REM: Classic or dud?

well, I really like some songs on Out of Time and a few from what I've heard from their 80s stuff but basically I think the things I like about REM are all in Automatic and I could do with only that album from them (+ "Losing my religion" for nostalgic reasons) !

It feels strange to me how hardly anyone seems to talk about Automatic for the People anymore.

I mean, for a "classic album" which is generally considered to be part of "the canon", it's strangely under-discussed these days when talking about this band. Like, when I think about discussions I've had about this band since the split - and possibly even longer - most of those discussions seem to have been about what happened after their big success with Automatic for the People: Monster, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, what happened post-Berry etc.

Automatic for the People is also a bit of a weird one in terms of "classic albums" in that it's an album that hasn't been dissected to death in the way a lot of "classic albums" have been. There's been no big documentaries about the record, no real in-depth articles about the making of the record and the whole process and all that stuff - it's like the band themselves treat it as "just another R.E.M. record", but one that they happened to get lucky with creatively and commercially.

indeed. Does it even appear in all those "greatest albums of all time/90s/whatever" ?
like, for me, it's much better than OK Computer (thought about that example since there's an ongoing thread) which is often cited in the top of these lists...
and I like both of these bands without being a fan.

ah xpost !

xxpost:

Like, even when R.E.M. were still together and making music, whenever the topic of Automatic for the People came up, it's like they didn't even really see what the big deal about the record was or see it as something that they should try to recapture - maybe Warner Bros. did, though. But to the band, their attitude was basically "yeah, it's a record we made, and here are some other records we made."

Yeah, you still see Automatic for the People in all those lists.

ah, for Warner, the fact that the band itself didn't seem to care much for Automatic was certainly a 80M$ problem !

Perhaps key to the mystique is that the band didn't bother touring behind it, which is unusual for a huge rock act. I mean, how weird is that? R.E.M., a band born on the road, did not tour behind their two highest selling records.

I'm sure there are people out there who are genuinely disappointed that R.E.M. didn't make Automatic for the People II, but I don't think they could have done even if they tried. I'm not even sure they knew what they were making when they made Automatic for the People anyway - if you believe the band, it was an album which they wrote and recorded in the same way as any other R.E.M. and it just happened to naturally turn out that way.

I recall one of the band saying in an interview circa Monster that the record was conceived to give them material that was more suitable for the type of live performances they wanted to do than the material on Out of Time and Automatic for the People - but then, they ended up playing a lot of the material on those albums at shows from the '90s up until they split, so it wasn't as if they were unable to perform them.

I don't know my REM live history at all, but how many songs from Out of Time or Automatic were ultimately never performed live?

OK, I looked, at from OOT apparently only Texarcana was never played live, and from Automatic Ignoreland, Sidewinder and New Orleans Instrumental #1. But I wonder how many of those songs were only played once or twice?

I was just about the post that they played pretty much every song off Out of Time and Automatic for the People live, even stuff like 'Star Me Kitten' and 'Endgame' ... 'New Orleans Instrumental No. 1' was never played live, and I don't think they attempted 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite' or 'Texarkana' ...

... they did play 'Ignoreland' live though, when they toured Accelerate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS7gOkgZUK8

Personally I think Automatic was their apex. I just think that album is perfection from beginning to end.

And to be fair I think REM's attitude toward all of their albums is "that's an album we made / here are other albums we made"

"Belong" is on Tourfilm even.

I'm too corny about Automatic to talk about it here.

All this discussion has been really fun to go through!

Several years ago on my blog, I did an R.E.M. marathon review thing; check it out.

It's kind of long, but even after all this time, it remains one of the most visited posts on my blog.

There's also an Unplugged "Belong." In certain moments of unmoored perspective I have reflected that "Belong" is not just my favorite REM song or favorite song but my favorite thing that has ever happened, full stop. I usually sober up and regain a sense of priorities.

This makes me want to try to map Michael Chabon's career onto REM's -- like, you have the early phase of his work which was loved by critics and in retrospect is really the best

Mysteries of Pittsburgh = Murmur
Wonder Boys = Reckoning

then the gigantic hit that makes them a household name but in the end you don't find yourself going back to it

Kavalier & Clay = whichever of Out of Time and Automatic for the People you don't like anymore

then the ambitious later work that's actually really good but didn't really find its market

Yiddish Policeman's Union = New Adventures in Hi-Fi

and then a lot of other stuff that comes later and that true fans find merit in but no one pays attention to

Telegraph Avenue, Moonglow, etc. = Reveal, Accelerate, etc.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, June 21, 2017 2:48 PM (one hour ago)

from another thread...

Alfred- surprised how high you placed "Superman", didn't know anyone particularly liked it

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, June 20, 2017

everyone loved this song when it came out! college radio played it forever. i loved it too. and in concert people went nuts and everyone would hold their arms out like superman when they played it. they probably still do that though.

I heard it on college radio a fair bit even during the Green era.

it's a crowd pleaser for sure. plus, its just a really good faithful cover. the original and the cover are equally cool.

Even in retrospect, I don't think that Murmur and Reckoning were the creative pinnacle of this band. Reckoning is undoubtedly one of my personal Top 5 R.E.M. albums, but there's a certain type of R.E.M. fan that overrates the shit out of Murmur.

murmur and lifes rich pageant are the only albums i would listen to in 2017. murmur has my fave songs/sounds. and i love the mellencampania of LRP a ton to this day. "begin the begin" might actually be my fave r.e.m. song! which is a weird thing to say in public for some reason.

