REM: Classic or dud?

I saw them in 1985 (on the "Preconstruction" college tour, about a month before Fables was released), and he wasn't doing the silly face paint/silly hair thing at all. He wore an overcoat and a hat. And he dedicated "Second Guessing" to "Robert [sic] Murdoch for printing that I wear dresses. I don't wear dresses." (Murdoch owned the Chicago Sun-Times)

i think chalking the sound and look of the Monster period to attempting to be 'current' is oversimplified. sure, it was a shrewd time to turn up the guitars and rock out again, but it's not like they did anything to more resemble the long-haired grunge bands that had all already paid their respects to REM as forefathers, glam rock being a hip influence was still at least a couple years off from having any significant revival. .

― my hands tra cer (some dude), Monday, November 12, 2012 4:21 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not saying they were out-and-out aping the grunge acts of the time, it would be absolutely ridiculous to insinuate that REM suddenly appeared looking and sounding like Soundgarden overnight. But, they definitely incorporated elements of what was then-current into their sound at this point, and the way the band looked was definitely more in sync with what was going on at that time too. Monster, even though it's still an REM record, is of its time in a way that no other REM record (or image, for that matter) seemed to be prior to it. For a band that used to pride itself on being apart from what was going on at the time, being themselves, and ploughing their own furrow, and for a band that HAD NEVER LOOKED LIKE THEY DID UNTIL THIS PARTICULAR ALBUM, it does smack a little bit of "well, we've sold loads of copies of Automatic For The People, and we want to make a rock record so we can go out on tour, and hey, all these hip new bands are namechecking us as an influence and Peter really digs Seattle, 'cuz he moved out there just recently and... uh... maybe if we 'rock' out as normal it'll just sound like Document or something, and uh... that's not quite the sound of 1994... uh..."

Simply put, everything about Monster seems as self-conscious as all hell - not just the album itself, but the people who made it.

Not to mention they started making more 'performance-based' videos around that time too, like the ones for 'What's The Frequency, Kenneth?' and 'Bang And Blame', whereas before they seemed to avoid that sort of thing.

I dunno, Green has some fairly straight performance based vids like Turn You Inside Out, then you've got Shiny Happy People and Sidewinder. The Monster vids are true to form in that there's a mix of performance and abstraction. Kenneth video plays with the conventions of performance videos by revealing the cameras filming them towards the end. Crush With Eyeliner is all about self-invention and artifice, so having Japanese kids pretending to be REM and doing a great job at being trashy pop stars is witty and apt. It's shot to look a bit like an early Wong War Kei movie, which only adds to the charm. So it's 90s irony all the way, rock videos in quotation marks. Tongue's video was a return to arty abstraction. Perhaps with New Adventures there was more of an emphasis on performance based vids. The series of vids or short films Stipe commissioned for CIN were great though, especially that young John Lennon guy dancing around Shoreditch and the pissing horse. And the John Giorno Warhol screen test for We All Go Back was beautiful. I suppose that was just a nice way of using up Warners money - just like they did when they commissioned arty videos for Out Of Time album tracks.

So. Central Rain is a performance video

True dat. I believe that was lead single from Reckoning, and they needed something for MTV, hence a straight performance vid. It's pretty naff though and doesn't capture the mystery of the band like the great Howard Finster fest that is Left of Reckoning. If I recall there aren't many other performance vids until Green - maybe some elements of performance alongside other stuff. There's the infamous footage of rolling stock promo for Driver 8, but that contrasts with the totally goofy and fun vid for Can't Get There From Here. They get a bit more pro around Document, although the imagery is often clunky - 'he's singing FIRE, so let's have some, er, fire' etc. Hats off to them for them the blatant homoeroticism of the Orange Crush vid though.

Being a huge REM fan in my teens I used to sit and watch and rewatch all the video collections (oh those pre youtube days...), hence my knowledge of them. It Crawled From The South has a detailed section about their vids.

yeah it definitely felt at the time of Document's big hits that they were one of the only bands all over MTV that made a big gesture of not always being in their videos, that was kind of their 'thing' for a while.

they needed something for MTV, hence a straight performance vid. It's pretty naff though

There's a version of this where Stipe's vocal is live. Never seen it, though.

Ah good point, I think that's the one on the Succumbs video. I think that was the deal - ok we'll do a performance video but it's gotta be live!

