R.E.M. - upcoming album 'Collapse Into Now' / General Discussion

[U2inUtah]

More news from Rolling Stone:

'Collapse Into Now' is reminiscent of 'Automatic for the People', says Mills

Mike Mills On New R.E.M. Album With Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder | Rolling Stone Music

 

[lazarus]

Someone's been taking talking point pointers from Boner.

Once you go down the path of LIES, it's hard to turn back, Mike.

 

[cobl04]

It's appropriate that this idiotic post is the final one I'll respond to on this embarrasingly bad forum. No one -- least of all me -- has treated Bono (or anyone) as sacred in the recent part of this 'chat'. What I was attempting was a conversation about our respective opinions on a great band, R.E.M. As usual when BVS is involved, what I discovered is that my effort at making some actual thought-out posts in an attempt to stimulate discussion ended in a gang-up on the poster who has the least popular opinion -- the 'schoolyard bully' form of Internet discussion -- showing again what a juvenile crowd this forum attracts.

this is a sad day for the forum. your nipples will be sorely missed.

 

[BVS]

When I first really started listening to music, REM and U2 were my first two loves. A buddy of mine is a DIEHARD REM fan, we met for drinks last night and got on the subject of the new album and what not...

As much as I love REM I don't think they ever wrote the near perfect album, they never made their JT or AB. I still listen the hell out of some of their albums but there are always that one or two songs that I skip over. And it's not like a Trip Through Your Wires where I can bare it and forgive it, it's that I loathe it and wish it didn't exist.

Anyone else have this?

 

[LemonMelon]

Nope. Murmur and Automatic For The People are perfect IMO.

And Achtung isn't.

/unpopular opinions?

 

[IWasBored]

trip through your wires is dreadful. i think there's something else on JT i've always disliked as well, i just can't remember it right now. and i mean uterrly hated, not just somehting like "mysterious ways" which i've grown tired of over the years. something i really hated.

honestly, if it wasn't for murmer, i'd almost agree with you. although the rem tracks i skip don't really bring about the same hatred that i have for trip through your wires. i did force myself to listen to reveal the other night, because i thought maybe i wasn't giving it a fair shake. i'd never been a huge fan of dead letter office either, but i've come around to it, and i thought maybe the same for the other album. not so much. there are a couple things on there that don't suck, however nothing awesome and the songs i don't like i do downright despise to the point of if it hadn't been on my ipod and had the cd in front of me, i probably would have thrown it somewhere.


and yes, murmur is perfect*.





*and this isn't the current rem binge talking, i've been of this opinion since i first heard it. which sadly only occurred probably somewhere in the last 10 years, but better late than never i guess. actually, 1998ish is more than 10 years ago. but you get the point. i'm a slacker.

 

[djerdap]

When I first really started listening to music, REM and U2 were my first two loves. A buddy of mine is a DIEHARD REM fan, we met for drinks last night and got on the subject of the new album and what not...

As much as I love REM I don't think they ever wrote the near perfect album, they never made their JT or AB. I still listen the hell out of some of their albums but there are always that one or two songs that I skip over. And it's not like a Trip Through Your Wires where I can bare it and forgive it, it's that I loathe it and wish it didn't exist.

Anyone else have this?

Yep. Exactly the same thing. Lifes Rich Pageant is my favorite, but I can't stand that Superman cover as its closer for example. And I hate the term overrated, but I'll never understand why Automatic For the People is so highly regarded. I don't even count it being in the upper half of their albums.

 

[IWasBored]

i swear automatic for the people still carries this huge sense of nostalgia for some people as part of a place and time, either that or since it's pretty much their best-known album a point where a lot of people got into the band. it's got the most radio hits, too, right? mofo put it pretty eloquently when he described what it is for him.

it's born in the usa. some good songs, a couple irritating songs, super accessible/radio-friendly/whatever buzzword/catchphrase you might want to use to describe it. and i'd be lying if i didn't say it was one of the first rem albums i got into, but as with any long-running band with a massive back catalogue it's one of those things i grew out of love with in favor of some of the other stuff that feels more cohesive as entire records (or overall i'd consider to be better collections of songs).

nah, life's rich pageant is pretty damn perfect. actually, i know there's 1 song on there i don't like. it's not superman, i still enjoy that. but like with JT, right now i'm having a hard time recalling exactly what it is and am too lazy to get off my ass and go look at the cd.

