POLL: "Never Tear Us Apart" (INXS) vs. "Everybody Hurts" (R.E.M.)

i can only really *hear* “everybody hurts” in the sequence of automatic for the people, it works so well there as a simple and clarified summary of the album’s themes. on its own it works... less well

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Saturday, December 29, 2018 11:34 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as usual brad nails it

xp — To me as a teenager (and other teens I knew), Stipe was brooding, mysterious, poetic, endearingly pretentious; ambivalent about the spotlight, while also craving and cultivating attention; earnest yet cryptic, sincere yet guarded, passionate but full of self-doubt. In short, he was born relatable and larger-than-life; a perfect idol for sensitive adolescents with a self-effecting sense of humor.

Hutchence was a good-looking guy with good hair who sang well, from a band that had a big record a few years earlier.

I remember the week he died, one of my favorite Minneapolis bands played, Rank Strangers, and the singer said the next song is dedicated to Michael Hutchense....was a real indie rock crowd, really smirky, so people laughed like they thought he was joking, then they went in to this amazing, really intense version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and the crowd was totally silenced when it was done, one of the best things I ever saw

damn

Yeah, that’s cool.

(also: a few autocorrect or IPA-afflicted typos in my post above. born = “both”; effecting = “effacing”)

I could never understand why (the Everybody Hurts video) won so many awards

Because Wings of Desire was a great movie.

then they went in to this amazing, really intense version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

(If anyone's still wondering, it's definitely Prague in the video.)

I hadn't thought of INXS since the Kick era until earlier this year, after an ILX poll alerted me to "Don't Change", which is an astonishing song. Listening to their albums after this, I loved all the singles I remembered (including this one) but the albums didn't pay off any further than that.

I heard "Everybody Hurts" on the radio on a local bus this summer in the south of France, on a "greatest hits of the English and French speaking worlds" type station, and realized that it mustn't be its words that people respond to, since in that context even pop platitudes are unheard. I don't understand universal things, but for a moment REM did.

This is my least favorite REM single/one of my least favorite songs in general by them. NTUA by a country mile.

Playing "Never Tear Us Apart" would have been more appropriate, but a lot harder to learn I guess.
(If anyone's still wondering, it's definitely Prague in the video.)

― dorsalstop, Monday, December 31, 2018 2:23 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, it was perfect

I completely loved REM and I still think that NTUA is a better/more moving song *** in the choice between these particular two songs ****

The INXS catalog does not hold up as well (for me) long term in that it seems one-note, like a drugstore perfume that smelled intoxicating at the age of 12 and kinda gross/treacly even a few years later. The great songs are still great though! And as I mentioned, they remind me of prelapsarian times, young and innocent days.

They don't have many great album tracks, but I stan for this one:

https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-raincoats-debut-album-is-a-classic-diy-document/

lol oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpFQJ8IlXWs

I love R.E.M. but voted for 'Never Tear Us Apart' without hesitation, classic case of a brilliant single from a band I don't really have strong feelings about either way (although I do love 'Don't Change' as well).

The first time I heard "Everybody Hurts" I assumed it was a piss-take, or a b-side, or otherwise a joke (I had the same reaction to the Bangles' "Eternal Flame"). I stopped paying attention to them around Automatic, long after the frantic rush and intriguing indecipherability had vanished forever. I thought, either this song is some kind of a send-up, or they're reduced to explicitly spelling out what they used to wryly imply, and that's no fun.

I don't want to defend "Everybody Hurts" exactly, since I too have mostly skipped it since 1992, but I don't they were "reduced" to doing anything on it. I mean, they called an album Green in an election year; and while marketed as a "Southern"-band named an album after Reconstruction. Which is to say, they had long had a taste for the obvious gesture. This world is big, and REM wanted to give good advices. It was the 90s: at first you thought they were faking it, and then you realized they were beyond fake, they're the real thing.

REM is my favorite band of all time, but this is choosing their worst song against the best of INXS.

It was the 90s: at first you thought they were faking it, and then you realized they were beyond fake, they're the real thing.

I can see this in a sense where they believe what they're saying is too important NOT to spell it out. But for me, they came off as earnest folkies, or a less funky Three Dog Night.

and while marketed as a "Southern"-band named an album after Reconstruction.

