R.E.M. have broken up

[canedge]

What does their name stand for anyway?

It stands for Rapid Eye Movement. REM was discovered at the University Of Chicago in the 1950s. It was discovered by using electrical currents hooked up to the brain. It is when the brain de-programms during sleep. I know this because of my recent sleep study.

 

[WinnieThePoo]

i look at it , as ben kenobi was gone ,and became more powerful then ever .

 

[canedge]

So true. Look at the pixies, they went away and everybody thought they were gods.
When in reality they got much fatter.

You know, Miles Davis said, sometimes it is not the notes you play but the notes you don't play.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

New Compilation Information

Disc 1:

01 Gardening at Night
02 Radio Free Europe
03 Talk About the Passion
04 Sitting Still
05 So. Central Rain
06 (Don't Go Back to) Rockville
07 Driver 8
08 Life and How to Live It
09 Begin the Begin
10 Fall on Me
11 Finest Worksong
12 Its the End of the World as We Know it (and I Feel Fine)
13 The One I Love
14 Stand
15 Pop Song 89
16 Get Up
17 Orange Crush
18 Losing My Religion
19 Country Feedback
20 Shiny Happy People

Disc 2

01 The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
02 Everybody Hurts
03 Man on the Moon
04 Nightswimming
05 Whats the Frequency, Kenneth?
06 New Test Leper
07 Electrolite
08 At My Most Beautiful
09 The Great Beyond
10 Imitation of Life
11 Bad Day
12 Leaving New York
13 Living Well Is the Best Revenge
14 Supernatural Superserious
15 Überlin
16 Oh My Heart
17 Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
18 A Month of Saturdays
19 We All Go Back to Where We Belong
20 Hallelujah




Thoughts:


1) A bit skimpy on the IRS years. I know they're trying to cover the entirety of their career on just two discs, but an extra song or two couldn't hurt. The tracklisting of Disc One covers that era pretty well actually with all of the memorable singles. The only exception really is "Get Up"....I'm not sure what that's doing here and with four songs, Green manages to tie Automatic For The People as the most represented album here. Ugh. However, much props for them including "Country Feedback" as it was easily the most inexcusable omission from the other two compilations.

2) The band thankfully breezed through Monster, Up, Reveal, and Around The Sun by only including one track from each. And they chose the absolute right one every time.

3) "New Test Leper." Holy fuck, I love this song. New Adventures was the first album I ever bought from this band and that was my absolute favorite song. I still get absolutely lost in that track and I'm so glad it's here.

4) On the other hand, my own personal compilation could never exist without "Harborcoat" but that's alright.

5) Having two tracks from career comeback album and last hurrah Accelerate makes sense. Having three from the turgid, been-there-done-that Collapse Into Now? Inexcusable. They did manage to pick the three most interesting tracks from it for what it's worth.

6) Can't wait to hear their final recordings.

 

[LemonMelon]

Country Feedback made it onto a greatest hits comp?? Awesome.

Where's 7 Chinese Brothers, Cuyahoga, Strange Currencies, Daysleeper and Mine Smell Like Honey? There's so much shit on that second disc that could be easily removed in order to increase the overall quality.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Someone pointed out that "World Leader Pretend" isn't on the disc which is strange because the band is basically saying there are at least four better songs off Green when that one is what most would consider to be the album's standout.

But yeah, really big omissions (objectively):

Reckoning - 7 Chinese Brothers
Life's Rich Pageant - Cuyahoga, I Believe
Green - World Leader Pretend
Automatic For The People - Drive
Monster - Strange Currencies
New Adventures In Hi-Fi - E-Bow The Letter
Up - Daysleeper
Reveal - All The Way To Reno

Also is kind of strange that "Mine Smells Like Honey" is absent when that was kind of the last album's closest thing to a hit.

 

[lazarus]

LOL at four songs from Green and only two from Lifes Rich Pageant.

Harborcoat is for sure the most glaring omission.

I'm not sure how one can call Collapse "been-there, done-that" without saying the same thing about Accelerate. At least the former is a more diverse album.

 

[lazarus]

And the real omission from Monster is Tongue.

 

[u2popmofo]

Looking forward to those "final" songs, hopefully they aren't "album only" type tracks on digital sites.

It's funny how originally one of the big positives of using digital services was that you could buy the one or two songs you want, and not have to pay for a full album. Now they use those damn "album only" things to force everyone into buying the whole album, it's like we took a step backwards.

 

[LemonMelon]

How did they miss E Bow? How did I miss E Bow?

Oh, right, had to make room for Oh My Heart.

 

[lazarus]

Oh My Heart? I didn't even see that. The lamest song on Collapse, easily.

And E-Bow is one of their most essential, period.

 

[kramwest1]

E-Bow the Letter is (one of?) their most gorgeous, haunting songs.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

20 Hallelujah

If this isn't a fucking Leonard Cohen cover, I'll be very happy.

 

[u2popmofo]

You don't really care for (Leonard Cohen's) music, do ya?

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Haha. I actually love that song, but we have way too many cover versions of it already.

 

[u2popmofo]

Agreed, I just was trying to come up with some sort of lyrics wordplay.

 

[Danny Boy]

If this isn't a fucking Leonard Cohen cover, I'll be very happy.

According to Rolling Stone, it's a Collapse Into Now outtake.

