R.E.M. trio albums POLL

Turrican, NAIHF got excellent reviews at the time. Before its release there was little hint that it wouls be a commercial disappointment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZQhTJ4SHP0

i think i just straight up hate stipe's lyrics on collapse which is my barrier to enjoying it

The title of that record is the worst! I think his lyrics started getting over-cutesy on Monster, and were genuinely bad by Reveal - "She Just Wants To Be", ugh.

i like a lot of the lyrics on reveal (and around the sun despite "leaving was never my proud" has a lot of affecting lyrics)

The Mills/Buck tension makes a certain amount of sense, but on the other hand, Mills is a really strong presence on the final two albums, both in his playing and singing. For all that Buck's method may have won out, Mills was clearly enjoying being the driving bass player and second vocal line guy again.

― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Monday, January 19, 2015 11:06 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, there's no doubt in my mind on Accelerate that they sound like they're enjoying themselves, including Mills... and certainly they're mature enough as people to not let "the band" get in the way of their friendships. The difference in preferred methods and lack of communication during the Up, Reveal and Around The Sun sessions must have had an effect, though... it is possible to stay friends while at the same time admitting that maybe the working collaboration isn't working as effectively as it once did.

Turrican, NAIHF got excellent reviews at the time. Before its release there was little hint that it wouls be a commercial disappointment.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 19, 2015 3:24 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, yeah. The critics loved it, and the band themselves considered it to be one of the best records they'd ever made, but at the same time you'd be hard pressed to find fans rating it as highly as they do now.

someone (Noel Murray?) wrote something great about how telling it was they were all toasting each other in separate cities when the breakup press release went out.

I dunno, they'd been living in separate cities for years so I don't think you can read too much into that. We know they've met up regularly enough since then as friends as well as business partners. Granted there were many changes in their working relationship over the years, but I think they dealt with them pretty well all things considered.

If you think about it, R.E.M. managed what The Beatles never did. All four of the original members are still good friends, there's been no lawyers involved and no members suing each other, there was no animosity or bad blood towards Bill Berry for leaving the band in the '90s. Even if the collaboration in a musical sense wound down to its natural conclusion, the business didn't grind them down to the point where it resulted in a nasty break-up.

What I also like about R.E.M.'s break-up is that they felt like they'd achieved all they could, both career-wise and in terms of working together musically, and just stopped. I mean, I love this band, but I certainly haven't missed them putting out new music over the last four years, and I struggle to think of where else they possibly could have gone.

With the exception of Around The Sun, I get the sense that R.E.M. are proud of every record they've made. And rightly so.

I'd say they're still very underrated by some crowds, even though I understand why some people are put off them.

They've also said that they never played with a band they disliked, either supporting another band or being supported by another band at a show. Festivals are a possible and reasonable exception.

I think (not sure) Stipe said he gets final say on all the art direction and wouldn't give it up for anything. I think (also not sure) Buck said he sometimes got hassled at gigs by Warner Bros people with clipboards and just has to tell them to go away.

This was supposed to be the reason they were idolised by American alternative rock bands, that they did everything on their own terms and still got massive.

Their latter-day art director, Chris Bilheimer, lived in Athens about a block north and a block west of Stipe's sometimes-residence; I could imagine them being in regular touch over dinner or drinks or whatever, in a way that Pete Buck wouldn't be.

I like a lot of his stuff - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is great. For me his REM work peaks in the Monster/NAIHF era - has the right mix of evasiveness and blaring in-your-faceness for what I think the band was doing. The trio-era stuff doesn't quite match the way the records sound to me, or start to tilt too much towards the evasive/anonymous end of things in a way that sometimes makes the covers feel like they could basically be for any band. Which is funny, because their IRS-era covers are all pretty guarded and mysterious too, part of their charm really.

its weird to look at the New Adventures cover and then look at the album covers after it.

OK!

So I listened to Up for the first time since the first Bush term. Looking at the CD case I could hum at least five songs w/out help, and it remained the case when I played it.

First thought: "Why are these songs so long?" The album feels longer than NAIHF.

Second thought: "Why are the electronics so tame?" Stipe is front and center, often singing well, but I wanted tension. Most of the time it sits there, forcing you to listen to the lyrics (it's like the mixing decision matched the decision to include the lyric sheet).

Listenable songs: Hope, Sad Professor, Why Not Smile (I read at the time that it was Stipe playing lead guitar), At My Most Beautiful. The rest? I still don't know Parakeet and Diminished after playing them again. Suspicion goes nowhere and it's the third song -- bad sign.

I still treasure the sight of Stipe in a sarong dancing to "Airportman" at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in '98.

"falls to climb" is a gorgeous closer

Albert- I've got to look for that clip.

Does anyone else like "Suspicion" as much as I do? Guys? Pure magic I say.

So sorry!! Alfred not Albert!!

I'm listening to Collapse Into Now for the first time. it's pretty nice! of the last 3 albums, I only heard Accelerate at the time, and it was OK, but this is probably better. maybe I'll get up the nerve to listen to Around The Sun before the poll closes, although I can't think imagine I'll want to vote for anything besides Up, which I think achieved something really interesting and unique in spite of its obvious faults.

don't think i can ever revisit Reveal, though. have never heard a bigger dropoff from track 1 to the rest of an album than "The Lifting" vs. everything after it.

otm

still love "The Lifting." When the guitar solo kicks in it's like the shaft of light heralding a sunrise.

