I could easily live without 'Sad Professor', 'You're In The Air' and 'Diminished'. 'Why Not Smile' is alright, I guess, but hardly earth shattering.
― I wanna live like C'MOWN! people (Turrican), Saturday, 3 August 2013 01:30 (ten years ago) link
When it came out, "Up" sounded really fresh compared to Britpop and other guitar bands.It felt like Stipe fronting a new band, actually. Not earth-shattering but very different and it really works for me.
The Peel session is a proper one recorded in Maida Vale, or so I thought. It's not revelatory like some Peel sessions are but it definitely captures that quick recording vibe and enhances the tracks.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 3 August 2013 01:45 (ten years ago) link
xp Sad Professor is probably the last great REM song imo.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Saturday, 3 August 2013 02:40 (ten years ago) link
I should preface this by saying: I love R.E.M. Fables of Reconstruction is my favorite album of theirs and Reckoning isn't far behind.
That being said, I am very much a big defender of their 90's material. I've maintained since I first heard it in 2001 that Up was really their last great album. But New Adventures is just as good. Do not forget this.
― Austin, Saturday, 3 August 2013 03:26 (ten years ago) link
That NYE 1999 split could have been perfect. From what was obviously a joke....jeez...I dunno.
― Master of Treacle, Saturday, 3 August 2013 03:40 (ten years ago) link
xpost I tell a lie: you're right. The BBC Radio Theatre show and the Peel session were different things on the same day. I"m genuinely astonished he had them in for a session - I remember him upbraiding his listeners for asking him to play them in the 80s.
― If you tolerate Bis, then Kenickie will be next (ithappens), Saturday, 3 August 2013 05:17 (ten years ago) link
Holy jeez that 1981 footage. Fantastic.
I totally rep for "Sad Professor." I think it's one of Stipe's better character pieces, the critique comes through as self-loathing and makes the guy sympathetic, it's very open-hearted. Also I like how the chorus pairs this sense of arrival and drama, musically, with a very observational, scene-setting kind of lyric: Late afternoon, the house is hot.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 3 August 2013 06:30 (ten years ago) link
"I could easily live without 'Sad Professor', 'You're In The Air' and 'Diminished'. 'Why Not Smile' is alright, I guess, but hardly earth shattering."
I really adore all those songs, I think "Diminished" is incredible. The whole album has an atmosphere unlike anything else they did.
Peter Buck and Mark Eitzel made an album called West at the time. Eitzel was up for it being a Eitzel/Buck band name but Buck didn't want that (I think he just regarded himself as the same as any other Eitzel backup guy) but it would have sold much better if Buck's name was on the thing and Eitzel might have been a bit bigger than he is. I think Buck even toured with Eitzel (there is a story about Buck being annoyed by Eitzel asking audience members up to dance with him on stage). It isn't even one of my favourite Eitzel albums but it has an amazing track called "Helium", which sounds like a companion piece to Up's "Suspicion".
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 3 August 2013 11:07 (ten years ago) link
The idea of constructing a rock album almost entirely out of synths was pretty novel at the time Up was released. Now that everyone's doing it it's barely worthy of comment but there are still some strange and beautiful songs from that album. It's the one moment from their post-Automatic era that comes close to evoking the strangeness of their early records, but in a totally different way.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 3 August 2013 12:19 (ten years ago) link
It isn't even one of my favourite Eitzel albums but it has an amazing track called "Helium", which sounds like a companion piece to Up's "Suspicion".
Hey wow, you're right! The Eitzel track came out in 97 while "Up" came out in 98, so the timing makes sense. The keys and the gentle strumming on the track make it easy to hear Stipe singing it as well. Good catch.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 3 August 2013 13:13 (ten years ago) link
Also, how are the B-sides associated with Up?
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 3 August 2013 13:32 (ten years ago) link
I always liked the run of songs from 'At My Most Beautiful' to 'Walk Unafraid' and I also love 'Daysleeper' but the rest of Up doesn't really work for me. It is a long time since I listened to the whole thing though.
