Slate: R.E.M. vs. U2 - Who was the best rock band of the '80s?

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Only the two greatest bands of all time...Love them equally. I also love the entire catalog of the two, not this "I hate REM after Bill Berry left" stuff or "I hate Pop and Zooropa from U2".
 
Great article. :up: I think what a lot of people have tended to miss is that REM never wanted to be the greatest thing since bread came sliced, unlike U2, who have made no secret of their ambition. I like REM's honesty in that.

And one of the greatest moments in my life was meeting Peter Buck last month after he played in Australia with Robyn Hitchcock. Just a regular guy hanging out in a club, lugging his own equipment. :drool: You won't get any of U2 doing that :madspit:
 
Somebody mentioned Orange crush which is a great song, but not one from the 80's since it was written concerning the Gulf War.

I'm a fan of R.E.M. but I definitely don't know their catalog the way I know U2's, but I'm trying to get more into them, although I guess a lot of their albums aren't worth all that much, particualrly the past decade haha.
 
See that's what I thought, but then I read some article that mentioned it as being otherwise, it's late excuse my idiocy haha
 
No idiocy on your part ... if you read it somewhere, then whoever wrote that is an idiot, because the first Iraq war wasn't until 1991, and Orange Crush was 1988.

:wink:
 
Yeah now I'm remembering it a lot better, and the lyrics, but for some reason I was recalling that dumb article.
 
I like U2 better than R.E.M., for the fact that I can put on any U2 album (with the exception of their last one) and listen from track one until the last, and have different memories from track, whether it be a hit or a live staple or a song that most people never even heard of. As far as lyrics go, technically Michael Stipe is better, but the way Bono's lyrics are more about the way that they're sung, while Stipe's are lyrics that you don't even pick up until u actually look them up. Great bands both of them. U2 just consistently releases great albums, while R.E.M. has released many great ones and some not-so-great ones.

One thing I will say about R.E.M.: As a person, I feel more in touch with R.E.M.'s music. Some of their songs (So. Central Rain, Perfect Circle, Begin the Begin, Welcome to the occupation, Drive, The One I Love, Sweetness Follows, among many others...) these songs i can see my reflection in. They ground me. They're down to earth and mystical and haunting, while U2's music affects me for a different reason. U2 is transcending. They lift you up and away from your body, while R.E.M. does the opposite...drags you down (in a good way) and makes you examine your life (and the weird-ass lyrics).
 
blueeyedgirl said:
And one of the greatest moments in my life was meeting Peter Buck last month after he played in Australia with Robyn Hitchcock. Just a regular guy hanging out in a club, lugging his own equipment. :drool: You won't get any of U2 doing that :madspit:
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How cool! Somehow I can picture Peter Buck hanging out at a club and lugging his own equipment more than I can all glitz and glamoury.

I've only taken road trips to see three bands. One of those bands was REM. :)
 
indra said:
How cool! Somehow I can picture Peter Buck hanging out at a club and lugging his own equipment more than I can all glitz and glamoury.
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Being in a club with about 150 people is certainly more comfortable than sharing the experience with 120,000, as I will this week. :sigh: Why did U2 have to get so goddamn big???:grumpy:

I've only taken road trips to see three bands. One of those bands was REM. :)
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:up:
 
love them equally, actually. Man On The Moon and Pride remain my two fave songs of all time.
although i always feel that U2 wants to matter more than REM does. i gotta say I completely prefer REM when it comes to modesty and for not trying too hard.
screw it, comparing them is indeed an idiocy :(
 
blueeyedgirl said:

Being in a club with about 150 people is certainly more comfortable than sharing the experience with 120,000, as I will this week. :sigh: Why did U2 have to get so goddamn big???:grumpy:

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Gah! I don't think I could manage that. I'll be sending you good thoughts. :yes:

I think the largest crowd I ever was in at a concert was REM at Rupp Arena. It's supposed to hold 23,000 but I doubt it was full, but it's been many years so I really don't remember. We were in the second or third row right smack in front of the stage -- bought those tickets from a broker, they are the most expensive concert tickets I have ever purchased (I forget how much I paid now, but I suspect most regularly priced concert tickets for similar acts and venues would cost more now. :sigh: ).
 
Great articles all around.

