REM: Classic or dud?

And something else maybe not on this album seemed to cop the first bars of "Knowing Me/Knowing You" but now I can't remember what it was.

Every R.E.M. album is like A or A-.

Also, "Me in Honey" is about pregnancy and breakup, right? Certainly not lightweight imo.

Male pregnancy according to Q, who occasionally liked to make things up.

Seems fairly clear - "Baby's got a baby with me/That's a part, that's a part of me!"

LRP is patchy as shit after Cuyahoga

i hate that kid for being able to play underneath the bunker better than me.

Listened to Out of Time on a long drive tonight Belong is really nice. Most of it hasn't held up.

When I mentioned earlier that Near Wild Heaven reminded me of the Moody Blues, I was wrong. It's Texarkana.

Also, "Me In Honey" = "Can't Hardly Wait"

Me In Honey was a 'reply' to 10,000 Maniacs' Eat For Two wasn't it? or that's what i've read. hence "what about me?" etc.

Read yesterday that the three new tracks on the compilation album that's coming out were recorded over the summer in Athens.

Just occurred to me - I wonder if they feature you-know-who on the drums!

that would rule

i just loaded up onto my ipod, resequencing it as suggested by stylus magazine a few years ago (except i (a) deleted lotus, which i don't like and (b) dumped the rest of the songs discarded by the stylus article at the end (by the way, they axed airportman, which i actually liked a lot as an exercise in hazy atmosphere)).

those "playing god" articles were nice features.

"why not smile" is probably my least favorite track so i could never get my head around the logic of that running order

man i totally forgot "lotus" exists

CLASSIC SIDE

Chronic Town: A-
Murmur: A+
Reckoning: A
Fables: A
LRP: A+
Dead Letter Office: A_
Document: A
Green: A- (would be A but for "The Wrong Child" and "Worth Leader Pretend," which between them foreshadow most of the mistakes the band would make later)
Out of Time: A

POST-CLASSIC SIDE:

Automatic: C
Monster: A-
New Adventures: A-
Up: C
Reveal: D
Around the Sun: only one I didn't buy
Accelerate: B-
Collapse: B-

Also, "Stand," "Shiny Happy People," and "Radio Song" are triumphs of the human spirit.

The Oxford American version of "Why Not Smile" is pretty great; it's on the "Daysleeper" single.

eephus otm re. Green

eephus off teh markh re: Automatic

would be A but for "The Wrong Child" and "Worth Leader Pretend," which between them foreshadow most of the mistakes the band would make later

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BNyDjkPO8l0/0.jpg

eeph notm re: "the wrong child" and "world leader pretend" being bad but otm about how the templates they set never approached the originals

I don't think either of those songs set significant templates for their later output.

"world leader pretend" = first rem song with the lyrics printed in the liner notes. a template for the michael major label message song? "the wrong child" is peter's first mandolin dirge iirc

Listening to Green this morning for the first time in ages, I could barely get through "You Are the Everthing," which I used to love.

were you drifting off to sleep, with your teeth in your mouth?

Eviscerate the memory!

all you hear is time stand still in travel

R.E.M. remembered by some folks in the Athens community

I don't think "world leader pretend" and "the wrong child" are bad, i just think they're less good than everything else on "green."

I should have added "Drive" as portender of future mistakes -- there is speak-singing earlier on the records (notably "Belong," but Stipe also used to do it a lot in live shows in the 80s) but the particular kind of rhythmically dead speak-singing that mars lots of later tracks starts with "Drive," I think. Not that it's always bad. "Belong" is wonderful.

Finally, "You Are The Everything" is the best song of its kind they ever wrote, only I'm having a hard time specifying what the kind is. But it includes "Nightswimming."

"world leader pretend" is completely fucking awesome, probably my favorite song on green

man what a pretty dirge

I don't think "world leader pretend" and "the wrong child" are bad, i just think they're less good than everything else on "green."

