New Adventures in Hi Fi?

they don't have Murmur's kinda muffled production, right? big part of the mystique

totally agree about the timelessness of murmur, too! and yeah it's really hard to nail down why

Cervical of Sorts

I didn't correct what the phone thought

i guess i meant more reckoning and fables, great great albums but something not quite like murmur that i can't really articulate because on paper and in practice they aren't really that different

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, November 3, 2021 6:23 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they don't have Murmur's kinda muffled production, right? big part of the mystique

― lukas, Wednesday, November 3, 2021 6:26 PM (three minutes ago)

i definitely don't have good ears for this kind of conversation (too many drums played in concrete basements!) but to me, for some reason, it's murmur that's always sounded crystal clear to me, while fables and reckoning have seemed murky

xpost lol rip van winko

cervical of sorts (boxcar)

one thing I remember about murmur and early rem in general is Mitch Easter talking about how they recorded their parts in separate rooms/isolation and how that was like so not punk rock or whatever

cervical of jorts (hotboxcar)

This conversation heartens me because my students don't know them at all. They've vanished. U2 have not.

Anyway, LRP rules.

Asked in 1999 about his favorite projects as a producer, Easter cited R.E.M.'s Chronic Town and Game Theory's records – Real Nighttime (1984), The Big Shot Chronicles (1985), Lolita Nation (1987), and Two Steps from the Middle Ages (1988) – which Easter called "a lot of fun, because of the variety in the way they approached recording".[4]

I actually think Murmur is produced very cleanly, the vocals are just kind of low in the mix

REM is so much better than U2, feel bad for the kids

REM is so much better than U2, feel bad for the kids

i don't think any kids like U2, but i may be wrong. U2 has a new single out for some animated film and it's the worst song of all time. i'd like to think that the kids can still identify total trash

they KNOW U2, that's the difference.

rem obviously the better band overall but u2 peaked higher

it still trips me out to remember that rem were as big as they were. i mean sure they had catchy songs that catered somewhat to the zeitgeist, but it was hard to hide the fact that they were artsy, insular and retro leaning at heart, just a band playing together and looking weird doing it. i guess that was the general trend with college rock from the 80s though so it does make some sense, it's just that rem, to me, somehow feel more unlikely as a success story than others.

i disagree. i think that rem is so much better than U2 that it's unbelievable and it makes older people at the BBQ choke on their hotwings.

i say that as a fan of 80s U2

xp

rem is unquestionably better than u2 in all respects imo

but U2 is one of those bands that sucked so hard, so incredibly bad, sucking so badly, from the mid-90s on that it's just like fuck you U2, i don't even care that you used to be good, because you suck so badly now, and the fact that you keep going and making money, i mean come on, fuck you, fuck you bono, fuck you edge, fuck you larry mullen, fuck you other guy, you're all rich, fuck you

really there's no end for the hatred for U2 because they're so well off and they suck so badly

but I just don't like it on REM songs. To me, it feels like they're painting with a borrowed palette when they use it.

― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, November 3, 2021 2:17 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

severe counterpoint: peter buck's distorted guitar tone 94'-'96 is one of the greatest tones of all time

u2 aren't worth loathing to that degree until you get to the 00s

I dwell on Stipe's "I'm an equal opportunity lech" line shared during the Monster promo cycle and how it retrospectively changed R.E.M.'s catalog and my life.

Out of Time remains a special time. Imagine your mainstream blockbuster the album with that second side and "Low" and "Near Wild Heaven" besides.

i encountered 'where the streets have no name' somewhat recently, and what used to sound profound about it was so transparently hollow now... did bono turn into something that spoiled their whole catalog, or was it always there and everyone just bought the chintziness at the time because they needed it?

Pet Shop Boys as usual opened up the song's vistas by queering it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt2j79pca7c

haha i didn't know about that

U2 is a hell of a live band

I can't really think of a band that went mainstream on their own terms in a more real way than REM

it's pretty simple to me, U2 (or at least bono) just believed their own hype to the point that it all fell apart. where the streets have no name is a killer song if i step back and think about it against any objective criteria, but i can't have an emotional relationship with it or anything else U2 has done.

r.e.m. maintained just enough healthy skepticism to dodge this effect, at least for me.

I can't really think of a band that went mainstream on their own terms in a more real way than REM

I think 10,000 Maniacs were there with them, though obviously didn’t get as huge.

