Life After R.E.M.: Discussion Thread

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Say what you will about Stand, the Late Show fucking owned it:

 
Life's Rich Pageant is my fave REM record. Begin the Begin in top 3 REM songs.

I have a bootleg from the Green tour where Stipe introduced Stand as (roughly):

"This next song, is, alongside Barber's Adagio For Strings and Beethoven's 9th Symphony, one of the greatest pieces of music ever created by man."

Ha ha haaaaaa.
 
Similar to cobbler’s discovery, I’ve realized that I’ve never listened to Murmur. It’s frequently cited here and elsewhere as essential, so it’s time I fixed that.

As for Lifes Rich Pageant, I agree with much of what’s been said, with Begin the Begin, Fall on Me and Swan Swan H as my favorites.

But I’d personally put Document ahead of it. I love that album.
 
Life's Rich Pageant is my fave REM record. Begin the Begin in top 3 REM songs.

I have a bootleg from the Green tour where Stipe introduced Stand as (roughly):

"This next song, is, alongside Barber's Adagio For Strings and Beethoven's 9th Symphony, one of the greatest pieces of music ever created by man."

Ha ha haaaaaa.

Doesn't Tourfilm open with Stipe saying "This is my favorite song"?


Similar to cobbler’s discovery, I’ve realized that I’ve never listened to Murmur. It’s frequently cited here and elsewhere as essential, so it’s time I fixed that.

As for Lifes Rich Pageant, I agree with much of what’s been said, with Begin the Begin, Fall on Me and Swan Swan H as my favorites.

But I’d personally put Document ahead of it. I love that album.

Document opens with a killer run of 4 great songs. It also has two huge singles in the middle. But the cover, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Fireplace drag it down a bit. King of Birds has some big fans, and to me it's good but feels like ground they already covered on Fables of the Reconstruction.

For some reason I don't find it as fun as LRP.
 
Doesn't Tourfilm open with Stipe saying "This is my favorite song"?

I think so. It's been years since I watched it. I think they ended up playing it first on a lot of the tour, just to get it out of the way.

I like both Finest Worksong and Turn You Inside Out, but they are the same song. Stipe even dancing the same way in Tourfilm, ha ha.

I have a bunch of REM DVDs and now with re-releases I probably have a lot of duplicate stuff, song videos in multiple DVDs now.
 
I was trying to get a sort of "casual" fan I know into the post Berry material, which I generally love for the most part. Assuming the hit singles from that 98-11 era are fairly good to great and known songs, I guess this would be my recommended deep cut "start with" compilation. Others might have alt tracklistings...

Suspicion
Sad Professor
Hope
Falls To Climb
The Lifting (Original Demo)
I've Been High
She Just Wants To Be
Saturn Return
Favorite Writer (2003 B Side)
Walk Unafraid (Live Perfect Square)
Electron Blue
The Outsiders (Single Mix)
I Wanted To Be Wrong
Around The Sun
Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Mr. Richards
Indian Summer (B Side)
Horse To Water
Discoverer
Walk It Back
Every Day Is Yours To Win
Blue
 
That's on the back of the CD as well.

And, depending on which copy you have, the R in "GREEN" on the front cover has a reflective overlay of a 4 that you can see when you turn it in the light.

Why? Who cares, it was fun to stumble upon weird shit like that. Pavement used to have bizarre things written on their album artwork that gave me a lot of pleasure trying to decipher.

Agreed on Stand being awful. I've never been a big fan of Green, though its high points are very high.

Its high points are very high - World Leader Pretend (kicks in right after Stand!), Orange Crush, Turn You Inside Out...

Also on cassette, they spent much of the nineties naming their sides things like 'Hi Side / Fi Side' (New Adventures), 'C Side / D Side' (Monster). They played it pretty straight on Automatic For The People.
 
Say what you will about Stand, the Late Show fucking owned it:



I forgot about that one; my main REM memory was the time they got 'REM' in to close the show with Losing My Religion, only it was Norman Yem (a man I have never heard of before or since).
 
I forgot about that one; my main REM memory was the time they got 'REM' in to close the show with Losing My Religion, only it was Norman Yem (a man I have never heard of before or since).