I think they gradually softened their stance on videos and MTV for both pragmatic and aesthetic reasons. Once it became clear that MTV could be used to their advantage, I think a lot of rockers embraced the form and its potential. I think REM found a pretty good balance with OOT, Automatic and Monster. The fact that Stipe is up front in several of the videos reflects his interest in the medium. Buck doesn't look very happy getting showered in water in the Drive vid. But then for a huge band to do a video like Nightswimming, with its beautiful non-salacious scenes of skinny dipping and the drop out in the middle, was really bold for the time. I'm sure that affected the song's chart placing, although I think there was an alternative TV safe version too. Some of the other vids seem compromised - the old fella pottering about in Find The River is nice, but the fake in the studio bits are dull.
In the later years the videos were often less inspired, but then there are nice vids like the Michael Moore one for All The Way To Reno, the gorgeous looking Daysleeper clip, and the gimmicky but cute Bad Day. But it's only with CIN that Stipe was given the leeway to say fuck it, if this director wants to give us a horse pissing then we're damn well having a horse pissing!

To pull my slightly disjointed posts together, I really appreciate the visual sensibility REM brought to their work through videos and stage sets. These were in some respects my introduction to art/indie film aesthetics and added to the mystery and appeal of the band. While their video output hasn't been particularly consistent, it is really cool that Stipe was able to indulge his interest in film on Warners' dollars, giving work to plenty of interesting people in the process.
Tourfilm deserves a mention here too in that it's the opposite of a verite style concert film, while still capturing the energy of the performance.

didn't buck and mills make a 'deal' with stipe in the later years that he could go off and make/commission whatever videos he wanted to promote the albums as long as they didn't have to be involved and do performance-style full band vids? i guess he was way more interested in that stuff than the other guys.

I think that was the deal with the CIN vids. And with the band about to split I guess Warners were happy to indulge them.
But yeah, I don't think the other guys have ever particularly enjoyed making videos.

I was dissing that Drive 8 vid but it's actually ok. All the James Herbert vids are up on youtube under Left of Reckoning. Life And How To Live It is performance based in that it's concert footage, but he messes with the speed and order of the frames and plays around with colour filters. Great! Green Grow is similar, but more smeary and flickery. Great! Nice that Stipe called him back in for All The Best from CIN. Ah, so JH was Stipe's teacher at college:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2010/07/22/2137823-soundings-films-of-james-herbert

the full ROUGH CUT film is back up on You Tube. god knows why this never made it to DVD/vhs but its' great. larking about backstage at Saturday Night Live! looking for coats with Bill Murray! forgetting the words to Begun the Begin! etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYG7nNhzpN0

Ah great, I was just thinking about that doc. Remember taping it off late night Channel 4 back in the day but I managed to lose the first 15 minutes. My favourite bit: Stipe singing Brandy You're A Fine Girl in the limo.

I remember reading at the time some article about Monster and how REM was going electric at precisely the time that all the big altrock bands were going more acoustic. 94 = the year of Unplugged in New York, "Landslide", maybe Jar of Flies...?

yeah also Nirvana were going to make an all acoustic record next supposedly? Do Rei Me (although only a rough demo) points that way. pretty sad they never made it:/

Why, what happened?

!!!!!!!!!!

They changed their name to Stiltskin

looks good! http://r-e-m-cycle.blogspot.co.uk/

I remember seeing a fragment of 'Rough Cut' on Dutch television, I think it was Stipe in a taxi and a rehearsel of 'Tongue'. Strangely, this is not in the whole version of the docu posted above.

i taped rough cut when it aired on pbs. would tape anything rem-centric off tv through the "here's up" concert on mtv. never saw the post-up doc on (iirc) ifc

the 'This Way Up' doc is great too but is impossible to find even in the 'usual places' these days. was on You Tube briefly a while back.

So the video for Blue directed by James Franco and starring Lindsay Lohan has finally surfaced. Not quite sure how I feel about it. The Lohan bits are really quite sad, with that fucking scumbag Terry Richardson photographing her and she pouting away. But then I'd like to think the band, give their record, would respect her enough to acknowledge she has self-awareness and agency. LA looks beautiful and sad in the video - the whole thing is rather 'blue' in that sense, all a bit empty. But is Lohan being exploited? Maybe I'm being over-sensitive. She could well be totally in control of the whole situation - I hope so...

http://www.nme.com/news/miscellaneous/67246

i tried to watch it, but it's just kind of...terrible. it's like 1994-2012 never happened. it's a cutting edge 1993 montage video

obviously 1994 is some ridiculous arbitrary point i've chosen. it's not like some amazing 1994 music video came along and changed everything. but this video could have been play on MTV contemporaneously with New Adventures and no one would have blinked

Hmm, yes, maybe I am being oversensitive... but then the video has that deliberate LA sad and sleazy vibe. I guess Lohan is playing a part... Fucking still hate Terry Richardson though. Ugh.

