The World Is POLLapsing Around Our Ears: REM's "Out of Time"

thank u for your input, there is also really excellent vocal stuff in that song

The best thing I can really say about 'Me In Honey' is that it's not something truly awful, like 'Radio Song', but the rest of the album easily towers over it. Stipe delivers a neat vocal, but that's par for the course with early '90s R.E.M.

knowing when to stfu is a skill that can be worked on and improved over time

i know this has already been mentioned and you've already ignored it, but the kate pierson harmonies alone

knowing when to stfu is a skill that can be worked on and improved over time

― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, May 31, 2017 6:15 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool, and it's great to see you're making headway with this! :)

i know this has already been mentioned and you've already ignored it, but the kate pierson harmonies alone

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, May 31, 2017 6:15 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've "ignored" it (read: haven't talked about it) because I don't particularly find it worth anything more than a shrug. Yeah, it's there and I know it's there but... *shrugs*

cool man good discussion

'Half The World Away' and 'Country Feedback', though... fuck! Talk about two songs that would immediately make a playlist of my favourite ever R.E.M. songs with zero hesitation or doubt... Stipe's singing on both is hairs-stand-up-on-end fantastic, and there's some great chord changes and an interesting structure to the former. Then there's the perfect pop on 'Near Wild Heaven' with its sublime harmonies and vocal arrangement... 'Endgame', too, has that neat chord change and is a lovely piece of music that could easily have had lyrics, but I don't know if it would have been any better with them.

'Losing My Religion' and 'Shiny Happy People' I've undoubtedly heard too many times by now, but I know they're both excellent songs... the latter getting unfairly shat on by R.E.M. themselves even though it's a pop confection of the type that many can only dream of writing.

'Low' isn't a favourite, but at least it has the "you and me, we know about TIME" section ... 'Belong' and 'Texarkana' have great, full, thick meaty bass... not necessarily Mike Mills' best parts in a technical sense, but incredibly integral to those songs. 'Belong' in particular does a hell of a lot with so little, and the wordless chorus is a neat idea, if one they kinda used before on 'Orange Crush' ...

I like "Shiny Happy People." It was never overplayed here and I didn't have MTV.

this is weirdly fanfic-y of me but i always thought of "low" as a r.e.m. song that kurt cobain probably liked a lot

I love "Me In Honey" so much. "what about meeeeee?" It's about a pregnancy no, from a guy's point of view?

I know I'm out of the usual on here but I can take or leave "Country Feedback". Their rare dirges don't do it for me, "Drive" the exception.

Yeah, I could see Cobain liking 'Low' ... the choice of chords and the palm-muted way in which they're played.

"Low" as something in common with "You" and "You" was Stipe's attempt to write a song Cobain would have liked so I agree

Ha, funnily enough when Euler posted above about "their rare dirges don't do it for me", 'You' was the first track that popped into my head... I think it's a great song, but one which took its time to grow on me. I think it would have been better served by a cleaner recording and some soaring strings (real or synthetic) on the chorus.

When it comes down to it, I don't think 'You' is too far removed from stuff like 'Oddfellows Local 151', really

I was thinking more of "Camera" and "E-Bow". "You" is more a grind than a dirge (and I love it).

I revisited this LP for the first time in years when I reviewed the reissue, and I was kind of floored by how much better it was than my memories of it. I largely remembered it as a couple great songs padded with filler and outright failures. But it's so much less uneven than I remembered it being, and even the fillers and failures are pretty incredible. Such a lush, gorgeous, ambitious record. Not their best but a generous work from a band working at their peak.

She's only on three songs but I can't even imagine this album without Kate Pierson

i think of it as one of their most experimental records, along with new adventures

yep

Yeah, it was definitely an experimental record for them as much as it was a natural progression from Green - trying a few things out they'd never tried before, doing a few things that (at that point) were unexpected of them (working with KRS One, for example) and trying to shake things up a bit by swapping instruments and bringing more outside musicians into the sessions. Not all of the experiments work, but when it does work it's great. It was their biggest record to date and one of their oddest.

I still find it funny that this and Automatic For The People were their two most successful LP's worldwide and they didn't tour either of 'em.

i was at a french-immersion program in quebec in the summer of 91 and we pretty much listened to this and de la soul is dead every single day

we also heard jean leloup's '1990' one way or another most days, and crystal waters' 'gypsy woman' slightly less frequently

these were all good things

"belong" got robbed. michael's wordless keening, his voice cracking, is all-time

I love so many things about "Belong," but right now I am just going to single out the bass fill before the chorus. Took me a long time to realize that it is simply a descending G major scale. Deceptively simple, slightly syncopated, tasty in the extreme.