From the album that contains the execrable, interminable "Hairshirt", I can't accept that at all. Definitely the worst of 'that kind' of REM song.

Or at least certainly one of the worst during the bigtime era

you might be right, will relisten to "green" to make sure. i still hate the title of "pop song 89" but jeez, what a song. though the riff doesn't seem as HUGE to me as it once did (e.g. I think I once thought of it as comparably huge to the similarly deployed riff in "Begin The Begin," but now I think so.)

I've listened to this so often in my life that it's hard to listen to it with sustained attention. Also, I'm working on something else. After "PS89" and "Get Up" I'm reminded again of how much I like how big and upfront the vocals (both Stipe and Mills) are on this record. Also, the King Missile cover of this is surprisingly good.

When this record came out I thought "You Are The Everything" was a boring mood-killer between "Get Up" and "Stand." How could I have been so dumb?

I share enough of Stipe's pride in "World Leader Pretend" to forgive him for printing the lyrics. "Get Up" and "Pop Song '89" are good dumb-smart pop. "Stand" too. I don't care for the rest, including "Turn You Inside Out."

uh boy i hate stand and pop song 89, but there's a lot on this album i still love, including the admittedly generic-sounding world leader pretend.

On the other hand, when I listened to this cassette for the very first time, the day it came out, "Stand" came out and I was like, "holy crap, this is going to be the biggest hit of the year and it is also the best song I have ever heard" and I think I was not so dumb about this.

Green is the first CD I ever bought with my own money and by lucky coincidence a stone cold classic

"World Leader Pretend" -- the slide guitar -- it sounds like a theremin to me! -- makes this non-generic for me. The part that's mostly piano is the song of which "Nightswimming"is a cheap third-gen photocopy.

Almost as scary as the cello in "World Leader Pretend": Stipe's hair in the sleeve photo.

elvis costello's favorite r.e.m. apparently!

LOVE:
get up
untitled

love:
you are the everything (note: have not heard in 20 years)
orange crush
turn you inside out

like:
pop song 89
stand
world leader pretend
i remember california

no thanks:
the wrong child
hairshirt

elvis costello's favorite r.e.m. apparently!

this alone makes me hate the album

I stand by my claim that the line "tell me what it's like to go outside / i've never been" is almost impossible to sell, and stipe doesn't do it -- but i had forgotten how bracingly weird and dissonant the mandolin arpeggios are on this song, and i'm not sure now what i meant by calling it a foreshadowing of later bad decisions. the final "it's ok, ok" works for me but he does the same thing better with the final "what about me" in "me in honey"

i never think about "orange crush" but this song is unimpeachable. noticing today the way the rat-a-tat that opens the song is echoed by the guitar, quietly, in other non-obvious places throughout the song. one of the best of mills's wordless backing howls (this is where i get to say how much i like "belong" again)

"hairshirt" is slight but pleasant. the refrain of "the wrong child" is so gorgeous and yet must crawl out of the weird verses half-compromised. i think i like the song a lot for that reason.

it's one of my favorite r.e.m. records because it reminds me of fables in its construction: a lot of styles surveyed, and yet they all feel of a piece.

"turn you inside out" was another one i didn't care for when i first listened to the tape, but the live version won me over. just noticing tonight how the first two measures of guitar quote the opening of "superman." maybe THIS is where the speak-singing in its 1990s form really begins?

I can't really say I don't like "Hairshirt." But I reject "I am not the type of dog."

huh -- i always think of myself as liking "i remember california" but tonight it might be least favorite track here -- it sounds so mannered! The way he says "traffic jeee--ams." The ostentatious harmonies. The guitar blares without really rocking that much. Just not feeling it. Though I hasten to point out that "least favorite song on Green" for me is still a song I like a lot.

Is Mountain Goats "I remember California, I remember Malibu" a nod to this song?

haha doubtful, jd hates r.e.m. (lyrics aren't literal enough i don't think)