Absolutely the best of those was when they got "Joan Jett", only for it to be Joan Kirner - and not just her, but also on guitar the treasurer from her government, David White.
 
Absolutely the best of those was when they got "Joan Jett", only for it to be Joan Kirner - and not just her, but also on guitar the treasurer from her government, David White.

Yes! Joan Kirner and the Victorian treasurer (a bald accountant). Very few can top that one.
 
I heard Dead Letter Office for the first time today. Pretty damn funny and hardly ever boring, but there are only a handful of worthwhile tracks. Their cover of Pylon's Crazy is phenomenal but miles ahead of most everything else on there.
 
Dead Letter Office was one of the first REM albums I owned actually back in the early 90's (must have been on sale at the mall or something) and introduced me to the Chronic Town EP since it was included on the CD version. I love all five of those Chronic Town tracks.

I don't remember a lot about the covers/b-sides other than I liked Crazy and Toys In The Attic is on there.
 
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I heard Dead Letter Office for the first time today. Pretty damn funny and hardly ever boring, but there are only a handful of worthwhile tracks. Their cover of Pylon's Crazy is phenomenal but miles ahead of most everything else on there.
I got a hat the size of Ooooooklahoma!
 
REM are a band I find fascinating and sometimes quite good but I don't think they're ever gonna be favourites of mine. Just really don't connect that much with their music, outside of Country Feedback.
Yeah, I'd say Country Feedback, Perfect Circle, and Leave are my favorites from the band. Goodstuff, yo
 
Out of Time feels uneven. Like an EP padded with a few other songs. Like, the BIG songs are good, then it tapers off. It’s like a midway point where the other good material was in waiting for Automatic..
 
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Out of Time feels uneven. Like an EP padded with a few other songs. Like, the BIG songs are good, then it tapers off. It’s like a midway point where the other good material was in waiting for Automatic..

For me, the worst song is the first song. I can do without Radio Song, and Shiny Happy People. The rest is as good as Automatic for me.
 
With the re-issue of Monster, I revisited the album a few times this week. I admittedly have a huge nostalgic spot for it, but I think it has aged well. Seems like people want to dismiss it as a ham-fisted attempt at grunge, but it has a much different vibe than a lot of the stuff that was out at the time. And several of those songs will really stick in your head.
 
Monster has been a grower for me, but I think it's pretty solid now. Probably still a handful of REM records I'd take over it, but it's an enjoyable listen and, I think, despite the narrative that it's supposed to be a return to rock after Out Of Time/Automatic, fairly experimental for them.

I'd say it has two top-shelf tracks that I'll always come back to. One is the obvious Kenneth, which I think is just one of the most killer singles of their career.

The other is Let Me In, which despite sounding like REM doing a MBV imitation, is haunting and genuinely moving to me. It transports me. Honestly it might a career highlight for me as well. I love it.

Other favorites that don't quite hit the heights of the aforementioned tracks are Star 69(relentlessly catchy), Strange Currencies(even if it does sound like an attempt to recreate Everybody Hurts), Circus Envy, and You(I love the way this one just builds and builds and climaxes with the high vocals, quiets down, and then starts all over again).

I Don't Sleep, I Dream has been growing one me too.

Even Tongue is an interesting experiment, with the falsetto vocal and the organ. I think that one gets crapped on sometimes, but I like it.

It's a really enjoyable album and caps off what I think is one of the strongest five-album runs in recent memory - Document/Green/Out Of Time/Automatic/Monster.
 
I didn't even realize there was as an anniversary release coming out, which I guess shows how irrelevant/unnewsworthy they've become, unfortunately. I'm curious to hear Scott Litt's new mix, even though I love the way it sounds. Hi-Fi is still my favorite of the Warner Bros years, but this was a nice 180 after two mellower albums. Always loved Tongue, Kenneth, Circus Envy, Let Me In, etc. and I think Strange Currencies is a superior effort in Everybody Hurts territory. The only track that I find a little weak is Bang & Blame, which just sounds generic in the middle of all these reverb and distortion experiments.

Can't say I agree with this "great album run", as I find Green and Out of Time pretty inconsistent. The run from Murmur to Document is considerably more impressive.
 
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