 

[BVS]

Nope. Murmur and Automatic For The People are perfect IMO.

And Achtung isn't.

/unpopular opinions?

Mumur is great but loses it a little on the second side.

Automatic is close but I'm not a fan of the instrumental and Star Me Kitten I can only take small doses of...

 

[lazarus]

Hey folks, no album with Ignoreland (a cheesy, synth-laden, dated tune which completely disrupts the organic mood and flow of the proceedings) can be called perfect.

Thanks for playing.

I'm not a big fan of West of the Fields, but it doesn't destroy the album for me. It just seems a little been-there, done-that.

Document is the closest thing to perfect that they have, IMO. Even my least favorite, Lightnin' Hopkins, is pretty distinct on the album. Lifes Rich Pageant is close but Hyena is pretty disposeable.

Achtung Birdie is about as close to perfect an album I've ever heard.

 

[phanan]

Murmur, along with Document, are pretty damn near perfect as far as I'm concerned.

Although I'd still choose AB or JT over them.

 

[cobl04]

is there no apostrophe in Lifes Rich Pageant?

i have ATFP, and it's one of the most overrated albums i own. sorry.

 

[IWasBored]

is there no apostrophe in Lifes Rich Pageant?

i have ATFP, and it's one of the most overrated albums i own. sorry.

ah...pretentious titles reminds me, swan swan hummingbird is the song i hate. yes.


don't own much zeppelin, eh?

 

[cobl04]

i've got I through Physical Graffiti i think, i haven't listened to them all, but i've thoroughly enjoyed what i've heard.

Stairway to Heaven would be close to my least favourite off IV though

 

[powerhour24]

AFTP overrated?

Achtung not perfect?

To each their own I suppose.

 

[u2popmofo]

AFTP overrated?

For some reason I read this as ATHF 3 times or so, and was confused as to why it was being discussed in an REM thread.

 

[lazarus]

Something can be great and still be overrated. Think of AFTP as a beautiful woman who just happens to have a purple penis growing out of the side of her arm.

 

[lazarus]

Speaking of AFTP and penises:

http://www.u2interference.com/forum...t-stick-it-in-here-201065-23.html#post7023627

 

[powerhour24]

OK, I know you don't like Ignoreland, but that was a ridiculously off base analogy!



Also mofo, enlighten me, ATHF?

 

[lazarus]

I'm gonna call back to the discussion we had about veteran music critic Robert Christgau. He was pretty on-the-money with this band from the beginning:

Murmur [I.R.S., 1983]
They aren't a pop band or even an art-pop band--they're an art band, nothing less or more, and a damn smart one. If they weren't so smart they wouldn't be so emotional; in fact, if they weren't so smart no one would mistake them for a pop band. By obscuring their lyrics so artfully they insist that their ("pop") music is good for meaning as well as pleasure, but I guarantee that when they start enunciating--an almost inevitable move if they stick around--the lyrics will still be obscure. That's because their meaning and their emotion almost certainly describe the waking dream that captivates so many art and pop bands. Which leaves me wondering just how much their pleasure means. Quite a lot, I think. A-

This is a pretty good encapsulation as well:

Document [I.R.S., 1987]
Their commercial breakthrough eschews escapism without surrendering structural obliqueness, and after six years of mushmouth I wouldn't have thought it possible either. Maybe they finally figured out that intelligibility doesn't equal closure (can't, actually). Or maybe they just wanted to make sure everyone knew how pissed off they were. In any case, these dreamsongs are nightmares of a world in flames, the kind you remember in all their scary inconsistency because you woke up sweating in the middle. How it will all end I couldn't say, but it's a healthy sign that their discovery of the outside world has sharpened their sense of humor along with everything else. Inspirational Title: "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." A

and this LOL smackdown of Reveal, making fun of Stipe's cinema side-projects:

Reveal [Warner Bros., 2001]
Not as bad as it first sounds, but also not as good as they thought when they released it, or they wouldn't have, I hope. Suffused with somnolent tempos and pensive arrangements, the romantic trials and spiritual quests of struggling rock and rollers can be pretty hard to take, so why should we care about the ditto of wealthy movie producers with a record contract to fulfill and 21 individually acknowledged string players on call? Even a movie producer who knows the names of Japanese carp and French emotions that he'll happily print out in the booklet now that he's e-nun-ci-a-ting ev-ry sing-gle word? B-

