R.E.M. trio albums POLL

What's wrong with embracing a rougher sleeve aesthetic, as they do on Accelerate? The Hib-Tone 45 sleeve was rough.

IMO, their taste in non-musical indicia (album titles, cover art, general aesthetics) did fall apart after Monster.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of embracing a rougher sleeve aesthetic. In the case of Reveal, the main photograph on the sleeve is actually pretty great - it's what's been vomited all over it that's the problem.

(It's a shame, because I like Reveal more than most.)

I'm not saying I'm totally crazy for the later sleeves - I like the covers on the early albums best - but I'm certainly not crazy for the Monster sleeve either.

Oh, I love that one! Murmur, Green, Automatic for the People, Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi are my favourite sleeves of theirs.

I think mine are Fables, Pageant, Document - beautiful

Stipe's present visual art doesn't seem to be in that vein at all, so perhaps it's not wrong to say that his current aesthetic has more to do with the late period band sleeves.

I do take him seriously as an artist.

The Monster cover has taken on a certain baggage after decades of clogging dollar bins, but the new approach did seem cool & different at the time (and I do still like it).

Post-Around the Sun it's difficult for me to think of anything to do with Monster having "baggage" ...

I bought that on vinyl when it came out. Looks like there were more pictures in the CD booklet? Like the ones with the fake song titles and the furniture - I like those.

I thought those were all actual songs (or at least sketches of songs) from when they were making the album. Were any of those actually released? I lost track of the reissue program...

I would totally listen to 2 CDs of Monster outtakes; just those guys f’ing around with that cavernous gtr reverb

Looks like all the bonus tracks on CD and vinyl singles from that time were live tracks except for 808 State remixes of "King of Comedy."

What's wrong with it? I think it represents the album quite well.

I remember Stipe saying he was deeply involved with album art and wouldn't give it up for anything.

by no means am i font/typography design nerd, but the three different fonts on the cover are all awful (especially the "REVEAL", and especially especialy the track titles), the circles on the M in R.E.M. make no sense, the drop shadows all go in different directions, the spacing around the track titles are weird and unpleasing, and the combo of the awful font and awful drop shadows on the track titles combine to make some of the very worst track titles i have ever seen, literally worse than just about anyone could do with even a copy of microsoft word from microsoft XP days. unforgivably bad. the tones/colors on the photo aren't so hot either, but compared to the crap that was laid over the top 20 minutes before the file was due (and if it was put on there any earlier, and any significant amount of thought was put into it, that adds to the things that cannot be forgiven) it somehow comes out to the best part about the cover

The list of titles in the Monster CD booklet are a mix of titles, working titles and ideas for titles. For example: 'Yes, I am Fucking With You' was the working title for 'King of Comedy' - I suspect it's the contents of their "ideas wall" that they would have had in the studio.

I would guess 'Violent Green' was the working title for 'What's the Frequency, Kenneth?', 'You Give Good Head' was the working title for 'I Don't Sleep, I Dream', 'There's a Certain Feeling'/'Certain Feeling' was the working title for 'Circus Envy', various permutations of 'Revolution' are mentioned ...

I'm speculating now, but 'Pattern Shirt' looks to me like it could have been an early version of 'Bittersweet Me', and I'd be totally unsurprised if 'Soul Song' turned out to be 'Tongue' ...

I could swear that Buck or another one of the guys said at the time that there was a bunch of unreleased stuff in the can, but maybe I’m wrong.

Unreleased stuff from Monster? I suspect if there were any leftover ideas worth using, they used 'em on New Adventures in Hi-Fi. They were already performing 'Undertow', 'Binky the Doormat' and 'The Wake Up Bomb' on the tour, as well as 'Revolution' ...

I just skimmed thru this old interview; there’s some interesting stuff in it:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/r-e-m-monster-madness-42635/

“I think we’ve got a few more records in us,” Buck continues. “If I said three records — that sounds kind of reasonable to me right now. Now we could break up before that or we could make 10 more records. At the rate we work, three records is a long time — it’s six, seven years. Of course, if we get to the point where we’re not popular anymore, then we could do whatever we want to! Some days I think it could last forever, and some days I think it won’t last very long.”

Oh right, I recognise this interview because of Kiedis at the beginning... it's in a book I have of R.E.M. articles/interviews from the beginning up to the Monster era...

