what was the last 'classic album' you got and were knocked out by?

The Police - Synchronicity

I barely listen to music from that era, but Blonde on Blonde is an incredible album

:)

This is a shocking admission to make on ILM, but until very recently I had never heard any Fleetwood Mac, except for a few well-known tracks. So I've been listening a lot to their classic 70s Buckingham-era albums lately. All three are great, but I have to say I prefer s/t to both Rumours and Tusk.

Does that mean you still have the Peter Green stuff to discover? If so, could we swap ears for a bit?

Yeah I've never heard the Green or Welch-era stuff.

Then play On is the one, especially if you can still get the expanded version from a few years ago.
1st lp is too straight Chicago electric blues.

the live set from Boston in '69 has them stretching out heavily and has its moments.

Bare Trees!

Roxy Music - "Stranded"
Tim Buckley - "Greetings from L.A."

Basically all of R.E.M.'s 80s albums. I only owned Eponymous before and never got into it as much as the two other REM albums I owned (Automatic for the People and New Adventures in Hi-Fi) so mostly didn't bother exploring 80s REM until this year. I'm not sure what changed, but all of this stuff sounds amazing to me now and REM is very quickly moving up on my best bands of all time list.

Yesss.

I have a theory that the broad millennial dismissal of REM will begin to fade soon. They're ripe for rediscovery.

Millennials are old enough to remember R.E.M. 2.0 hanging around, like uncool uncles — but I can see Gen Z discovering the band, with fresh eyes/ears.

I Was A Millennial R.E.M. Fanatic

but i guess it’s true that no one else my age cared

When is the 10,000 Maniacs revival?

They were never cool to begin with, so there’s no baggage to cast off!

Someone should stick Human Conflict Number Five up on Bandcamp, pretend it’s a new album, and start the whole cycle over again.

THere seem to be 10,000 Maniacs torrent wars every couple of years on various torrent sites so maybe they'll catch on.
First couple of lps are ok.

Still love the Maniacs (Merchant era only, mind you).

Their catalogue is a mess though. I was hoping Elektra would do a 30th anniversary reissue of In My Tribe last year w/extras, outtakes and live stuff (of which there is plenty) but of course it never happened.

I've always said there's an alternate timeline where they break up after the first few albums flop and become a record geek us post punk icon like the feelies

(rem not 10k maniacs)

I think the fact that REM's most well known song today probably being 'Everybody Hurts' which is almost a novelty song at this point doesn't really help to get younger music fans interested in them

Over the last few weeks I downloaded all the songs off John Peel's Festive Fifty that I didn't know and finished listening to them last week, and was surprised to find I quite liked a couple of 10,000 Maniacs songs, I think from around '83 or so. Don't think I'd ever knowingly heard them before though.

although looking it up on spotify it looks like 'Losing My Religion' is way more popular than 'Everybody Hurts' (which is second) so maybe my theory doesn't hold up.

Very surprised to see 'Shiny Happy People' as the third most listened to track

xp to myself

There’s a terrific moment in Parks and Recreation, where Adam Scott’s character (who is being teased for his uncool taste in music) plays “Pop Song ‘89” at a high school dance, and the kids go nuts — “It’s classic rock!”

Also, his character's claymation video prominently features "Stand" (for its 7 second duration)

Adam Scott has an REM podcast now

and people found him in the "Drive" video

Like, in the crowd? Huh

https://news.avclub.com/heres-professional-r-e-m-fan-adam-scott-hiding-in-the-1825790999

Probably just need some more sweet claymasysh to bring the kids around.

No, I didn’t explain it right — the kids loved it. And the extension of the joke was that they just scratched their heads at the 2-year-old hip-hop (or whatever) that “cool Millennial” Tom Haverford played... he was the guy who had been busting the chops of Scott’s character about his uncool taste.

I found a clip that starts off with the audio from the R.E.M. scene (but somehow it's synced with the totally wrong video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOV5JIcYz60

Teenager: "I only listen to CDs... it's the way music like this was meant to be heard."

Adam Scott has an REM podcast now

unfortunately it's awful. it's co-hosted with scott aukerman. i actually really like adam scott aukerman, and i really wanted to like the podcast (R U Talkin' R.E.M. RE: ME?). but good lord do they like to stray from the subject. each episode is 2 hours long and spends maybe 4 and a half minutes talking about anything relevant to REM

they cover the names of the band members

peter dollar bill
michael stipend
mike miller
bill buckcherry (might be remembering that wrong)

Yeah the REM rehab is kicking in fast IMO. This was.. interesting.
http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2017/07/31/best-rem-songs-ranked/

There’s really a boatload of nerdy REM stuff on the podcast buried after a half hour of fucking around

It kind of interesting to hear Superfan Adam Scott defending all the latter day albums to Auckerman, who gave up on the band around Green.

