REM: Classic or dud?

hmm, i think Reckoning looks great
but yeah, their 00s albums have cover art that looks like it was whipped up by a junior designer in about 3 minutes.

that's fair, and it's also true that they were showing up on MTV as early as Reconstruction

from the perspective of Athens folks who had followed them from the start, the material up through Document still felt close to home, but with Green it was clear they were changing and moving into the big time ... "Stand" in particular sounded like a song written for a video

This huge Murmur stan brought home his cassette of Green, played it, heard "Stand," was like wow, this is a pop song for the ages and R.E.M. is finally gonna be huge. Haven't changed my opinion.

"Orange Crush" and "Turn You Inside Out" sounded kind of monotone/shouty/muddy to me until I heard them live and then was like "NOW I GET IT"

xp yeah "Can't Get There from Here" also seemed written for MTV

"can't get there from here" felt like they were going for that big wall of voodoo money. even the video.

I don't think I've ever seen the video, but I didn't have MTV in 1985.

"Can't" was definitely the first time I heard R.E.M. on a big FM rock station, though.

It's the track on Fables that has aged the worst, IMO.

Honestly some of Berry's backing vocals are pretty dodgy on the early records, they add a really muddy feel to the chorus of Life and How To Live It, for example.

Yeah – Green and Fables are my least favorite pre-1998 albums.

IRS albums: Reckoning > Murmur > Lifes Rich Pageant > Fables of the Reconstruction > Document
Peak-period WB: New Adventures In Hi-Fi > Automatic For The People > Green > Monster > Out of Time
Late-period WB: Accelerate > Up > Reveal > Collapse Into Now > Around The Sun

out of time at the bottom of the peak period? aside from the opener, that record is amazing. (and yeah I include "shiny happy people", i like that song)

Yes, there's a lot that I like on it, but the gulf in quality between its best songs and its worst songs is vast and I don't think it comes together as well as an album the way the way their best albums do.

whoever dislikes "Shiny Happy People" is a disgusting savage imo

I like 'Shiny Happy People' a lot and have never understood the problem that some folks have with it.

hey now
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/5e/ac/a1/5eaca146f1fdb428d3b8aaee718b886a.jpg
xp

lol I might invert Turrican's peak-period order

Green (especially "Stand") and Talking Heads' Little Creatures (especially "And She Was") were this kind of bizarre moment of mixing art school and VH-1 positivity. Pretty bold choice in a way, if they weren't wincing through it.

Overall, it'd probably look something like...

New Adventures In Hi-Fi > Automatic For The People > Reckoning > Murmur > Green > Lifes Rich Pageant > Accelerate > Fables of the Reconstruction > Document > Up > Monster > Out of Time > Reveal > Collapse Into Now > Around The Sun.

wouldn't invert that but I'll take Reveal over New Adventures for sure

"moment of mixing art school and VH-1 positivity" wouldn't be a bad description of REM's modus operandi !

I like "Shiny Happy People," and I don't even like Out Of Time.

Reckoning > Murmur > Chronic Town > Fables > Lifes Rich Pageant > Document > New Adventures > Green > Out Of Time

(never heard Automatic; disliked the singles so much that I never bothered with the rest of it)

"Shiny Happy People" is better than "Stand," I guess

more of a dull grumpy person myself

mills backing vocals REALLY started to bug me around shiny happy people for some reason. like in a peter brady voice cracking way. and i never really noticed them as much on the earlier stuff.

I could never embrace "Near Wild Heaven". Too much down the power pop road for my taste.

Ha, that's the other Out Of Time song I like; easily my favorite on the record.

yeah i love "near wild heaven"

My favorites from OOT are easily "Half A World Away" and "Country Feedback", though I love most of the stuff there with the exception of "Near Wild Heaven" and "Radio Song".

Great: 'Losing My Religion', 'New Wild Heaven', 'Shiny Happy People', 'Half a World Away', 'Country Feedback'
Alright: 'Endgame', 'Belong', 'Texarkana'
Ugh: 'Radio Song', 'Low', 'Me In Honey'

I love everything on Out of Time, my favorite REM album

string arrangement on "Low" = A+

song itself = F

Talking about string arrangements, I think it's easy to not pay attention to the string arrangements on Automatic For The People because the material itself is so strong, but the last time I listened to the album I found myself listening closely to the strings and other assorted stuff happening "below the surface", as it were. John Paul Jones did some great work on that record.