I like that they performed "Endgame" live, on that Unplugged where Michael wears a stupid hat with snaps on the side. Someone more completist than I am will quickly correct me, but I am not aware of them doing other instrumentals live.

They used to do "Ghost Riders in the Sky."

I've been going through old videotapes lately. Got this one where I'm just filming from my dorm window a big evening thunderstorm, lightning and students running in from the parking lot.

Classic rock station on in the background. Final seconds of "Losing My Religion" providing the soundtrack. That was just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream. Dream. Peter Buck's mandolin trails off.

Then it's KCMQ Q-96 followed right by ... "Enter Sandman" by Metallica.

1992 was such a different place.

They totally did "White Tornado" live I think

I love so many things about "Belong," but right now I am just going to single out the bass fill before the chorus. Took me a long time to realize that it is simply a descending G major scale. Deceptively simple, slightly syncopated, tasty in the extreme.

YES! That part, for me, is actually one of the hooks of the song!

I've been going through old videotapes lately. Got this one where I'm just filming from my dorm window a big evening thunderstorm, lightning and students running in from the parking lot.

Classic rock station on in the background. Final seconds of "Losing My Religion" providing the soundtrack. That was just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream. Dream. Peter Buck's mandolin trails off.

Then it's KCMQ Q-96 followed right by ... "Enter Sandman" by Metallica.

1992 was such a different place.

― pplains, Thursday, June 1, 2017 5:20 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

put that on youtube

yeah that bass fill on belong is so great. i worked it out on keyboard at some point for a totally unfinished and shitty cover version, and ever since it's been something i'll hum to myself independently in the shower or whatever. doot-doot, dee doo doo doo, doot doot doot

w-w-whaaat? Can't believe "Near Wild Heaven" polled this high! Worst song on the album for me.

No one will ever agree like we did in 1991 that "Radio Song" was the first.

As a fan Mills’ vocal is affecting; I can see why others would sneer.

also whatever happened to Ismael Klata, that was a good poster

Country Feedback, Half a World Away, and LMR are the three keepers for me.

I am also surprised that NWH is that high. But Deadbeat Club is my favorite B52s song and it kind of has the same vibe so I guess I can see it now.

Just looked up where they filmed it and never realized it was at Spring Lounge in nyc.

belong was the first track that grabbed me back then, but i'm sure i ended up voting for country feedback

I really really like "Radio Song" including the KRS-One part, don't know why I haven't mentioned that in this thread

I love Near Wild Heaven. Sounds like how I imagine the Beach Boys could have sounded in 1991 if they'd all still been around and functioning.

I like Belong too

When I first heard this album I was still quite young and new to alternative rock music, so I didn't know much about what REM looked like. In my head I imagined Michael Stipe looked like Robin Williams. I still think of Robin Williams when I hear 'Endgame' somehow

I also like “Radio Song” à lot, all of it, and have probably said so way too many times on this message board.

Dammit, if I had seen this thread in time I would have voted for Near Wild Heaven and thus pushed it over the top as unchallenged number one.

I never took to Radio Song. I get that they liked rap at the time and wanted to tip their hat to the genre in some way, but it makes about as much sense as Stipe turning up on a hip-hop track. It just doesn't work, and at the very least it certainly shouldn't have been the opening track. (The cascading jangly riff on the chorus is good though.)

Haven't heard it in years but "Out of Time" was my first-ever cd I got (I was 11 when it came out). Strangely, it was on Top 40 radio as well as "alternative" radio programs. The same thing happened later when "Nevermind" came out. Rather than picking separate songs it's the overall production and baroque sounds/arrangements that make it a highlight of their career. I wonder what the poll results would have been with "Fretless" being an album track. I remember Buck saying it should have been on the album.

surprised Low polled as poorly as it did.

losing my religion towers so many miles above the rest of the album that overexposure can't do it any harm. and i was so much in love with an rem fan at the time that it hurt.

It's crazy what you could have had if you had 5 more voters, but as it was, you were not near enough.

Yeah LMR is a very special track for me too, in a coming of age way. It was so ubiquitous during the summer of 91 and I still feel emotional when I listen to it (rarely though).
That said, there are other great tracks on the album.

that Unplugged where Michael wears a stupid hat with snaps on the side.

1991-core... barn jacket & shorts, perched on that stool... doing those weird little hand flick motions he was into at this time... luv it