I can't remember anything past that. Oh, I guess "Imitation of Life" was ok, but it had that awful lyric about sliced bread.

YOU'RE GONNA BE A STAAAAAARRRRR

the video was cute

song is case A in why Berry's departure was the end: the song plods & Bill would never have stood for that.

yeah, i could see that. i'm imagining it about sped up significantly and it already sounds significantly better

It could definitely use a better bridge, too.

Wait...I'm imagining it with a better bridge, too. Man this song kicks ass now!

You're gonna be a star!

the song plods & Bill would never have stood for that.

Do you really think this song "plods" more than, say, "Undertow?"

"beat a drum" was my favorite r.e.m. song for a decent amount of time.

"Undertow" has a bit of a swing! bong-ba-ba-bang, bong-ba-ba-bang, etc.

That's beside the point!

!!! my point that was that "Reno" doesn't swing, but only plods.

we need a conceptual analysis of swings, plods, drags, etc. But however this works: Bill Berry was a swinger.

You know, it's not swing - now that I listen again. Swing is a triplicate division of the beat and that song breaks the beat down into fours.

Anyway, "plod," of course, is just negative assessment of pacing.

And I'm sticking up for Joey Waronker here!

The problem's more with the songwriting; I've no doubt the drummer did what he was told to do. It's a Buck / Mills / Stipe write.

I wouldn't assume that. Certainly wouldn't assume that they told Bill Rieflin what to do!

I totally assume they told Rieflin exactly what to do. Guy was a hired hand, albeit a million times better than Waronker.

Don't understand the assumption at all. Wouldn't imagine Peter Buck would like to be told exactly what to do when he plays on other people's records.