REM: Classic or dud?

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.

I saw them twice on the Green tour, first early on at the Worcester Centrum and then toward the end of the tour at Great Woods, both arenas in Massachusetts. They came across as two completely different bands from the first show to the later one. I think that's when they truly crossed over from old school REM to new, freaked out rock star REM.

xpost Peter Buck appears on other records as a guest. Bringing along his musical personality os part of the deal. But Rieflin was replacing a drummer in an established band, not to mention a band with studio perfectionist tendencies. The idea that he had free reign in R.E.M. is nuts. Here's a good Rieflin interview, by Glenn Kotche: http://periodicals.faqs.org/201007/2048065091.html

"Studio perfectionist tendencies" - like Peter wanting to only play songs couple of times?

Hardly think it's nuts to question the assumption that they would have gotten Rieflin in the band so that they could "tell him exactly what to do."

When other artists ask Peter Buck to play on their records, it's because they want him to do what he does. When a studio drummer is asked to replace a former quarter-member of a band that's been around for 30 years, it's not likely that he was hired to do more than he's asked to do by the rest of the band.

He's not a "studio drummer." Even if he was, it wouldn't necessarily matter. He was in Minus Five before he was in R.E.M. His wikipedia page states that he also contributed bouzouki, keyboards, and guitars to R.E.M., but you guys will probably just say that Peter and Mike told him exactly what to play.

wtf is this dumb argument. can we talk about how good this song is instead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgiCechWNCo&ob=av3e

tellll her she can kiss my ass
and laugh
and say that you were only kidding
that way she'll know
that it's really, really, really, really me.

Quote from here:

Generally, say, if Bill was going to learn our old material, I would definitely suggest listening to the old records and do what [original R.E.M. drummer] Bill Berry does,” says Buck, relaxing in Hawaii before starting a major tour behind Accelerate. “Anything current, it’s all his arrangement ideas. He doesn’t have to play like Bill Berry would have. We hired him for his ability to use balance, so he’s totally free to play whatever he seems to feel makes sense.

Just barging in here as a guy who once thought R.E.M. were up there with my fave bands ever circa 'Document'. Man, did I ever wear that thing out.

Almost immediately stopped paying attention after 'Green'. So weird. I loved them so much at one point, and then I simply didn't, and never really cared why.

"The Lifting" is utterly fantastic. It came on randomly like 4 years ago when I was at a bar and I frantically asked my bartender friend what he had played -- he told me R.E.M.

Still never listened to the full 'Reveal' alb (or, frankly any lp in full after Automatic), but goddamn 'The Lifting' is like one of the best psych tracks all time, no joke. band should have tried straight-up psych more often

It's equally nuts to believe that Buck really played any songs only once or twice in the studio. Later R.E.M., once the arrangements took off, is the farthest thing from a one-take band, and you can hear it, to the detriment of the songs, which is why so may of the tracks from "Up" and beyond fare so well live.

You're still saying "equally nuts" after I posted that quote?

Rieflin was able to have significant creative input. You were not correct on that matter. As for the other matter, Peter Buck has stated that he does not like to play things over and over again in the studio.

don't really feel like getting into it, but 2 points:

a) it's Peter Buck saying this, who also says with each new record that it's their best. not sure how reliable he is in interviews (much love, but I'm sure he's a couple martinis down at any given point)

b) if your quote's so salient, why doesn't he get songwriting credit? i.e. see a)

Because he's the drummer - he didn't write the song. Did Ringo get songwriting credits? This is absurd.

good grief: Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe are the songwriters on pretty much every REM song until Berry leaves the band!

Bill "the drummer" Berry is credited alongside Stipe, Mills and Buck on all R.E.M. albums up until his departure. All Berry-free R.E.M. records are credited Buck, Mills, Stipe.

Beat me to it!

Not "pretty much every song," literally every song. We all know that R.E.M. decided to go with four-way songwriting credits on everything at the very beginning.

Doesn't have anything to do with whether someone else who played on their records had creative input.

Your mama had creative input. I was there.

I'd kind of forgotten that, at one point, r.e.m. were one of those bands by which i'd buy both cd single 1 and cd single 2.

admittedly, this was a time when you could quite frequently pick up cd single for 99p.

Wikipedia (drawing from sources I haven't bothered to check) says Berry was the primary songwriter on a bunch of tunes, including "Perfect Circle," "Driver 8," "Man on the Moon," "Can't Get There From Here." But anyway they supposedly worked out most of the songs together, I think there was a lot of collaboration all the way around.

(which presumably means on the later albums, the three of them worked out the songs before bothering to call in a drummer.)