In 1985 they weren't marketed as anything other than a band that college kids would like (to the extent they were marketed at all), and they happened to be from Georgia. To say they were marketed as a "Southern" band -- especially compared to Tom Petty's Southern Accents tour and album around that time (Peter Buck publicly called him out on using the confederate flag) -- is a stretch.

I don't really see it as more of an unsubtle piss-take than "Shiny Happy People", which was on the previous album?

I suppose, but that seemed like an ironic wink...or at least, that's how I heard it. But I didn't like Out Of Time much.

R.E.M. is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I will defend nearly their entire catalog with great gusto, but "Never Tear Us Apart" really is the superior song here.

Also REM get thee one (1) saxophone

I was wondering about that y'day, and realized they did get one (1) -- here!

There was a sax quartet in "Can't Get There From Here"!

after an ILX poll alerted me to “Don't Change", which is an astonishing song.

I had never heard “Don’t Change” until it was used in that movie Adventureland — I was like, omigod, this song!

There was a sax quartet in "Can't Get There From Here"!

Are those all saxes?? Cool 😎

I'd take R.E.M.'s discography over INXS's any day of the week but it's clearly 'Never Tear Us Apart'.

I played alto sax and oboe in HS and was super stoked about the oboe on Nightswimming when it came out. I am never stoked about the sax.

INXS

It's more of a performance that I enjoy every time I hear it.

Everybody Hurts might be my least liked song from the singles on Automatic.

Recently heard Nightswimming, and thought it was still awesome.

“Unchained Melody” was big around this time (due to Ghost), and I think of “Everybody Hurts” as a kind of art-school take on it, both embracing and eyerolling it. Also an analogue to “I’m on Fire” starting as a “Folsom Prison Blues” joke/game.

I’m quite impressed by the consensus against EH. I totally understand why one would dislike it but didn’t expect that wave of hatred.
I like it. It reminds me of my teenage years. It’s moving.

Yeah - when I played it again for this poll, I was surprised by the presence and power it still carried.

you may have had better experiences in your teenage years than other people did. that song felt like cold comfort to me at the time. many years later, i am not hateful or bitter, but i don't find it particularly moving or comforting or anything really.

Everybody Hurts is the main reason I don't understand why people love AFTP so much. That song is such the turd on the brazier.

<3 take comfort in your friends <3

xp I don’t know about anyone else, but most of my experiences in my teenage years involved... listening to R.E.M.!

They became my favorite band of all time at age 12! But I liked hs...and the south.

I gotta say the time I enjoyed EH the most was when I had a decent amp and speakers and I cranked it to apocalyptic levels - the drama of the strings and the crescendos of sound really took it to a new dimension.

The music is fine. It's the lyricism.

The time I enjoyed EH the most was riding with a friend who had lost too much at the Indian casino and felt rotten about it, and we sang along with “Don’t throw your hand!”

I like that when making EH they approached it like an old Stax ballad

Still never want to hear it again

It’s also an impressive vocal performance (if you care for Stipe’s vocals; I know many don’t).

I was 23 and celebrating my first wedding anniversary when ATFP came out so it had a little different context for me than for anyone a bit younger. (My R.E.M. high school angst album was Life's Rich Pageant. ) But I'm also the weirdo whose favorite song on the album is Ignoreland, so.

Both songs are great but NTUA for me. Even love that cheesy Tall Paul coffee table remix.

Didn't realize there was so much hate for Stipe round these parts.

i thought people adore Stipe but just hate this one song. xpost About the STAX vocals, I almost said he was trying for a "take us to church" moment and it was just flabby.

Well, one person called him a whiny bitch and another called him a personality-less sucking void and well-poisoner.

Ha, i just went back to find these posts. I am very good at ignoring people because I had no recollection of these.

R.E.M. threads tend to get frothy, for some reason.

Poll: "Everybody Hurts" video vs. Van Halen "Right Now" video.

^^^ key questions of, well, hm, "our time" doesn't seem quite right

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Maybe P Gabriel's "Don't Give Up" vs. "Everybody Hurts" would've been more of a competition.

I love NTUA and hate EH. I hated Everybody Hurts when I was a wallowing teenager, which I was when it came out and I still hate it now. Dunno just grates on me, always has.

this is an interesting genre, the explicitly palliative/consoling song