What do you guys think of "The Great Beyond"? I suspect britishes and Europeans will have a different impression. I bought the CD single, sat down, and forced myself to like it for 35 minutes.

pretty pitiful attempt to rewrite "Man On The Moon" i thought

I'm British and don't rate it highly.

lol the review that pushed me to attend a midnight release in May 2001 at the long gone Virgin Megastore, despite reservations:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/reveal-20010501

I'm british, I think it's very good. "Bad Day" was nice enough. I didn't like "Animal" much.

xxpost:

...and I bought the CD single at the time, too! I remember at the time that there were a few non-R.E.M. fans that I knew who were into the song, though. I always saw it as one of their more lesser things.

Sorry to say the last few original songs for the retrospective compilation didn't grab me much.

I like "The Great Beyond," and also bought the (pointless) CD single. I've elsewhere argued that if it is a "Man on the Moon" pastiche, it's legitimately updated to Stipe's 1999-era preoccupations - meditation on death, yes, but now in a kind of fuck-it, fighting way, swinging punches, kinda riding the pointlessness of things. I'm not articulating this well. Maybe it's just the difference between second-person (addressing the dead) and first-person, expressing the joy of creativity in the same breath as the quest for meaning. "Sidewinder" vs. "Hope" is the flipside of this.

I read a U2 interview in a British magazine in fall '01 after 9-11, at the peak of their second renaissance, supporting an album that I still find detestable, and Larry said something like, "We want REM to do well. If they go, we go too. But I loved the last album," etc. Couldn't help thinking it was U2's last triumph over the band they were tied to at the hip since 1991.

I like "The Great Beyond," and also bought the (pointless) CD single. I've elsewhere argued that if it is a "Man on the Moon" pastiche, it's legitimately updated to Stipe's 1999-era preoccupations - meditation on death, yes, but now in a kind of fuck-it, fighting way, swinging punches, kinda riding the pointlessness of things.

is that why it sounds like Grandpa at the mixing board?

Odd to think that PSA dates back to a time long before Stipe was any kind of paparazzi fodder.

Well, R.E.M. have definitely triumphed over U2 by stopping when they knew their time was up, whereas U2 continue to carry on and look silly.

idk i think the last two U2 albums are very good. the previous two were a bit alarmingly paint-by-numbers ('how to dismantle an atomic bomb' was their worst album by some distance imo not counting the live tracks from 'rattle and hum', def their 'around the sun' imo.)

I've a soft spot for "Great Beyond," as it seemed like REM's sweet millennial goodbye song, as good as any from the period. But "Bad Day" really grates for me.

all this has me wanting to revisit Accelerate & Collapse. I tried to like both of 'em at the time & neither worked at the time.

U2s most recent two were unfocused messes. But I definitely feel the band at least was fueled by conviction, whereas REMs low points were largely lifeless and joyless.

i'd disagree, i think 'no line' was messy (albeit good), the new one is vv focused albeit disastrously released. 'ATYCLB' was a-ok, 'giving the fairweather fans what they want' stuff, 'atomic bomb' was kinda 'giving the fans what they want but not what we want'.

has the new one even cracked 100k in the U.S.?

Wrote on "The Great Beyond" a few years ago:

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2010/07/rem-great-beyond-2000.html

Voted up, which is honestly probably my favorite R.E.M. album. Haven't heard the ones after that in full.

I'm listening to Around The Sun for the first time in a while and my god, this album is a mess. There's the makings of a good song in 'Electron Blue', but the production and arrangement really prevents it from being the track it should be.

I would say that U2 are fuelled by this:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2256/2368329234_f3b6a02a74.jpg

Oh my fucking god, that stretch of 'Make It All OK', 'Final Straw' and 'I Wanted To Be Wrong' near-enough sent me to sleep. Then 'Wanderlust' comes on and it's like... eurgh... off.

I don't think Stipe could play guitar to save his life. On the Work tour, he 'played' on Oddfellows Local 151, and youtube, ever helpful, has a fairly complete concert from that tour up:. (These Days rips btw).
http://youtu.be/2Xq2XxmIDHM?list=PLxn-k7OqSA-9gq69L6gLDP0UfCaMCLYOX

He's in one of the Monster documentaries playing guitar on 'I Don't Sleep, I Dream' too.

Up by a mile, though it's overlong and dirgey. A song of the quality of, say, Suspicion or AMMB would be unimaginable from then onwards. I'd actually probably choose Around The Sun as the best of a bad lot from the 00s stuff. There's a songwriting muscle on things like "Boy in the Well", "Aftermath" and "Ascent of Man" that is absent from say Reveal or Accelerate - the latter truly is their nadir, one of the dreariest albums ever.

the very great This Way UP docu (impossible to find, never released on DVD/VHS) is on YouTube FYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i65t6cqdCM

Great Beyond was a *number 3* hit by the way in the UK! their highest chart entry.

Just watched that documentary, I remember I saw that on tv and taped it, I remembered as soon as I saw Stipe in the party hat. Around the time of Up and Reveal I must have taped 3 or 4 different documentaries about them.

Radiohead and REM seemed a lot more similar back then. The were my two favourite bands for quite a long time. I think my love of REM has lasted a lot longer in retrospect, I'm slightly more picky about what I like across Radiohead's output.

This is either the first one or the last one, with Accelerate a close runner up. And the others are horrible.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

but i like the berry the best