"And then telling him exactly what to do..."

No, but there's a big difference between having a guy there while you're writing the song and then having him come in after it's written and saying "Here's the song, play something that goes with it." I've been in both situations as a drummer, and it's a completely different experience. I mean, studio aces have been adding crucial stuff to songs forever without getting songwriting credit because there's a difference between the songwriting process and the recording/arranging process. (Unless you're a full band that really collaborates on everything, like R.E.M. did in the original quartet.)

lol, dismissing a direct quote contradicting one's position from one of principals with "lol he must have been drunk" -- yeah! Rhetoric 101.

I agree completely. Was just reacting to Josh's silly comments.

xp

WHO CARES

also, <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_QG6tr9mjo

From the 2010 interview I linked to above:

Bill: My aim was for R.E.M. to sound like R.E.M. I wanted to be true to the spirit and the letter, for each song. This meant learning both the notes and the feel. I was largely unfamiliar with the details of their catalog, so I had a lot of catching up. I made charts for everything. The notes are easy enough, but getting the feel was another matter. I was committed to knowing what made [original R.E.M. drummer] Bill Berry tick, to knowing how and why he played what he played, to absorb him through osmosis. I had about three months and listened to the records constantly.

I would listen until I noticed something. Anything. Eventually I'd notice something else. Soon, patterns emerged. A big challenge for me was pulling back when and where it was needed; I was still used to playing pretty full-on most of the time. "Maps And Legends" was the first song where I felt I'd achieved something. I still always enjoy playing that song.

Learning the old R.E.M. material opened up my approach and my thinking about feel. The analogy is something like character acting. It has to do with embodying the spirit of someone else; I wanted to embody Bill's spirit. As time went on and I got more comfortable and confident, I put more of myself into the songs. Mow the older material is pretty much a hybrid of the two Bills.

So if you want to give Rieflin some sort of credit for the two records he's on, fine. But dude was a session hand all the same, and I'd be shocked if his contributions deviated significantly from the drum parts on the Mills/Buck demos (because by "Up" I'm pretty sure they were working on songs separately, leading to much conflict when it came time to pick the songs for the record; my understanding is that "Accelerate" was a specific Buck-centric compromise to the band a going concern, much as "Monster" was made in part to sate Berry).

Anyway, my fave Rieflin is his awesome art-prog solo album with Robert Fripp and Trey Gunn (!) called "Birth of a Giant." Sounds like David Sylvian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Siba1wuCaS0

'He’s totally free to play whatever he seems to feel makes sense."

This Rieflin discussion reminds me of Peter Holsapple's departure from the band. As I recall, he was kicked out for playing his hand too hard and demanding writing credits and ended up touring/sitting in with Hootie and the Blowfish.

yeah, it's gonna be contentious. I'm inclined to trust the songwriting credits as the last word (following the money), but it doesn't matter. Does Rieflin want credit for those records, anyway?

Did we ever poll Berry Buck Mills Stipe?

Fwiw, I quite like the last few records, think Rieflin is really good, and that it's cool that they got him in the band. He's probably not the kind of drummer someone might have expected to end up in R.E.M., but it's awesome that he did and, I think, a bit of a testament to R.E.M.'s musicality that they would have gone with him.

This is something we can agree on. Whatever his contributions, he did not make the band worse, and did make them better live.

Seriously, I saw them in '03 and it was like 'Wow, who is this guy?'

Can we all agree on these two things:

1) Bill Berry was involved in REM's songwriting and was a key contributor (chords, melodies) to a number of their classic songs.

2) The new Bill wasn't involved in the songwriting but created his drum parts, in consultation with the producer and the other band members, like pretty much every drummer.

Not sure we can agree on that. How much have you had to drink today?

One of my favorite Bill Berry stories stemmed from the "Out of Time" stories/sessions, when Berry was apparently sitting at a piano playing what would become ... something or another, and the other guys realized that after all those years they had no idea the guy could play piano until he was doing it.

Also, and this is a total aside, I always felt (as a drummer and a novice guitarist) that Berry played drums sort of like drums were not his first instrument. Not that he was a bad drummer - to the contrary, he was great - but there was always something a little brilliantly odd/off about the way he approached the set. He sat so high, for one.

Berry plays quite a few instruments on OOT.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that he came up with the arpeggio in "Everybody Hurts."

Re. Berry's key role in writing "Everybody Hurts", see this interview with Mike Mills from a few years back.

Apologies if this has already been linked (I missed a few posts), but here's the original Stephen Hague version of Catapult:

http://thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com/2011/09/rem-did-we-miss-anything.html