― Gavin, Leeds, Saturday, 3 August 2013 14:09 (ten years ago) link
Yeah the tracklisting doesn't really work at all (Suspicion is such a boring song) but that particular run you mentioned is possibly the best section. You're In The Air is still lovely. The last couple of songs are probably my favourite, but I'm not sure I could listen to the whole thing back-to-back any more.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 3 August 2013 14:20 (ten years ago) link
It's the one moment from their post-Automatic era that comes close to evoking the strangeness of their early records
I'm not sure what in the pre-Automatic era (or on Automatic itself) evoked the strangeness of the early records. (I'm assuming we're talking about "Stumble" and "Old Man Kensey" and "Feeling Gravitys Pull" and things?)
― timellison, Saturday, 3 August 2013 15:48 (ten years ago) link
The most obvious strange tracks on the later records would be "Blue" on the last album and then, I don't know, "Sing for the Submarine?" "The Outsiders?"
― timellison, Saturday, 3 August 2013 15:52 (ten years ago) link
Sad Professor is beautiful!
Accelerate in itself ain't brilliant, but it has spirit and it made me (re)discover the band (up until then I hadn't been bothered to pay much attention to their oeuvre except for the hits)
― Ludo, Saturday, 3 August 2013 20:12 (ten years ago) link
I actually like Accelerate a lot. Really the only criticism I have of it is the bad mastering; Accelerate and Depeche Mode's Playing The Angel surely must be two of the most painfully loud albums that I own.
― I wanna live like C'MOWN! people (Turrican), Saturday, 3 August 2013 20:19 (ten years ago) link
this is a good interview:
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/peter_buck_i_think_we_were_all_really_ready_for_a_change/
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 October 2013 02:28 (ten years ago) link
“Man on the Moon,” it’s a great song. But it’s five minutes long and I’ve played it a couple thousand times."
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 October 2013 02:41 (ten years ago) link
ouch!
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 October 2013 02:42 (ten years ago) link
that's gotta hurt.
You gotta do the hand movements on that one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW-66e_wyxg
― timellison, Thursday, 10 October 2013 03:21 (ten years ago) link
Anyone would get sick of that out of tune wail Stipe always did during the instrumental break
― PaulTMA, Thursday, 10 October 2013 12:46 (ten years ago) link
I never liked MOTM live, partly because of that
Plus there was a lot of detail in the studio version that the live misses - all that lead guitar that they just didn't bother with.
― Master of Treacle, Thursday, 10 October 2013 13:13 (ten years ago) link
Not top 50 R.E.M songs IMO. Not bad or anything, just never did much for me. I find it very un-R.E.M, even in the context of 'Automatic'.
― Mule, Thursday, 10 October 2013 13:49 (ten years ago) link
listening to that early boot So Much Younger Then this morning, so nuts that they've never released this officially. "Baby I" is top shelf REM, and so is the rest.
― Euler, Thursday, 10 October 2013 13:50 (ten years ago) link
I turned on the radio the other day just in time for the MOTM guitar solo, and it took me a few seconds to realize it wasn't "The One I Love."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 October 2013 13:51 (ten years ago) link
huh, just read that Bob Mould played "Sitting Still" at the 2009 REM tribute concert. would love to hear that!
― Euler, Thursday, 10 October 2013 14:16 (ten years ago) link
I love Man on the Moon, and I think it slots comfortably into their anthemic lineage - it's ''Fall on Me'' with a different palette. But I can see where it just wouldn't be somebody's thing.
― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 10 October 2013 14:58 (ten years ago) link
i enjoyed that interview. i can't say that i've thought about peter buck much in a long time. i even listened to a couple of tired pony songs! didn't really thrill me. not horrible though.
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 October 2013 15:06 (ten years ago) link
MAybe I have thought the "un-R.E.M"-thing properly through. Normally I love anthemic R.E.M. But not this one. Lyrics maybe - no mystery. Makes me think of the movie.
― Mule, Thursday, 10 October 2013 15:54 (ten years ago) link
xpost to DC
― Mule, Thursday, 10 October 2013 15:55 (ten years ago) link
And "maybe I haven't thought". Jeez.
that is a good interview, seems like peter buck is doing exactly what peter buck should be doing. interesting that he's on the internet downloading bootlegs -- i guess that makes sense... he should just let mississippi records release that So Much Younger Then show.