I don't think Me in Honey is bad. And I also like SHP but i'm not sure it's great. otherwise, you OTM

missed this from mark richardson at the top of this thread:

"No band is good forever, so based on my favorite REM material I'd have to say classic. But it feels odd giving that designation to a band that's about as interesting as Matchbox 20 to me now (I'm sure Matchbox 20 is actually great to all you wannabe Chuck Eddys, but you know what I mean ;-)"

ouch. all you future chuck eddy matchbox 20 defenders out there...wait, maybe he IS talking about you guys. you guys can defend almost anything. it's a marvel really.

this thread is old.

I love "Me in Honey."

here's another vote for Me in honey.

Loved the original album art:
https://finestvinylalbumcovers.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/honey-top.jpg?w=980&h=870&crop=1

i would totally listen to Automatic before i ever listened to Green or Out Of Time. or anything after Automatic. if someone put a gun to my head. and made me choose. Automatic has some pretty stuff on it. had a girlfriend who played it constantly after it came out and i still don't hate it.

Ugh:... 'Low', 'Me In Honey'

booooooooooooo

yeah those are both great.
if someone put a gun to my head. and made me choose. Automatic has some pretty stuff on it.
made me think of this classic
if someone held a gun to your head and said "Sing Pavement's 'Gold Soundz'" could you do it?

monster and new adventures are my favorite r.e.m. albums at this point

"Me In Honey" is one of their very best songs imo! Always love just how many ways people relate to this band, though - feel like they maybe have one of the more diverse fandoms in this sense. I guess lots of long-running acts must have similar kinds of divisions over which is the classic period, best albums and so on, but even within individual albums there's such a strong one-person's-junk-is-another's-treasure kinda effect.

The thing with Automatic For The People is that it seems so underrated now for a record that was totally inescapable in '92-'93. For me, personally, it's become one of those records in their discography that I often look because I'm so preoccupied talking about other R.E.M. records, and I often think to myself that I shouldn't bother putting it on because surely, SURELY I must be sick of hearing it at this stage... but then I listen to it, and find that tracks like 'Try Not To Breathe', 'Nightswimming', 'Find The River', 'Sweetness Follows', 'Monty Got A Raw Deal', 'Ignoreland' etc. have exactly the same effect on me as they ever did, and I become bowled over again at how complete and of-a-piece it sounds. Also, that a record that is so low-key in places that I'm amazed it sold the way it did.

"Me In Honey" is one of their very best songs imo! Always love just how many ways people relate to this band, though - feel like they maybe have one of the more diverse fandoms in this sense. I guess lots of long-running acts must have similar kinds of divisions over which is the classic period, best albums and so on, but even within individual albums there's such a strong one-person's-junk-is-another's-treasure kinda effect.

― the thirteenth floorior (Doctor Casino), Friday, February 5, 2016 6:53 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have the same kind of reaction whenever I come across anyone that says they don't like New Adventures In Hi-Fi, or certain tracks off it that aren't 'Binky The Doormat' (which is my least favourite song on there)

I like 2 songs on New Adventures, Leave & Binky

.... :O

NAIHF was my first experience of rushing to buy the new album my one of my favorite bands and getting home and listening to the album and being, like . . ."huh"

That was Automatic for me! (I mean Automatic For the People, or at least I thought I did, but then I realized that Automatic by the Jesus and Mary Chain may ACTUALLY have been my first experience of this...!)

There are songs from Murmur that are under 300,000 plays on Spotify, but that's true of a New Order record like Low-Life, too. There are songs from Power, Corruption and Lies that are under 400,000 plays.

I tend to think that the '80s were a time of diffuse enough taste that there are not going to be huge legacies for any bands, U2 included. They will have audiences, but I think they'll be more select than the big '60s and '70s bands had decades into the future.

And '90s, too - obviously, R.E.M. were very big early '90s.