 

[intedomine]

It was always gonna be impossible to satisfy everyone with such a vast catalogue, to choose from. I echo a few of the already mentioned frustrations:

1. No E-Bow? Straight swap for New Test Leper surely, a song that while OK, surely doesn't match E-Bow for classic-ness and resonance.

2. Four from Green? While Lifes Rich only has the two, and no Cuyahoga or These Days? Begin The Begin is kind of expendable.

3. Pilgrimage... and drop Sitting Still - more a personal thing. Pilgrimage is magical for me.

3. Three songs from Collapse? Two would surely suffice, and allocate one more to an unheralded later song like Aftermath/Reno/I've Been High, to maybe retrospectively increase sales of those forgotten albums.

5. No Drive? Wow. I'd personally drop Nightswimming without a second thought, but Automatic justifies itself as featuring 5 songs on such a compilation, so if there was room for this, I'd accommodate for Drive accordingly.

At least it's chronological and has attempted to comprehensively cater for every release and phase in REM's career. That is something to be commended and is something U2 compilations fail to achieve at all adequately.

 

[lazarus]

According to Rolling Stone, it's a Collapse Into Now outtake.

Actually it said that and "A Month of Saturdays" were leftover demos from Collapse. The third song is totally new, though I doubt it will sound that different.

 

[lazarus]

Begin The Begin is kind of expendable.

You're fucking expendable.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Begin The Begin is kind of expendable.

No, it's not.

 

[FitzChivalry]

No 'E-Bow The Letter' is a travesty.


(Not that I don't already have it and can listen to it anytime I want. But still . . . )

 

[Aygo]

So many many lacks and other dismissable songs taking place there. It seems like U2 making their compilations...
Where's "Ebow The Letter", "Daysleeper", "Drive", "Cuyahoga" or "Reno"?
And some of those songs could disappear. 4 songs from Green and 3 from Collapse Into Now (plus the outtakes)? Seriously? I'd rather have "Lotus", "At My Most Beautiful", "Electron Blue" or something from Monster (my favourite R.E.M. album) like "Bang And Blame" or "Crush With Eyeliner" instead of "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" or "Get Up"...

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

So many many lacks and other dismissable songs taking place there. It seems like U2 making their compilations...
Where's "Ebow The Letter", "Daysleeper", "Drive", "Cuyahoga" or "Reno"?
And some of those songs could disappear. 4 songs from Green and 3 from Collapse Into Now (plus the outtakes)? Seriously? I'd rather have "Lotus", "At My Most Beautiful", "Electron Blue" or something from Monster (my favourite R.E.M. album) like "Bang And Blame" or "Crush With Eyeliner" instead of "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" or "Get Up"...

At My Most Beautiful is on there.

 

[intedomine]

It's much better than what U2 do. It seems to be a pretty well-thought out compilation, and not a total denial that the past ever happened, like the unforgivable 90-2000 compilation.

 

[Aygo]

At My Most Beautiful is on there.

You're right, it is

 

[patternshirt170]

So, five singles based Best Ofs since 1988 notwithstanding, I guess for "the fan who has (almost) everything" one grimaces and get this for the sprinkle of new material and even then you just feel couldn't they at least have released a rarities Box Set for us nerds and a straight R.EM.31 Singles set for the more casual audience? it looks unlikely there will be some extended set for the hardcore... this is going out and goodbye after 31 years, man...? dunno, a bit underwhelmed by the listings, given what they could do and what R.E.M used to do and their attention to detail, ie. that each studio album from, I think, Green through to Accelerate had a special edition as an option, but oh them new songs! gotta have the new songs... I hate the modern record industry, I hate the cynicism at heart with these kind of releases in a digital world...

btw those wanting more from the IRS era should get Eponymous, Dead Letter Office and the 2006 And I Feel Fine (shite title, great out-takes) or just get Murmur through to Document, even better!

 

[canedge]

As a casual fan who wrote them off in 2000 I would actually appreciate a selection of material from that period up until now.

 

[The_acrobat]

The news of their breakup didn't really phase me until I saw the tracklisting for the new greatest hits. Since then, I've been going through the albums, and realizing how sad I am about this breakup.

I feel like outside factors forced this band to break up because they weren't popular any longer. The next step for them was to start hitting the nostalgia/casino circuit (in the US anyway), which they have too much integrity for. I just wish I could've seen them live one more time, but I have the memories of 2 amazing concerts from 2003 and 2004.

 

[CrashedCarDriver]

The news of their breakup didn't really phase me until I saw the tracklisting for the new greatest hits. Since then, I've been going through the albums, and realizing how sad I am about this breakup.

I feel like outside factors forced this band to break up because they weren't popular any longer. The next step for them was to start hitting the nostalgia/casino circuit (in the US anyway), which they have too much integrity for. I just wish I could've seen them live one more time, but I have the memories of 2 amazing concerts from 2003 and 2004.

The problem was there are too many bands out there to enjoy and with technology- the internet, its easier to get into other bands, and for some odd reason I just stopped following them or talking about them, And this band made music just as good and honest as Radiohead! but I pledged loyalty to Radiohead forever even though I will always take an interest in other bands in terms of enjoying music ingenuity

Stipe coming out, Bill Berry quitting the group had nothing to do with me losing interest, I just didnt have the patience to admire their later works as much as I did from Out of Time-> New Adventure in Hifi era onwards, too much patience and concentration is needed for good music y'know?
But that song Pearl Jam covered (It Happened today) showed that they didnt lose it