REM: Classic or dud?

i was wondering, listening to it, whether he was making of a wry reference to the idea of shouting FIRE! in a crowded theater. the way he screams it is different, almost more like that

This thread sent me back listening to their stuff in the second half of the 80s. I was never a super fan but really liked Life’s Rich Pageant, Document (which I had together on a cassette someone made for me) and most of Green.

Listening back, tho, it was so refreshing to hear someone espouse lefty politics that not only drops terms like McCarthyism and realpolitik but actually seems to understand them. I’m not saying Document or Life’s Rich Pageant are Chomsky or anything. Some of this was just the 80s – I mean, it was fashionable to crap on Reagan and, as a friend pointed out, Sting was name-checking Nabokov in his singles.

But it really struck me how used to knee jerk liberalism we’ve become and how well read and thoughtful Michael Stipe seemed to be by contrast. I mean, their whole orientation just completely distinct than anything I’ve heard in forever – but also not *so* nakedly political and intellectual that it becomes a chore to listen to. They’re still a fun band.

I also still completely adore “Pop Song 89,” which remains such a fabulous contrast and super sly updating of Jim Morrison’s “Hello, I Love You” come-on:

Hello
I saw you
I know you I knew you
I think I can remember your name.

Hello
I’m sorry I lost myself
I think I thought you were someone else

Should we talk about the weather?
Should we talk about the government?

I know it shows my hand as a former teen REM obsessive, but it is Lifes Rich Pageant. There is no apostrophe denoting possession.

For ten points—which movie did they take the phrase from? (I actually don’t remember offhand)

Pink panther

In that 9-27-1986 show, the extended sub set from Fables, stretching from “can’t get there” through “life and how to live it”, with “pretty persuasion” dropped in the middle, is just preposterously good

Yeah I also didn't know "The One I Love" was already around in Fall 86, and it's really different! I mean, it's exactly the same song, but with a completely different vibe.

based solely on their Richard Thompson cover of “Wall of Death” on the NAiHF reissue I’m pretty convinced Stipe could’ve gone the Darius Rucker country route post REM.

Country Stipe:

https://onesnladay.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/11-12-1994_1.04.32.11.jpg

Is that Gumby on his head?

It's Jay Mohr

Gumby in...Gumby in...Gumby into town

Talk about the passion

Ha, excellent!

I don't know what this is (obviously a bootleg; what was the broadcast?), but it just appeared in my streaming service queue... it's pretty good!

popped up on my Spotify too. Very odd. I wonder if it's unauthorized and going to get taken down? Somehow slipped through whatever their process is? But excited to listen to it tonight!

seem like it should be pretty easy to narrow down when that was broadcast/recorded

Some kind of TV program, they say pretty early on.

And "Driver 8" is a new song so...

sometime in 1984, although can't find set list that matches the sequencing

Could be a compilation of a couple of broadcasts

Yep

Possibly this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvhQqQ-AYgI

A recording of the show was broadcast nationally on US radio in late ‘84 or early ‘85.

I’ve been down in a massive live rem hole since the last time this thread was bumped btw

I didn’t mention before that I actually saw them in 86 which is the year I keep listening obsessively to.

Camper Van Beethoven was opening and I was there for CVB. I was too cool for REM by this point - had gotten LRP and felt it was a huge letdown. I barely even paid attention to REM’s set. What a dumb little pissant!

haha, no i think some things just take time! curious though, do you remember what put you off LRP when it came out?

Probably just standard discomfort with the more straight ahead rock sound. Honestly more than anything it was probably the fact that i had fables and murmur on cassette and LRP on LP and hadn’t made a tape of it yet, so I hadn’t listened to it 100x like the other two.

IDK I went through the same thing with Huskers on Warehouse and later CVB with key lime pie - I was not one for the art that conceals art at that stage in my life. If a band got less weird that was bad.

xxxp That Seattle show has a different set list from this bootleg – but, yeah, the track order could be swapped around (or it could be pulled from various shows).

Interesting that "Hyena" dates this far back...

LRP is often my favorite R.E.M.

(I just randomly compared the two versions of "Boxcars" across this boot and that show, and they ain't the same)

“Harborcoat” is still my jam.

Interesting that "Hyena" dates this far back...

They apparently had a bunch of songs that they played live for years before they recorded them. They were playing “Just A Touch” as early as ‘83.

I had never heard of that "Skank" number which closes the Seattle (YouTube) set... apparently it was the band's "all-purpose jam"?

Anyway, this German "Pale Blue Eyes" boot – whatever the show is – is a really good recording & performance. (And yeah, the "Harborcoat" at the end is terrific.)

The chords of that song have always felt like tumbling water to me; it's such a special sound.

Yeah, good description.

Just heard "Oh My Heart" for the first time, after it closed episode 3 of The Bear, and now hearing Collapse Into Now for the first time. Had no idea this was good!

I guess that bootleg discussed above has disappeared…

xpost Ha, me too, from "The Bear." I've never heard that album, so had never heard that song, but it's loooooovely.

Yeah, "Oh My Heart" is good. After the band broke up, I decided to revisit all of the post-Berry albums to give them another chance, and that track was one of the standouts. I had all ten Berry-era albums and I ended up liking Up enough to get it, but otherwise, I made this compilation to fill out the rest of my collection:

The Best Of R.E.M.
1998-2011

1 Lotus 04:31
2 At My Most Beautiful [radio mix] 03:33
3 Daysleeper [single edit] 03:31
4 The Great Beyond 05:07
5 I've Been High 03:26
6 All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be A Star) 04:43
7 Imitation Of Life 03:56
8 All The Right Friends 02:48
9 Bad Day 04:07
10 Leaving New York 04:49
11 Electron Blue 04:12
12 Living Well Is The Best Revenge 03:11
13 Man-Sized Wreath 02:33
14 Supernatural Superserious 03:23
15 Hollow Man 02:39
16 Houston 02:05
17 Discoverer 03:31
18 Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter 02:45
19 Überlin 04:14
20 Oh My Heart 03:20
21 It Happened Today 03:48
22 We All Go Back To Where We Belong 03:35

Up and "Imitation of Life" are pretty much the only post-Berry things I will listen to. Sorry I am basic

I’ve Been High is really beautiful imho

I'll defend the first three Up tracks.

er, Us.

Reveal!

Mine world be:

1. Hope
2. Why Not Smile (Demo)
3. Daysleeper
4. Falls to Climb
5. The Lifting
6. I've Been High
7. Electron Blue
8. Living Well is the Best Revenge
9. Horse to Water
10. I'm Gonna DJ
11. Every Day is Yours To Win
12. Blue
13. A Month of Saturdays
14. Bad Day
15. A loop of the "Sing Along" bit from "Diminished" that lasts thirty minutes

Falls to Climb and Diminished, yes.

Isn't Bad Day originally from the LRP era, and subsequently resurrected? I will leave it to purists to debate whether it counts as an 80s track or an 00s track

yeah, it's a draft version of It's The End of the World.

Really disappointed that the new Chronic Town 40th anniversary reissue doesn't have anything at all in terms of demos or live stuff.

it does seem kind of strange, give the kitchen-sink approach to (imo) much-lesser R.E.M. anniversaries ... I feel like a pre-Murmur box set of some kind could be really good.

Yeah I would be totally into that box set!

Totally -- I don't know whether any of these songs exist outside live recordings, but stuff like "Wait", "Body Count," ... love it, raw energy

"Bad Day"is so much more than a draft version of EotW, it's its own song parts of which were repurposed -- that and "Romance" are the two songs from the era so good it's shocking they weren't on a real album