C'mon, Aukerman. You couldn't even make it as far as Out of Time?

I should give the post-Up stuff a real chance someday.

There’s really a boatload of nerdy REM stuff on the podcast buried after a half hour of fucking around

i believe it, but even then it's intermittent! the last time i tried to listen, i randomly clicked on 10 different locations of an episode to see if they were talking about r.e.m. in any of them. zero!

i think i was just spoiled by the mccartney podcast series, where they're super earnest and constantly talk about paul mccartney

I probably should mention at this point that the Adam Scott/Scott Aukerman podcast is what prompted me to check out the early REM albums after not really listening or thinking about them for ~15 years. If you don't like their jokes and bits, only listen to the second half of the episodes where they just go through that episode's album track by track. Their enthusiasm is infectious.

unfortunately it's awful. it's co-hosted with scott aukerman. i actually really like adam scott aukerman, and i really wanted to like the podcast

REM are boring and U2 are terrible but I have learnt an awful lot about both bands from the excellent podcast over the last four years

like, the names of the members, and what instruments they play

also, The Godfather is a film

jailbreak by thin lizzy

Adam Scott has an REM podcast now

unfortunately it's awful. it's co-hosted with scott aukerman. i actually really like adam scott aukerman, and i really wanted to like the podcast (R U Talkin' R.E.M. RE: ME?). but good lord do they like to stray from the subject. each episode is 2 hours long and spends maybe 4 and a half minutes talking about anything relevant to REM

― Karl Malone, Thursday, August 23, 2018 1:45 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just discovered this post and Karl, man, you are so wrong. They often take a half hour to an hour to get to the album itself, but there's usually at least 30 minutes worth of on-topic and substantive musical/critical/cultural commentary, and each episode also gives you a sense of where two fans were in their lives as listeners when each album came out. Plus once you get used to the looong digressions before they get on topic, all the tangents never stop getting funnier (helps to keep in mind that it's an absurdist comedy podcast first and a music podcast second). I probably found it easier to enjoy because I discovered it through their previous podcast, RU Talkin U2 to Me; I'm much more of an REM fan than I am a U2 fan so I got used to their meandering on the earlier podcast without the frustration of waiting for them to get to a subject I really cared about. And once you know their rhythm you can just estimate when they'll actually get down to business and skip ahead of the long warm-up. Smoke a bowl and give it another chance.

Monster is completely underrated but I can't imagine a critical reappraisal by people younger than me (36) soon.

THe Olivers beeker St
60s band that have a biographical article in the latest Ugly Things.
This si an unreleased heavy rock lp from 1969 plus singles from various incarnations of the band and its predecessors the Serfmen and later incarnation as triad.
Has some great stuff on it. Lp itself has some fantastic guitar.

The New Age All Around
Pat kilroy lead trio play mostly acoustic material. This was a compilation from about 10 years ago put together around an unreleased lp from 1967 that was shelved when Pat Kilroy died very young. trancey atmospheric material.
I've had this for a while but play it too infrequently. So getting refamiliarised with it.
There wasa great pat Kilroy piece in an old issue of Ugly Things written by David biassotti which turned me onto this material and Kilroy's own lp.

Taking in Keith Jarrett's Survivor's Suite this evening. Not sure if this counts as an across the board "classic album" or no?

Anyway, wow, pretty amazing record. And, I swear, if this were released on any label other than ECM, it would've been taken a lot more seriously as a jazz funk opera. ECM doesn't exactly standout in the world of cratediggers and MPC heads, which I definitely was at one point. If you had played Survivor's Suite for me in a blindfold test and told me it was some Strata East or Black Jazz group, I would 100% have believed you. The extended section on side one of bass and celeste is just the right mood and the ruckus that opens side two is easily the sound of a fully acoustic small group led by Sun Ra. Except it was Keith Jarrett all along. Haha. Also, for a guy that was so anti-electric instruments, he plays a celeste (or is it "celesta"?) on some key parts of side one and it resembles a damn good imitation of a Fender Rhodes electric piano. Whatever, it sounds rad. Seriously good record.

And, dammit, those squalling sax runs at the end! Close your eyes and it's John McLaughlin.

I listened to London Calling (in toto) for the first time today, and I gotta admit it’s an excellent record.