― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 23:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 23:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 19 September 2006 23:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 01:31 (seventeen years ago) link
I love about half of this album and usually end up skipping most of the other part.
Will you show me something that nobody else has seen? Smoke it, drink - here comes the flood! anything to thin the blood.
awesome!
― Z S, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 01:56 (sixteen years ago) link
this is still the REM album i enjoy the most. even more than green or murmur or automatic. i hardly listen to them anymore, except for tracks off new adventures. e-bow, electrolite, how the west was won, bittersweet me. all some of their best.
― Emily Bjurnhjam, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 02:36 (sixteen years ago) link
So very classic. I just lost an auction on ebay for a sealed vinyl copy. =(
― Davey D, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 02:38 (sixteen years ago) link
Also, my best friend bought this cd for me on my 16th birthday. Even more classic!
― Davey D, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 02:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Still an excellent album.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 11:35 (sixteen years ago) link
'binky the doormat' ... best song about a doormat ever.
WORD!
― t**t, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 15:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I downloaded this on the recommendation of ILM yesterday-- some pretty good stuff on this, but good God, the "rockers" are incredibly painful ("The Wake-Up Bomb" for example).
― Richard Wood Johnson, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 19:47 (sixteen years ago) link
OOoohhhhhh the wake up bomb.
― piscesx, Saturday, 19 July 2008 02:47 (fifteen years ago) link
This is my favorite REM album, bar none.
― stephen, Saturday, 19 July 2008 02:57 (fifteen years ago) link
i think it just might be one of their best. certainly their last really good record.
― the next grozart, Saturday, 19 July 2008 03:18 (fifteen years ago) link
It's way below their best early to mid-career work, but it's half a terrific album and yeah, it's "certainly their last really good record."
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 19 July 2008 03:21 (fifteen years ago) link
way below their best early to mid-career work
strongly disagree w/this, I think these songs are some of their best
half a terrific album I would say 2/3 terrific 1/3 good to decent, which considering the length is impressive. Still their longest release by far and quite varied, it's almost like their version of Sandinista.
― sleeve, Saturday, 19 July 2008 04:15 (fifteen years ago) link
Great album. Will it also take six years that people will discover how phantastic "Reveal" is?
OTM! Reveal is also excellent.
― stephen, Saturday, 19 July 2008 06:04 (fifteen years ago) link
The end of a really bad period for R.E.M. It wasn't as bad as "Monster", but still had the same weaknesses. They would get better on "Up" and really good on "Reveal".
― Geir Hongro, Saturday, 19 July 2008 09:27 (fifteen years ago) link
oh my peer your veneer is wearing thin and crackingthe surface informs the underneath -- the underneath is lacking
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:38 (four years ago) link
my favorite r.e.m. lyric!
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:38 (four years ago) link
i couldn't taste it. i'm tired and nakedi don't know what i'm hungry for. i don't know what i want anymore
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:45 (four years ago) link
"Bittersweet Me" is my favorite forgotten R.E.M. singer. I love when bands crank out singles that on first listen sound effortless and dull but are in fact distillations that they couldn't have written at any other poitn.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:46 (four years ago) link
*single
Stipe should legally change his name to "Bittersweet Me".
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:48 (four years ago) link
am i a bad person if i say this is my favorite r.e.m. album? i recognize it's not their best, not by a longshot, but i've probably listened to it more than any of their other albums.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:49 (four years ago) link
i am already dying for the NAiHF reissue. the monster tour seems to have curated their last great songs. "electrolite" is a high quality "all of my love" level sign-off and i am eager to hear whatever else they demoed to get to this
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:51 (four years ago) link
I am never eager to hear demos, especially for albums as long as Hi-Fi, which I hasten to say I love.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:56 (four years ago) link
austin, this is my favorite r.e.m. album
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:56 (four years ago) link
murmur and monster hot on its heels
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:57 (four years ago) link
from what I remember this is the era when the Brits took to R.E.M. hard, embracing this and Up.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 19:59 (four years ago) link
bill's final tour. the secret ingredient pre-retirement. capture the fleeting magic
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:00 (four years ago) link
so many bangers on this. undertow, leave, bittersweet me, etc. etc.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:08 (four years ago) link
"e-bow" was my favorite rem song of all time for a while, maybe it still is. "low desert" vastly underrated or at least undermentioned
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:11 (four years ago) link
prob my favorite set of r.e.m. music videos comes from this record too
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:13 (four years ago) link
"Be Mine"'s verse chords bears= an uncanny resemblance to Collective Soul's "Shine."
