REM: Classic or dud?

REM also had Holt and Downs to turn to

Jesperson was out of the Replacements circle by 86

http://www.stereogum.com/1867772/michael-stipe-will-make-his-debut-solo-tv-performance-on-fallon-next-week/news/

His nose piercings makes it look like he's got perpetual boogers.

This tweet was trending which made the observation that Stipe's in stag ran is nothing but selfish with him and an alarming array of celebrities, and the camera is always focused on Stipe. It's true and it's hilarious.

Omg phone.. instagram/selfies

everybody wants to look like randy quaid these days.

new trio album would be cool..

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12512415_10154648763002137_8800919647456368064_n.jpg?oh=070c0a8643e5f38850c478b2f06948d1&oe=579432F7

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12920278_10154648763272137_8608966430472296643_n.jpg?oh=6727ec608687c8d0a473aefb80377f03&oe=578A366A

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtl1/v/t1.0-9/11148732_10154648769407137_1367243612692242281_n.jpg?oh=5fd2b568894487fad702a4f26073999e&oe=5786757C

recently he seems to have started making more of an effort to actually get the whole of the other person's face in shot, if you go back the start through there are several weeks worth of photos of Michael Stipe and approx one third of another celebrity's head

https://www.instagram.com/michaelstipe/

So is Stipe a bear now?

a care bear.

I guess this is the point where I ask myself if I really would be all that interested in a Michael Stipe solo record.

it had to happen. once i brought it up on this thread. it was fate.

i imagine he'd need/want some help to do it and there'd be a lot of good people who would jump at the chance to work with him, so i can see some scenarios where it'd be an exciting prospect.

Fier Not Fig

You just watch the other members of R.E.M. make guest appearances now!

I was thinking this could make a good ILM precover. Then I got depressed ;_;

i think he likes Bernie Sanders

good to see celebrities don't get better memes than the rest of us.

Sounded good!

Doug McCombs for Tortoise is rocking the same look this days as well.

first sit down since the split, this looks like it might be pretty decent

http://www.mojo4music.com/media/2016/10/MOJO-277-cover-R.E.M-with-CD-595-400x566.jpg

http://www.mojo4music.com/24725/r-e-m-relive-key-breakthrough-mojo-magazine/

R.E.M: one of the shoegaze greats.

knew this would be Let Me In. I can't tolerate Monster much these days, but live versions of Let Me In are pretty good. Kind of stupid to put it in a shoegaze top tracks list, but then again, people put all kinds of non-ambient shit in Ambient lists, so fuck it.

It was just a small problem with the larger issue on that list.

That Mojo cover. How on earth did they save rock? And from what?

REM belongs 100 miles away from a shoegaze list. But that aside, this an excuse to say that Monster has become one of my favorites of their records. In retrospect it is a very odd-sounding record - totally of a piece with itself, but in the context of their catalog they never made another album that resembled it. Buck's guitar tone is totally unique compared to their other stuff.

(xp)

I'd hazard a guess that it was the usual rockist guff about how how the charts were infested with synths and drum machines, but Stipe and the boys kicked the door back open for guitar groups with the chiming majesty of Murmur, blah blah blah.

Except that Monster is full of fuzz, tremolo, and wah pedals.

monster is extremely gay imo

I started to lose interest around "Automatic..." which still has a couple of great tracks, after that: whatever. In the end I think they only made one classic: Fables of the Reconstruction/etc.

― O. Munoz, Wednesday, January 17, 2001 1:00 AM (sixteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sixteen years on, this still rings most otm for me (though I do not hate Monster, nor NAIHF, good stuff on both; after that they lost me in their meddling mediocrity)

Going on six years now. This might be my favorite of the R.E.M.-archetypes-as-sendoff on Collapse Into Now. The fact that he's singing do it one more time over what is essentially "The One I Love."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xfbsNl0CW0

Great interview🔗 w. the creators on this week's ep.

📹

Love Bill Rieflin's drums on that.

the worst thing about monster was stipe being all 'this is our return to PUNK ROCK'

it's a decent album

put pepper in my coffee

As a deliberate, slaved-over sonic exercise, Monster is REM's Mutt Lange record

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)

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat)

I agree with this 100%, except, having already bailed on the band, never listened to Hi Fi either; maybe i'll give it a spin - thanks!

I really like Up, although in my mind it's an album by Michael Stipe & Friends.

NAIHF is so good but it is a grower IMHO, give it a few spins. I put it on a couple weeks ago to top off a little REM marathon and it sounded like their greatest masterpiece in the moment even if song for song the first four records are kind of untouchable.

I think NAIHF is my favorite record of theirs, definitely a grower though.

yeesh I guess I should try new adventures again after all these years but it's easily one of the most disappointing records I have. maybe 20 yrs out it'll click? I just don't like shouty stipey (cf ignoreland and strange currencies also)

the worst thing about monster was stipe being all 'this is our return to PUNK ROCK'

Thought it was done to appease Bill Berry, who wanted a return to guitars.

I still posit that 'twas the click track that hurt REM. After a certain point - Out of Time? - it just sounds like everything was recorded piecemeal, with no one in the studio at the same time. Well, maybe the last couple albums, ironically, sound a bit more "band." On the other hand, I think the piecemeal approach helps "Up," which has some awfully pretty stuff on it.

Would love to hear someone like, I dunno, Lorde cover "Falls to Climb."

Yeah, that's a fantastic song. I've seriously cooled on my teenage Up worship but I think the highs are really really high.

Don't agree about the click track thing though. I mean there's definitely a lot of air and space in something like Automatic but there's so much warmth there that it still feels very "band"-ish. And I mean, NAIHF is all about that live-band sound. The thing that most blew me away on last re-listen was the last couple minutes of "Be Mine," it gave me goosebumps and I was 100% picturing them facing each other, grinning at each other in joy of how fucking good the take was, giving the nod to take it around for eight more bars, etc. Maybe I'm totally wrong but it gave me that vibe.

They're pretty cagey, but from at least Up and beyond, post Berry the tie-breaker, they didn't even seem to me like they were friends anymore, let alone a proper "band." Just a going concern. But who knows?

yeesh I guess I should try new adventures again after all these years but it's easily one of the most disappointing records I have. maybe 20 yrs out it'll click? I just don't like shouty stipey (cf ignoreland and strange currencies also)

there's really not that much shouty stipey on that record outside of like 2-3 songs, though!

berry was the social glue from what i've heard, and the one who'd come up with a little something extra to make good songs great

Guys. . . guys, you're missing the point, here.

Which is that R.E.M. is one of the best shoegaze bands, with one of the most essential shoegaze songs of all time.

Not that far of a stretch to say that, without R.E.M., there is no shoegaze.

Gazes of Shoe