This seems like quite a high budget video with all the helicopter shots... compared to the much lovelier lo-budget films they got from Sam Taylor Wood, Jim Herbert, Sophie Calle et al.. ah well... I still love this band...

i'm fine with lohan and richardson and sleaziness, and i'm totally willing to view the video as if i had no idea who james franco, he with the amazing lips, was, and as if were not renowned. but if some dude walked up to me on this street and was like "check out this band and video", i would assume it was by a peaking neighborhood bar band (all respect to r.e.m., whose output pre-1993 is unimpeachable) and the crowning achievement by a sophomore film student

ok admittedly if the neighborhood bar band featured vocals by patti smith i would be v intersted

Richardson a sleaze, but I don't have a particular problem with Lohan in the vid - given she's happy enough to say fuck off to people. Would have been more troubling if it had been some unknown 17 year old - "If you just put your hand between your legs you'll be in an REM video, shot by James Franco!".

Otherwise ZS OTM about both song and clip.

You know, while R.E.M. might have put out the occasional record, like Around The Sun that didn't fare too well with critics and fans, they still did an exceptionally great job in their 31 years together. I mean, what were The Rolling Stones doing 31 years into their career? Voodoo Lounge? ...

I half agree. "Voodoo Lounge," "Bridges to Babylon" and "A Bigger Bang" are every bit as good as those later R.E.M.. albums, and often better.

I half agree. "Voodoo Lounge," "Bridges to Babylon" and "A Bigger Bang" are every bit as good as those later R.E.M.. albums, and often better.

Bridges To Babylon is a great record from a very late stage in the Stones' career. So is Collapse Into Now, in my opinion. I think someone posted a quote from Mick Jagger earlier in this thread to the effect that "When you're young, you're in a band 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but, when you get older, it's not like that anymore." Obviously, R.E.M. weren't as close-knit of a gang in the 90s and the 2000s as they were in the 80s, and Stipe, especially, probably didn't care as much about being in R.E.M. in the 2000s as he had earlier in the band's career. But there are still three or four classic R.E.M. songs on Around the Sun - "Leaving New York," "I Wanted To Be Wrong," "High Speed Train," etc. - that I wouldn't want to be without, and I agree, as much as the critics did have fun piling on Around the Sun, it's not that bad in the grand scheme of things.

It's not just that they were a different band, it's who they lost. If the Stones didn't have Charlie and instead hired, I dunno, Jim Keltner for those records they'd be significantly less good. The only truly great thing to come from the post-Berry years is how they bright neon light underscored how essential he was to the band, perhaps more essential than any other rock drummer short of Neil Peart. Because like Peart (I know it's a stretch, but humor me) he made a huge contribution to the songwriting and arranging. A lot of drummers, even the great ones, get their tracks over with early then holiday while the rest of the band finishes the album. But Berry, you could really tell how vital that guy was.

Stones maybe not the most shining example of "unlike REM, who were a different band after key lineup changes"

It's not just that they were a different band, it's who they lost. If the Stones didn't have Charlie and instead hired, I dunno, Jim Keltner for those records they'd be significantly less good. The only truly great thing to come from the post-Berry years is how they bright neon light underscored how essential he was to the band, perhaps more essential than any other rock drummer short of Neil Peart. Because like Peart (I know it's a stretch, but humor me) he made a huge contribution to the songwriting and arranging. A lot of drummers, even the great ones, get their tracks over with early then holiday while the rest of the band finishes the album. But Berry, you could really tell how vital that guy was.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 19, 2012 9:53 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It'd be nice, once the band has been 'asleep' for a few more years, if they worked on some kind of song-by-song book which describes how all of their tracks took shape and who initiated which tracks. I know that since Bill Berry left the band they've been quite open about some of the tracks he had a big hand in... like 'Perfect Circle', 'Everybody Hurts' and 'Man On The Moon' to name three. I know that this kind of thing would be bound to annoy some of the older REM fans who cling to some idea of "mystery", but personally I'm fascinated enough by the material they put out to want to know the details. Y'know, how they worked as a songwriting unit and all that kind of stuff.

And fwiw, I've never rated Charlie Watts as a drummer, but that's a whole 'nother thread.

I remember reading some account of the band being surprised at Berry's piano playing c. "Out of Time." But I'm pretty sure he was contributing more than just drums, including piano, as early as "Murmur."

