The Sidewinder Sleeps, Sleeps, Sleeps In A POLL: REM's "Automatic For The People"

Truly, the results prove that virtue isn't everything.

Just let go.

Hold...your...tongue.

that shit is plain fucked up

c'mon, this is just vitriol, no solution spleen venting. do you feel better for having screamed?

Don't you?

"Everybody Hurts" – 5:17 2

This makes me so unbelievably happy.

i don't mind "Drive" but major o_O

why was there no "I would like to beat 'Everybody Hurts' with bats" option

y'all know that some future generation of music crits is gonna reclaim everybody hurts though

this is why I am glad I won't be around in the 2100s

maybe at night in the cemetery they'll pipe in 'everybody hurts' to the graves though? like to soothe the dead?

I don't hate "Everybody Hurts" but I've skipped it when listening to this album since, well, 1992. Same for "Ignoreland".

God, though, you guys, "Man on the Moon" really is a fucking great song.

Something I don't understand about myself is why I have no time for "Man on the Moon," finding it kind of boringly chirpy, when I love and admire both "Stand" and "Shiny Happy People." Maybe it's because I think of Andy Kaufman as a really different kind of thing from R.E.M. and it feels somehow not true to what the band was doing to reach for this reference -- i.e. as you know I love Talking Heads beyond measure but if Talking Heads had done a song that was explicitly about Lily Tomlin would I have been into it? But no, I don't think there's a reason, I just think this song struck me at the wrong time and glanced off. If I remember right, MotM and "Try Not To Breathe" were the ones I liked when this first came out. Now I would rank "Sweetness Follows"

I sort of get what you mean about Kaufman, or more generally that first string of pop cultural references: the Game of Life, Mott the Hoople. Seems kind of outside their normal basket of mythology. It's basically a "Candle in the Wind" kind of deal, and for an "alternative" band, finding meaning in this semi-mainstream reference might seem odd, even if it probably went over the heads of most of the listeners. I know I had to look it up when I got into this album in '98/99.

would've voted 'man on the moon' most likely, though 'monty got a raw deal' got a raw deal here. in 92 would've voted 'ignoreland', so stupid. man what an album. casino did simpson make you aware how close weaver d's was (is) to going out of business?

and for an "alternative" band, finding meaning in this semi-mainstream reference might seem odd

ha, i meant something more like the exact opposite, that the kaufman ref reads to me r.e.m. reaching for "artiness" in a way that didn't suit them

More about atheism than artiness...

Okay, I get you now re: Kaufman! I guess artiness seems within their remit to me... Man Ray kind of sky, etc.

I thought Weaver D's HAD gone out of business!

if Talking Heads had done a song that was explicitly about Lily Tomlin

but they did write a song for "Bill."

Even though this album represents the point where R.E.M. went interstellar massive, I often forget just how great this album is. Particularly the second half of the album from 'Monty' onwards. Those string arrangements still sound gorgeous too, particularly on 'Sidewinder'. I think I'm even beginning to be able to listen to 'Everybody Hurts' again after years of being sick to death of it, too.

I pulled this out after the New Adventures revive listen the other day, and agree as always: rich, moody, textured arrangements on a great set of songs, arguably the most consistent set of songs they ever wrote (save "Ignoreland" though I know opinions are divided).

Yeah, 'Ignoreland' has always divided opinion, I guess, although I've always enjoyed it. The thing that's sprung to mind on this go-round of the album is how much 'Star Me Kitten' has grown on me over the years. When I first heard the album back in the '90s it was always a track that I didn't find myself paying much attention to, but these days I look forward to it... there's something about the way the bass combines with those backing vocals that's total ear candy to me.

I wonder how many people who bought this album noticed the f-bombs in 'Ignoreland' and 'Star Me Kitten', too.

This is the one REM album I really like.

I never had a problem with Ignoreland, but then I could never work out the words and never had a lyric sheet. In its defence, I like Stipe's flow as the second part of the verse builds (before the 'yeah yeah yeah yeah' part)

it's horrible because it breaks the flow of the album. on its own it's still horrible. Stipe's flow on it is a descendent of the talky flow on "Little America" and "It's the End of the World", and I suppose the talky bit on "Orange Crush", like he was into rap and thought "I can do...something like that". so on "Ignoreland" he takes that talky flow but barks like on "Orange Crush", and then it's into the hideous chorus, boomed out perkily, like an ad. "Ironic", no? what's worse is that that flow becomes the model for New Adventures, like on "Departure", "How the West Was Won", "E-Bow" kinda. well I can see why "Ignoreland" would split opinions because people here actually like those songs on Hifi, but they're the nadir of REM to me; I'd rather listen to "Leaving New York".

Stipe's increasing talky delivery from mid 90s onward I find really grating.