Rolling Stone's crash-your-browser web site is something else.

a best-of with tracks from this era already exists, it's called up

look who bought the myth.
Hope, Sad Professor, Why Not Smile, Daysleeper, chunk the rest.

'Sad Professor' is one of my least favourite things R.E.M. ever did.

I like Up (I like all their albums), but it’s certainly not their most immediate set of songs.

xxxp Reveal sleeve heavily influenced by the David Carson / Ray Gun show-the-seams end-of-print aesthetic

I dunno, I just don't think it's aged particularly well, and their inability to advance its better moments makes those achievements seem like a bit of a fluke.

"Suspicion" is probably my favorite. And since it's my favorite REM album, I think its one of their best songs ever.

"sad professor" is v good imo. up is prob objectively too long but i can't argue for excluding any track, everything builds on its singular sleepwalking mood and imo the length actually adds to that. also how lovely is "you're in the air"???

their inability to advance its better moments makes those achievements seem like a bit of a fluke

I think it was a similar mode of songwriting to New Adventures even with the different instrumental approach - longer form, fictional, narrative. I remember being happy thinking that they were tightening the song structures up again with Reveal, enabling things like "The Lifting" and "Imitation of Life."

I had to look back at an old fanzine review I did of Reveal. I wrote, "One thing these lyrics do is to reduce the character sketch approach from storytelling back into more of a poetic form."

Listening now, I'm not so sure! I think the structures tighten up more with Around the Sun (and stay that way from there on out, ending with songs under three minutes on Collapse).

Reveal is a potentially great album marred by Stipe sounding so halfhearted, they sound like quickly recorded guide vocals half the time. Usually he's one of my favourote singers so what was going on in summer 2000? was he ill or just not into it?

"Beat a Drum" is fantastic.

Classic R.E.M.

“I’ve Been High” has great singing. Really that’s all I need from Reveal. Maybe “Beat a Drum”.

"Beat A Drum" is my pick too, amazing song. Several of the others felt a little too anonymous to me at the time, like any band could have done "She Just Wants To Be" or "I'll Take the Rain." I should give it a relisten though.

"Imitation of Life," though. Like another Out of Time hit. That one was rad live.

absolutely, that and pilgrimage were the highlights when we saw them in '05

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YlaOH_ovVg

reveal was... a little overcooked imo, as i think this superior demo proves

xp yeah the Unplugged version of “I’ve Been High” from the Reveal era may reveal charms to the resistant

er not xp!

I suppose a big reason for the change in studio approach after Berry left was that Berry and Buck tended to like to get things down onto tape quickly, whereas Mills and Stipe liked to labour over things a little more. When Berry left the band, the balance tipped in favour of Mills and Stipe, who were heavily into the details of the production, sometimes working on perfecting a couple of bars of music for hours. Up, Reveal and Around the Sun were all recorded with this type of approach, until they all agreed to go back to a more organic way of working. Stipe probably laboured over the vocals to those albums far more than their other records - which is probably why they may sound "half-hearted" to some.

But how do these albums make you *feel*? "Up" does what it says on the tin, despite some of the somber moments, overall it makes me feel positive and hopeful.

That's one of REM's secrets - their music often taps into your emotional core, making you feel *something*. As opposed to the later albums, which just don't make me feel much at all aside from a track here and there. Listening to any of their IRS-era material, the albums positively soar at times. That faded away for me after "New Adventures" and "Up".

This is nice. "Bad Day" b-side, 2003, Magnapop cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9-g4cdSjvo

Same disc, Mills, Three Dog Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvttMIOPiT0

My other conclusion listening to the second Complete Rarities today - they remained a good surf band ("Tricycle," "Surfing the Ganges," "165 Hillcrest").

man i'm listening to reveal r/n and it's less good than i remembered. :( "beat a drum" is still fantastic" and "imitation of life" lands like someone just jabbed the album with a syringe full of energy. but after "the lifting," side A is just a prettily-produced wash of songs that are too basic to sustain the nth repetition of "all the way to reno... you're gonna be a star!" or "she just wants to be somewhere she just wants to be" (get it). i really don't like where stipe's good-advice/adult-wisdom songwriting mode ended up here and i agree that his singing is not great.