The funny thing is that R.E.M. were playing Spring Break to drunk college kids from the beginning, they always wanted to be huge, they just dragged the world a few notches over to align w/them for a little while.

We are plainly in the minority.

As far as obnoxious prats go, Bono's a better frontman than most. R.E.M. said at the time they and U2 were the Biggest Bands in the World that while they had mad respect for U2 they had no interest in that kind of pressure and scrutiny; Peter Buck also said they'd rather U2 did this rather than Bon Jovi.

(xpost)

if you listen to early U2 and then early REM, Bono's honking, foghorn vocals are almost the antithesis of Stipe's mumbly, indecipherable vocals. I guess they were both very earnest in a kind of uncool way, even when they both did the ironic glam-rockstar thing in the mid-90s they both managed to be ironic in a sort of earnest way (though REM did it much better imo)

idk achtung baby/zooropa is absolutely u2's peak & the least obnoxious & most compelling bono ever was, while monster was a relative low for rem & characteristically stipe's version of the semi-ironic glam thing is much weirder and more subdued, but it's not really him at his best

ehhh disagree

this is doubling back but i actually think what works about the Monster and NAIHF "rock" songs is that most of them are not actually "rock" songs and maybe not even trying to be. yeah they have loud guitars, sometimes with a wall of tremolo effect and stuff... but they're almost being used more like the strings on Automatic, for a blanket of atmosphere. this is a band whose origins were playing frantic sweaty college art kid dance parties; they definitely know how to play energetic, propulsive, nimble rock music. but i really think they weren't interested in that by the 90s. instead they were making loud, electric chamber music.

obviously there's all the talk of putting down the mandolins and breaking back out the guitars and all, but i still think that shift is there. and it's maybe why the gritty rock textures on NAIHF feel of a piece with the rest of the record, for me. or maybe Buck (and Berry?) really were trying to rock, but had gotten bored of their punk and new wave records, and wanted to be in an imaginary 70s glam arena band, idk.

i like achtung and zooropa and especially passengers but bono’s “baby’s first irony” act is the worst thing about them

i know wishing u2 had a less godawful lyricist is missing the point of u2 yet

dc otm

Bono's lyrics on AB and Zooropa are best-ever, though. He never tried again.

but they're almost being used more like the strings on Automatic

I think Star Me Kitten is the song on Automatic that sounds most like a pointer towards Monster despite being one of the least rocking things on the album, with the gauzy wall of sound and the sexual frankness

I definitely feel like the reason Monster works so well is the production/sound of the thing, it's not the same at all as New Adventures In Hi-Fi 'live in the studio'/recorded at soundchecks thing - Monster reminds me of a bit in the Simon Reynolds Glam Rock book where he talks about glam sounding ragged and rough-hewn but not in a rootsy, naturalistic way, in an artificial plastic way Live versions of Monster songs usually sound a little underwhelming to me, the same with those remixes on the re-release that made them sound more like trad REM songs. I feel the same way about The Wake-Up Bomb, it could have sounded great on Monster but the New Adventures version kind of falls flat

Bono's lyrics on AB and Zooropa are best-ever, though. He never tried again.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, November 4, 2021 6:35 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they're his best. grading on a curve

I think Mumur's arrangements & orchestration of the instruments (that may be the same thing) are what makes it timeless. Reckoning and Fables are both a little more straightforward "rock band" albums where Murmur reminds me of the first two Gang of Four records, where the instruments and vocals are kind of all going off in different directions sometimes while still maintaining cohesion.

Think about the first minute or so of Pilgramage (or heck the last minute or so) there's nothing even close to that on the next two

That's a sharp way of putting the Go4 influence in context. Also: bass lines! The only other contemporaneous Amerindie band with comparable ones is The Minutemen.

Monster makes me imagine introverted teenage Michael Stipe in the 70s living out his fantasies and desires through these sexually ambiguous glam rock records, and this is how they bridge the gap between mumbly early REM and the fact that they were now literally the biggest band in the world, pretending to be a rock star while also being a literal rock star - I love the way it's exhibitionist and introverted at the same time, it reminds me of Morrissey with the focus on the idolizer imagining themselves as the idol or maybe becoming the idol.

"Finest Worksong" is the height of Go4 worship, so great

Also the song title is very Minutemen

ah yes bass lines. Mike Mills is so underrated in that band. as is Bill

the three four descending bass notes right before Stipe starts singing Worksong are *so Mike Watt*

The feedback at the start of the third verse of New Test Leper is my shit.