― tylerw, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:10 (ten years ago) link
so it sounds like he is a silent partner in mississippi? i didn't know that.
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:20 (ten years ago) link
Is there an album from the catalog that you feel is underappreciated?
I think if you asked all of us, we’d all have “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” in the top third, in the top five.
REM OTM
― Deafening silence (DL), Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:29 (ten years ago) link
Interesting that Buck suggests he was ok with an indie-label/theater-concert future for REM. With Mills also doing smaller scale concerts, it sounds like Stipe was the one that was most put off by the idea of performing without Warner Bros paying for another "recorded on three continents" moneyloser.
― da croupier, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:36 (ten years ago) link
i'm also curious if they really didn't take stock of the situation until the end of the contract, or if it was already clear earlier that their declining status would be untenable without that megadeal.
― da croupier, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:37 (ten years ago) link
like, if it had been a three album deal, would they had split after Around The Sun?
― da croupier, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:39 (ten years ago) link
never realized till now how easily their five-album contracts splits their career into thirds.
― da croupier, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:40 (ten years ago) link
they could have been their own money-making machine if they had wanted it. how many r.e.m. records do you think they could sell if they did it themselves? i'll tell you how many. a bunch. they could have done the select city 10 night stand thing. v.i.p. tickets. blah blah blah. so much you can do when you have a base that large.
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 October 2013 16:44 (ten years ago) link
Peter Buck joined Yo La Tengo in Seattle a few months ago. He didn't add to much to the music but it was cool to see him jamming with Ira.
― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, 10 October 2013 18:10 (ten years ago) link
I think especially after Berry leaving that the aesthetic sense of what REM were supposed to be or what they were in the future seem to to be very different especially between Stipe and Buck. Not sure about Mills (or Mills caught in he middle somehow). Stipe IMO really dragged the band down in the 00s - was nowhere near the force he was in the 80s or most of the 90s. Unlike Buck he had - more than ever - extra curricular activities that had nothing to do with music and it showed.
― Master of Treacle, Thursday, 10 October 2013 18:44 (ten years ago) link
Wait, did R.E.M. break up!?
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 October 2013 18:46 (ten years ago) link
― Mule, Thursday, October 10, 2013 11:54 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i mean that's not really fair to the song, considering that the movie was named after it and all. the song had kind of a hazy mystique to me when it was new -- for all i knew Andy Kaufman and Elvis and St. Peter were just swimming around in the same vague river of associations as Lester Bangs, Lenny Bruce and Leonard Bernstein.
― some dude, Thursday, 10 October 2013 18:48 (ten years ago) link
Glad there is so much love on here for Fables, which is damn near perfect, as is Reckoning. The early, mysterious REM, as I've called them on here before. The vocal harmonies, the poetry of Americana, the restraint. I'd save everything up to and including Document, after which is the long slow decline.
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Thursday, 10 October 2013 18:50 (ten years ago) link
So long and slow that many of their best moments come after Document.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 October 2013 19:00 (ten years ago) link
some dude otm
― Euler, Thursday, 10 October 2013 20:29 (ten years ago) link
it's the time of the year for Automatic, put it on a couple of days ago and enjoyed the anthems of decay
― Euler, Thursday, 10 October 2013 20:30 (ten years ago) link
fuck, good call, I should bust it out tonight. Increasingly when I think of that record what I hear is the opening bars of "Sweetness Follows" and it sounds so good.
re: contract, it's been argued before on ILX that they could have renegotiated and walked out any time they wanted. But it might be that with that structure in place, it would be hard for any of them, and certainly for all three, to conclude "yeah, we should push against this and go out of our way to quit now." Very revealing in the interview that Buck takes it for granted that they would not be able to get a (suitable?) contract to make records. Also amazing to think that they had basically as long of a career span after Berry as before - years and years doing those big tours and making these basically unsuccessful albums. I could believe it had all become a real drag.
For me they're sort of the archetypal "if they'd broken up at X time, they'd be much more highly regarded to this day." But those things also fade and shift with time.
― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 10 October 2013 20:42 (ten years ago) link