Seems to coincide IMO with becoming a much less interesting, over-'obvious' frontman.

Ahhhhh, I dunno, I love "Departure" and the fast-talkin' parts on "Ignoreland" are the only really interesting part of that song. Different strokes.

I'll agree that they're the most interesting part of that song, but that's just because the chorus is so rank.

but really my abiding hatred for that song is b/c it's like walking into a moss-covered cemetery in the autumn as dusk sets, and ripping a giant stinky fart.

I love Stipe's talky delivery. It's one of the many things that contributes to New Adventures In Hi-Fi being the best R.E.M. album.

In its defence, I like Stipe's flow as the second part of the verse builds (before the 'yeah yeah yeah yeah' part)

― Shepard Toney Album (dog latin), Friday, October 24, 2014 10:05 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This part rules!

While there's quite a few tracks on this record that were overplayed to death at the time and many years after until R.E.M. split, I feel I've reached the point where there's been enough distance from all of that that I can now listen to this album front-to-back and have it feel like a fresher experience than it's felt for a number of years. At one point, I was so sick of hearing 'Everybody Hurts' and 'Man On The Moon' that I never thought I'd really be able to enjoy either to the extent that I once did, but now I'm beginning to hear the simplicity and directness that I once loved about that former, and the layered vocal lines and catchy chorus that I once loved about the latter. I know Out of Time bizarrely has a lot of fans on here, but it was undoubtedly a dry run for this. A magnificent album. The only time they ever made an album better than this afterwards was with New Adventures in Hi-Fi, otherwise known to me as the best album R.E.M. ever made.

why are you shivering?

September's coming soon.

Nightswimming the obvious choice for me, but I think Sweetness Follows is close runner-up for me.

Star Me Kitten is such a mood. Also, this: https://youtu.be/O6fSzX5aS5I

There was a brief spell in my teens when I declared this to be my favorite album. I wouldn't go quite that far anymore but it's still very solid.

Song + video for 'Nightswimming' take it over the top imo.

stipe’s performance on “sidewinder” is heart stopping

it reall is, so many odd choices too—the phrasing, those little jumps, the enjambed lines

I feel like he gets knocked for his later lyrics, but he remained a really inventive, dynamic singer

Good album imo

Sidewinder is another fave.

Of course the record's lyrics are a bit less opaque, but I think that if anything, AftP is a bit of an outlier in that regard-- Monster and Anew Adventures somewhat a return to Stipe's previous opacity rather than bare sentiment.

AftP's bare sentiment is what I love about it-- it's a deep comfort of a record IMHO

I don't listen to it often -- it's been at least a decade -- but the songs I love boast Stipe's new declarativeness and the band's bold mixing of songs as mysterious and vaguely sinister and terrifying as their earliest material. I'm thinking of "Monty Got a Raw Deal" and "Sweetness Follows."

the great thing about sidewinder is that it's written in stipe's absolute upper register, which gives it this weird unfamiliarity even within the runtime of the album. it is a very silly song that is also somehow majestic in the lushness of the arrangement and beautiful string parts.

i'm way overdue to spend some time with this album.

"Sweetness Follows" is bruised, ominous and gorgeous, but the peak experience of this album for me is to absolutely crank it on good speakers, it's so beautifully recorded you can just lose yourself in it. JPJ's strings on "Drive" are the heaviest thing ever, I nearly passed out when I listened to it loud one time.

I know it's been overexposed to death (maybe less so lately), but "Man on the Moon" is <i>incredible.</i> The confidence of everyone involved to handle this big, anthemic, but gentle and meditatively questioning song.... you can almost feel the experience of the last few records under their belt. On this listen what's blowing me away is the earnestness in Mills's backing vocals, and the very slight edge of grit to Buck's licks and solos (anticipating the sound he'd lean into on New Adventures) ... and, as everywhere on the record, the warmth and intimacy of the recording.

Another great thing: falling back to just the acoustic strums, Stipe's vocal and some light percussion for the start of the final verse, before bringing all the other elements back in gradually, isn't rocket science, but it works so well to re-ground things before we take off into the final sequence of choruses. It's basically a drawn-out version of the dramatic re-starts that lend so much oomph to "Fall On Me" ("don't fall on meee, DON'T FALLLLLL"), and it works just as well.

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then the album ends with "Nightswimming" and "Find the River."

The key innovation -- what repulsed me for years after my initial embrace -- was the confidence with which R.E.M. use the clarity they experimented with as far back as LRP. The strings are assertive, the instrumental filigrees discrete and easily picked out, and Stipe gives his most full-throated performance; his lyrics don't lose their ambiguity for being forthrightly sung.

I'd posit this album did more damage than Nevermind and Ten, encouraging the Lives and Creeds to wail their profundities.

Surely Joshua Tree is more to blame for both of those acts!