U2 is far better though. :up: The author of the original article never should have brought up the question of which band is better live...it's not even close. :lol:

The Stylus article is awesome, but I'd have to disagree with the "better masterpiece" winner. Automatic is better than Achtung Baby by a considerable amount. Besides, I'd be willing to, my Zooropa love aside, say that the Joshua Tree is their true masterpiece, which is equal to, if not better than Automatic.
 
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Pretty good competition until 1987 then U2 smoked em from then on out.

REM stopped playing their type of music and went for the quick and dirty cash grab; and that's exactly what they got. They alienated their hardcore fans by 1993 and their new fans left in 1994. I would rather they have pulled a Replacements and just disintegrated circa 1990 so they wouldn't have tarnished their legacy.
 
Zootlesque said:


uh.. I've never heard REM comparing themselves to U2. I mean I've heard both bands being talked about in the same breath in the early 90s but REM is probably compared more to the Byrds! Same jangly sound.
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I apologize that I don't have the articles in front of me, but I've read SEVERAL articles over the years where REM mentions U2 as being "their only real contemporaries" but I've never heard U2 say the same.
 
Snowlock said:
Pretty good competition until 1987 then U2 smoked em from then on out.

REM stopped playing their type of music and went for the quick and dirty cash grab; and that's exactly what they got. They alienated their hardcore fans by 1993 and their new fans left in 1994. I would rather they have pulled a Replacements and just disintegrated circa 1990 so they wouldn't have tarnished their legacy.
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I agree. I think that REM DID get ambitious. How different do Everybody Hurts and Man on the Moon sound from what had come before? There's nothing humble about them, REM is trying to write the big songs and take on U2. I don't think it suited them, personally.
 
corianderstem said:


Really, really disagree with that.

Really.
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That's cool......if you believe they put a man on the moon....;)

But I don't see how those two songs (for example) can be seen as NOT being blantent attempts to write mainstream accessible anthemic pop singles....

Which I would call the opposive of humble and shy.... It was REM trying to do what U2 did, and IMHO not doing it as well.


Don't get me wrong - I have a lot of respect for them, but they took a different direction when they started writting pop songs. And those ARE pop songs.
 
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Those might be pop songs, and not indicative of their catalogue as a whole, but REM realised pretty early on that that wasn't the direction that they wanted to go in. Otherwise, we would have had 20 Everybody Hurts since then. And when was the last time you saw REM at the Grammys? :wink:
 
I think they wrote songs like they always wrote songs. They were good songs that fit well on their albums, and at the time, radio was still playing REM. Remember, both songs were after Losing My Religion was a HUGE radio smash.

Did they write them specifically to get radio play? Or even Losing My Religion? Doubtful - if you were gunning for radio play, would you write a song where the lead instrument is a mandolin?

I really don't think REM was gunning to write big, anthemic songs. I think they ended up with a few, but I don't think it was their goal.

You could also argue that they've always written pop songs, they just got a little poppier and Stipe easier to understand as they grew as a band. Fall On Me is as big and anthemic as Everybody Hurts, it just wasn't a "big pop hit."
 
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corianderstem said:
I think they wrote songs like they always wrote songs. They were good songs that fit well on their albums, and at the time, radio was still playing REM. Remember, both songs were after Losing My Religion was a HUGE radio smash.

Did they write them specifically to get radio play? Or even Losing My Religion? Doubtful - if you were gunning for radio play, would you write a song where the lead instrument is a mandolin?

I really don't think REM was gunning to write big, anthemic songs. I think they ended up with a few, but I don't think it was their goal.

You could also argue that they've always written pop songs, they just got a little poppier and Stipe easier to understand as they grew as a band. Fall On Me is as big and anthemic as Everybody Hurts, it just wasn't a "big pop hit."
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I didn't mention Losing my Religion, and that's on purpose. That's a fantastic song and I believe that the motivation behind it was art and art alone.

But I do think that the motivation behind the two that I mentioned was exactly that, to write successful pop hits. That's my interpretation.

And no, I don't think that Everybody Hurts is a good song (Just catchy) and most people I know who think that REM is the best band in the world agree with me.
 
blueeyedgirl said:
Those might be pop songs, and not indicative of their catalogue as a whole, but REM realised pretty early on that that wasn't the direction that they wanted to go in. Otherwise, we would have had 20 Everybody Hurts since then. And when was the last time you saw REM at the Grammys? :wink:
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They are not indicative of their catalogue as a whole. I agree. But they were what the band was trying to do at that point. It didn't work, so they tried something else.
 
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