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

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!

(Live's debut had already come out before this, for one thing.)

oh but "Lightning Crashes" and the dolphin song have more Stipeisms than Bonorosities.

more damage than ten is a tough sell for me, rock radio was littered with lesser vedders for a decade and a half

Bonorosities

t/s: monoculture vs bonoculture

well, the stipewinder stipes tostipe

Creed def had more to do with PJ than REM. one of em even got fired for dissing the former

A question of degrees.

It’s interesting to think of a case for REM as having imitators because I’ve long thought of them as a band without such, except as “80s indie band gets enormously popular” exemplar. But their music has seemed sui generis to me, and Stipe’s singing in particular.

I tend to agree with you, Euler... While I can think of some jangling indie bands that clearly listened to REM in their day, no one sings like Stipe.

so many of you were spared the tragically hip

(I kid, they were....fine)

i feel like stipe's influence as a singer may have been in weird trickle-down ways. i feel like a lot of people eventually picked up on that voice-cracking thing he does, for example, but they might be emo bands or something.

yeah that sounds right

The video for Drive is beautiful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UE7tXDKIus

yes it is. a friend of mine had a collection of r.e.m. videos and would always start out the night of hanging out with it. so good

Was it the Parallel VHS with the videos from this album and Monster? That thing was a cornerstone of my youth

I remember the day the Drive video premiered on MTV; watching it for the first time (and taping it, of course).

Adam Scott can be briefly glimpsed in the crowd in the Drive video

that is believable, which is enough for me

25 yrs ago I was an extra in R.E.M.’s “Drive” video but had never been able to locate myself in it, despite Zapruder-level analysis. Thanks to
sharp-eyed RU TALKIN’ R.E.M. RE: ME? listeners, that long national nightmare is over... pic.twitter.com/WSQaG5PZ8L

— Adam Scott (@mradamscott) May 4, 2018

Man, what a heavy track 2 to drop on people.

It's such a great Track 2 (is there a thread for that? there should be).

This might be an uncultured swine thing of me to say but this song kind of reminds me of an Arcade Fire record. I hate to compare this younger bands because older people will be pissed but I feel like I’m pretty well-versed in Arcade Fire. This sounds like Neon Bible. I was crazy about that album in high school.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne489w/snail-mail-lindsey-jordan-automatic-for-the-people-rem-listens-first-time

ooooof

Lindsey Jordan: It’s up my alley so far. It’s crazy that this is their eighth album. Is this their breadwinner?

Noisey: One of them! It’s their top-seller and it’s sold well over 18 million copies, which is crazy.

Top seller? Pretty sure OOT has sold more