R.E.M. surely took a hit when they lost Berry, just like the Stones took a hit when they lost Bill Wyman, another unsung hero of his band (Brian Jones was one of those guys who were never going to make 30, and it was inevitable that Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood were going to come along sooner or later). But, if you believe the accounts in the various biographies, Berry had begun to take less and less of a role in the studio several years before he officially quit.

I guess I just prefer to look at the glass as half-full rather than half-empty after Berry's departure. Yes, his departure hurt, but, even at the very end, without Berry, they were still capable of coming up with what I consider to be classic R.E.M. songs such as "Oh My Heart," "Überlin," and "We All Go Back To Where We Belong." Would their late career have been even better if Berry had stayed? Almost certainly, if Berry had been able to maintain any interest in the band or in music, but, by all accounts he had begun to lose that passion even before his aneurysm, so I'm glad that the other three carried on without him. It's not like he OD'ed or slept with Buck's wife or any of the other reasons that cause bands to lose members or break up. He was just tired of the rock and roll life.

Stones maybe not the most shining example of "unlike REM, who were a different band after key lineup changes"

Post-Brian Jones, sure, though that was a long time coming, and it dovetailed with Jaggers/Richards coming into their own, fully. But the departure of Wyman ... I dunno. The post-Wyman records were a significant improvement!

It'd be nice, once the band has been 'asleep' for a few more years, if they worked on some kind of song-by-song book which describes how all of their tracks took shape and who initiated which tracks. I know that since Bill Berry left the band they've been quite open about some of the tracks he had a big hand in... like 'Perfect Circle', 'Everybody Hurts' and 'Man On The Moon' to name three. I know that this kind of thing would be bound to annoy some of the older REM fans who cling to some idea of "mystery", but personally I'm fascinated enough by the material they put out to want to know the details. Y'know, how they worked as a songwriting unit and all that kind of stuff.

The liner notes to the Part Truth, Part Lies, Part Garbage greatest hits album go into some detail on this subject. Buck talks about who wrote what parts of "Driver 8" and "Man on the Moon," for example. There's also a good bit of discussion of who wrote what in the R.E.M. biography Fiction.

Yeah, Berry plays piano on "Perfect Circle," along with Mills.

It Crawled From The South is very good for detail in this respect

Post-Brian Jones, sure, though that was a long time coming, and it dovetailed with Jaggers/Richards coming into their own, fully. But the departure of Wyman ... I dunno. The post-Wyman records were a significant improvement!

As a big fan of both the Stones and R.E.M. - maybe my two favorite bands, ever - I think that Wyman was a lot like Berry in that he was kind of an invisible man within his band while he was in it, but his departure robbed his band of some indefinable chemistry. Furthermore, if you believe Wyman's accounts, anyway, Wyman had a Berry-like behind-the-scenes hand in writing some of the Stones' biggest songs, including "Jumping Jack Flash," for which Wyman claims to have come up with the signature riff.

Yeah, I've often thought that Bill was playing more than drums as early as Murmur. 'Perfect Circle', to me, sounds like it was written on the piano, rather than on a guitar and then being adapted to the piano, if you know what I mean?

Helped that Berry was probably as good as Buck was at the guitar when the latter joined REM (although some think PB would deliberately exaggerate his rudimentary skills at this time)

I guess I just prefer to look at the glass as half-full rather than half-empty after Berry's departure. Yes, his departure hurt, but, even at the very end, without Berry, they were still capable of coming up with what I consider to be classic R.E.M. songs such as "Oh My Heart," "Überlin," and "We All Go Back To Where We Belong." Would their late career have been even better if Berry had stayed? Almost certainly, if Berry had been able to maintain any interest in the band or in music, but, by all accounts he had begun to lose that passion even before his aneurysm, so I'm glad that the other three carried on without him. It's not like he OD'ed or slept with Buck's wife or any of the other reasons that cause bands to lose members or break up. He was just tired of the rock and roll life.

― Driver 8, Monday, November 19, 2012 10:08 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, absolutely. And if I recall, I do remember them doing an online interview (with Bill), shortly after Bill had announced that he didn't want to continue with the group and it was clear there was very much a mutual respect there. I thought it was very gentlemanly and quite refreshing, actually, to know that it wasn't a massive fall out. That's one of the things that seperated R.E.M. from a lot of bands, for me.

As for the material they made without Bill: I've always liked Accelerate in spite of what other people have said about the record in the past. I think Up is overlong but contains some great songs, like 'Walk Unafraid', 'Hope' and 'At My Most Beautiful', and very recently I came around to Reveal after a good few years of not thinking too highly of it. Really, out of 15... (FIFTEEN!) albums, Around The Sun is the only one I struggle to get through from start-to-finish.

http://www.remsongmaker.com/