If I can detour a second, I'd also recommend reading Christgau's write-ups of all the Prince albums. They're perceptive and hilarious. Again, he gets the importance of The Artist (pun intended) right from the beginning:

Dirty Mind [Warner Bros., 1980]
After going gold in 1979 as an utterly uncrossedover falsetto love man, he takes care of the songwriting, transmutes the persona, revs up the guitar, muscles into the vocals, leans down hard on a rock-steady, funk-tinged four-four, and conceptualizes--about sex, mostly. Thus he becomes the first commercially viable artist in a decade to claim the visionary high ground of Lennon and Dylan and Hendrix (and Jim Morrison), whose rebel turf has been ceded to such marginal heroes-by-fiat as Patti Smith and John Rotten-Lydon. Brashly lubricious where the typical love man plays the lead in "He's So Shy," he specializes here in full-fledged fuckbook fantasies--the kid sleeps with his sister and digs it, sleeps with his girlfriend's boyfriend and doesn't, stops a wedding by gamahuching the bride on her way to church. Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home. A

That last line is fucking GOLD. Also, he saves his highest rating for my own personal favorite:

Sign o' the Times [Paisley Park, 1987]
No formal breakthrough, and despite the title/lead/debut single, no social relevance move either, which given the message of "The Cross" (guess, just guess) suits me fine. Merely the most gifted pop musician of his generation proving what a motherfucker he is for two discs start to finish. With helpmate turns from Camille, Susannah, Sheila E., Sheena Easton, he's back to his one-man-band tricks, so collective creation fans should be grateful that at least the second-hottest groove here, after the galvanic "U Got the Look," is Revolution live. Elsewhere Prince-the-rhythm section works on his r&b so Prince-the-harmony-group can show off vocal chops that make Stevie Wonder sound like a struggling ventriloquist. Yet the voices put over real emotions--studio solitude hasn't reactivated his solipsism. The objects of his desire are also objects of interest, affection, and respect. Some of them he may not even fuck. A+


Interested in looking anyone up, just type in the artist name in the "CG Search" sidebar:

Robert Christgau: Home

 

[powerhour24]

I his Prince write ups, but he's taking Reveal to task a little bit more than is necessary, granted it ain't near their pinnacle, but they never released it to the fanfare and promotional onslaught as the best thing ever the way a certain band does, so it comes off as a detour in their career, and personally, a few of my favorite R.E.M. tracks come from it. Plus, in retrospect it is a masterwork when viewed following the release of Around the Sun.


Can we get a new single yet??

 

[IWasBored]

i like how the reveal write-up is scathing, and yet....B-. maybe i was just an underachiever when i was in school, but i sure as shit never got upset about a b-.

 

[powerhour24]

I was reading so fast (so numb) that I didn't even notice he only gave it a B-!

 

[LemonMelon]

i like how the reveal write-up is scathing, and yet....B-. maybe i was just an underachiever when i was in school, but i sure as shit never got upset about a b-.

His rating system is compressed a bit...I think he's given out like a dozen D's in his entire time as a writer. A B- is really bad, especially for an artist he respects.

 

[lazarus]

Yeah, he kind of subscribes to the musical "auteur" theory. If someone is really good, they don't put out crap.

 

[liz9640]

...and Peaches, and Lenny Kaye.

I'm making a prediction: best R.E.M. album since Hi-Fi.

I'm looking forward to this album even more now.

 

[The_acrobat]

I always dismissed R.E.M. as "wuss rock", guys that write songs like "Losing my religion" and "Everybody Hurts". Then my ex gf was a fan and drug me to a concert. I was blown away. I don't know what it was about the show, but they immediately pulled me in. I remember they opened with "Begin the Begin" and "WTF,K", and that really pulled me in. Then and there I realized that this band has a legacy and a huge back catalog of great songs I know nothing about. I spent the next few months collecting their entire catalog, and I'm a huge fan. My favorite era is the IRS years, but I like pretty much everything. So excited about the new album, I hope they actually come to Ohio this time so I can go see them!

 

[u2popmofo]

Also mofo, enlighten me, ATHF?

YouTube - A.T.H.F - Danger Doom

 

[powerhour24]

Ah, right.

 

[IWasBored]

Yeah, he kind of subscribes to the musical "auteur" theory. If someone is really good, they don't put out crap.

ah, gotcha.