I find myself singing Cuyahoga all the time now. "Lets put our heads together, and start a new country up" - i've lost all hope in fixing America and think we need to accept that our fathers fathers fathers tried - and failed. Anyway, Cuyahoga has been on my mind just about everyday since January.

I think the sequence LRP/Fables/Document/Green would suffice to supply almost everything I need in this world. It omits early obscurantist fumblings, overlaps their ascent to global fame, and skips out before they got too navelcentric again.

There are some key tracks that aren't in that sequence, so some caveats must be allowed, but even so I'd be pretty happy with those four.

if chronic town = obscurantist fumblings then
moar plz

Amazes me all this about "Superman". I vaguely remember hearing it was a college radio hit. It's among my least favourite of their 80s output.

Their Pylon, Television and Mission Of Burma covers were fantastic though.

i love the mellencampania of LRP a ton to this day

^^^ this.

In fact: TS: R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageant" vs "Document"

Re: "Superman," jangly Rickenbacker + ringing snare is an unbeatable formula (see also: "Earn Enough For Us").

I think the great thing about Superman is it shows a band that didn't take itself too seriously.
see also DLO.

I don't think REM were ever at risk of being seen as a face-like-a-slapped-arse punk band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sBVX9kRmBE

'Murmur' >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the universe

That footage is great! Contemporaneous taped-over news footage at end feels like REM sourcebook: Big Orange, Edwin Meese, El Salvador....

pitchfork's AFTP review today reminded me of this pretty exhaustive piece on the remix to Dolby Atmos which is available on the super deluxe version of the reissue:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/spatial-audio-is-the-most-exciting-thing-to-happen-to-pop-music-since-stereo/

even if you're like me and will never, ever, be able to afford the audio equipment described in the article, it's worth a read for r.e.m. fans. apparently AFTP is the first commercial release to get the Dolby Atmos treatment. about 2/3 into the article, there's a great rundown with Scott Litt and Clif Norrell, talking about how they went about the remix. with cameo appearances by Mills and Buck!

and the Dolby Atmos thing really does seem enticing. there's the $15,000 home theater option which requires "spatial-audio speakers" (so a 7.1.2 setup would be 7 speakers, a sub, and 2 spatial speakers), which sounds like a room that i'm not allowed to be in. but apparently it's possible to get a similar effect using a pair of headphones and a massive pain in the ass setup process on xbox or ps4. the author goes into much more detail, if anyone is interested.

-----

completely separately, ITEOTWAWKI(AIFF) has been sounding extra, extra good to me recently. there's something baked into the song's DNA that activates whenever the world is literally about to explode.

I'm not interested in the retirement home baiting stuff, but no matter how much I listen to 'It's the End of the World...' it still manages to retain its potency. I guess this goes for Automatic for the People too, which remains a great record.

I wonder how long before young people rediscover Automatic as a lost masterpiece and start citing it as an influence? We've already talked about REM's faded influence ...

Anyway, today is the first day I enjoyed Ignoreland.

Yeah, that great lost album that has kept appearing in "best albums ever"/"best albums of the '90s" lists since the moment it came out. Pretty much anyone with an interest in '90s alternative rock has heard this record, and I'll bet plenty more have been exposed to it by their parents - it sold a fuckton of records.

Don't be stupid. We've already talked about REM's at least anecdotal faded cachet. Sales mean shit. Critic lists mean shit. It took 25 years for the Sex Pistols album to go platinum.

By lost I mean lost to those who don't know REM from Adam.

yeah we massively covered this in the thread about Pitchfork's 80s list, in which Sade to name one, shows up way more than our Georgian heroes. hey nothing against Sade before someone jumps down my throat it's all good. i think when people rediscover them it'll be the first 4 albums they'll go for, much the same as when people rediscovered Talking Heads, or 'the early stuff' at least.

Yes, it's true on some level that R.E.M. aren't as regularly cited as an influence as much as they used to be, no doubt as a consequence of perhaps going on for far longer than they should have done, but to state that Automatic for the People is in any way a "lost" album is about the stupidest R.E.M. opinion I can think of.

It's not "lost" and never stopped being recognised as a classic album, it's more that it doesn't seem to get talked about as much as yer Nevermind's or Siamese Dream's anymore.

turrican do you have a list of bands that you don't like

I know I'm an oldster but in my world, if people are citing R.E.M. as an influence or talking about how R.E.M. saved their lives or whatev, they are more likely to cite Fables of the Reconstruction, Reckoning, Murmur, Life's Rich Pageant.

They are not, by and large, talking about Green, Out of Time, or Monster. They're almost certainly not talking about Up or Around the Sun. Of course I love Automatic for the People and it's a stone classic, but.

Some of this is as piscesx says: If you heard and liked some Talking Heads on the radio, your curiosity led you backward through their catalog, not forward to their late-career releases. If you liked, say, "Burning Down the House," your exploration of the band's catalog probably led you toward The Name of This Band Is, not to, say, "I Zimbra."

I think the way the discography will be viewed in the future is that the first 10 albums will be considered the "true" stuff and the three-piece stuff will generally be dismissed, apart from a small cult of fans that are heavily into Up.