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:13 (four years ago) link
i wrote this very lengthy r.e.m. overview on my blog some years back and it remains one of the most looked at entries on the blog. here's what i said about new adventures:
Motherfruggit, I don't care: this album kicks butts with no prejudice. A boxer or your grandma get the same treatment: a swift kick in the hiney by some of the band's most original material ever. The problem is: everybody hates on the darn thing because it's rumoured to be the album that made Bill Berry have an aneurism and say, "Hey dudes, I'm a farmer now." But, as a final sendoff for the band's original lineup, they basically made an update of Document or Green. It rocks a little, it folks a little, but mostly, it entertains a lot. Go ahead and deny it, like everybody else in the world. Call it too long, call it boring or whathaveyou. I call it a creative rebirth. The more rockin' Monster sound hasn't gone away, but with the sonic chances they took on that album, they must have picked up a new flair for studio knob-twiddling because the dynamics and layers achieved on this album sound like no other R.E.M. album before it. Honestly, this is the first R.E.M. album that doesn't sound like every song was just recorded live in the studio — irony supreme, as it was notoriously recorded in pieces amongst makeshift studios and soundchecks during the Monster tour. They've finally gotten a handle on how to properly overproduce an album. It's a weird one, too. I mean, seriously, the single was 'E-Bow the Letter.' Good song, sure. But that's one weird thing to try and get into the top 40 (even though, wow at the balls it took to release that as an a-side; the hook is "Aluminum tastes like fear" ferrchrissakes!). Highlight: 'Leave.' Only the longest and best song they ever did. Yeah, it's that good. (4.5 stars)
i was drinking heavily at the time, so that's why it's so obnoxiously written. sorry.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:18 (four years ago) link
i'll ply the tar out of your feathersi'll pluck the thorns out of your feet
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:19 (four years ago) link
it's maybe the ideal "made on the road" record, it's full of hills and valleys and weird roadside attractions, seems to reflect the landscape they were traversing
― american bradass (BradNelson), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:20 (four years ago) link
LEEEEAVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVELEEEEAVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVE
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:20 (four years ago) link
otm. And the landscape and attractions merge with the films in Stipe's head since childhood, hence the not-quite-there-ness of "How the West Was Done..." and "Departure" and "Bittersweet Me."
xpost
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:22 (four years ago) link
Thanks guys, I have listened to more R.E.M. in the last week than in the preceding decade
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 20:46 (four years ago) link
move across, candylossi move like a tank
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 21:02 (four years ago) link
*candyflossblue in the face from navel gazeyou set yourself on fire
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 21:04 (four years ago) link
Holy shit it's a Wednesday morning and I'm on my way to work and "Electrolite" came on and now I'm crying.
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 21:45 (four years ago) link
> am i a bad person if i say this is my favorite r.e.m. album?
Absolutely not.
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Tuesday, 5 November 2019 22:18 (four years ago) link
Happened a bit earlier, Out of Time was everywhere the summer of 91 and AFTP was huge, 7x platinum. Didn’t tour them of course so the Monster tour was a big deal. I went to get tickets for the Glasgow show and the queue snaked all around the inside of the SECC and out. In end didn’t matter as show was cancelled following Bill Berry’s aneurism.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 5 November 2019 22:28 (four years ago) link
One reason why I get down on post-Bill REM is that I wasn’t done with the New Adventures formula; the monochrome artwork and the sense that this was a band who were aware they’d been around a while but were just going to keep on doing what they do best, which is what Hi-Fi sounds like.
Not that I was hoping for endless xeroxed variations on this exactly but after this album you hear them trying things out, with different influences becoming much more explicit; obviously they felt they had to do this and some of this was a success but I suppose i selfishly felt that New Adventures was a platform for REM to move forward...obviously this went out the window after Bill left
It’s still their most mature album; one can only wonder what might have come as a 4 piece
― Master of Treacle, Wednesday, 6 November 2019 01:08 (four years ago) link
yeah agreed, there's a world where this is the base for four more amazing albums that don't sound the same but have this in their DNA, the way murmur is for the 80s stuff
― weird ilx but sb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 6 November 2019 01:12 (four years ago) link
I’m a terrible musician but “Be Mine” is about the only song I’ve been able to play half-competently on guitar. Love it and the album so much.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Wednesday, 6 November 2019 06:33 (four years ago) link
Tasty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWlINyu1COw
― piscesx, Tuesday, 24 August 2021 19:41 (two years ago) link