R.E.M. 1980-2011??

[dtram]

Watching that trailer, it really just is an amazing catalog. I just got done my own run through of every record in order. I totally understand how one drifts away over time for whatever reason, but there really is something for everyone through every era. There's been a lot of ranking of albums going on over at murmurs which got me to thinking, it think aftp is probably their best but i don't think it's by a lot and my mind changes often. I think they have 10 great records, the first 6, aftp, up, accelerate and cin, at which any time any of them can/has been my favorite, 4 really good ones, oot, monster hifi and reveal, and one mediocre/ bad one, ats.

 

It has driven me nuts, all this talk how they should have broken up after bill left when IMO, they made 3 great records. I thinkn those final 5, in hindsight are going to be viewed much more kindly.

[auctioneer69]

The run from "Chronic Town" in 1982 through "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" in 1996 is peerless. Even if Bill Berry hadn't quit there's a good possibility that what came after wouldn't be considered as favourably.

 

I was listening to "Up" again this week. What a great record and unlike anything else R.E.M. did.

[dtram]

The run from "Chronic Town" in 1982 through "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" in 1996 is peerless. Even if Bill Berry hadn't quit there's a good possibility that what came after wouldn't be considered as favourably.

 

I was listening to "Up" again this week. What a great record and unlike anything else R.E.M. did.

 

I love up, that one alone is exhibit A on why they shouldn't have broken up.

 

I am really enjoying the flood that's coming out now. That cassette set is fantastic, i wish i had a turntable to rip my hibtone single to compare, and those murmur rough mixes are great too, especially that Hague catapult. Had always wanted to hear it and it really is interesting how new wavy he made them sound. I wish the automatic demos would surface. Im sure it sounds like any other rem song that never made the cut but I'd love to hear Devil Rides Backwards On Horse Named Maybe for the title alone.

[cryptique]

I'm one of the old-schoolers who thought they went into their decline the moment they left I.R.S. The first time I heard Green I was devastated, because there was just so much crap on that record, and I realized that my fears about the band's direction as mapped out on Document were coming true.

 

I found much of Out of Time to be annoying, and Automatic For the People was good but was still cast from this "new" R.E.M. mold that I'd never come to terms with -- the frenetic energy that initially made them who they were had long since dissipated, and I just didn't think the songs they were writing, or the way the band played them, were very interesting at that point.

 

I actually liked Monster because it was so raw, loud, and different, but New Adventures lulled me back to sleep, and subsequent albums never woke me up.

 

I was in college when R.E.M. ceased to be interesting to me, and that may have had a lot to do with why that shift occurred. I was being exposed to so much music, a lot of which was the result of other artists finding their way down trails that R.E.M. had blazed years before. As I delved deeper into the underground (and the Underground), R.E.M.'s ventures into major-label-land just bored me to death. It all sounded too big, too slow, too calculated, too disinterested, from a band that had once packed so much raw tension into each three-minute burst, even the supposedly "slow" or "quiet" ones. It seemed like Peter Buck had lost interest in his early rapid-fire guitar technique, and Stipe's lyrics were becoming trite and bland.

 

Despite all this, I was still filled with anticipation each time the band released a new record, and was still bitterly disappointed each time that new record failed to excite me. There was a time in my life when R.E.M. was the Most Important Band In The World to me, and for them to be relegated to "I used to love those guys" status was indescribably sad.

 

I am not sad about their breakup, because they've basically been dead to me for the last couple of decades.

[PopTodd]

I'm one of the old-schoolers who thought they went into their decline the moment they left I.R.S. The first time I heard Green I was devastated, because there was just so much crap on that record, and I realized that my fears about the band's direction as mapped out on Document were coming true.

 

I found much of Out of Time to be annoying, and Automatic For the People was good but was still cast from this "new" R.E.M. mold that I'd never come to terms with -- the frenetic energy that initially made them who they were had long since dissipated, and I just didn't think the songs they were writing, or the way the band played them, were very interesting at that point.

 

I actually liked Monster because it was so raw, loud, and different, but New Adventures lulled me back to sleep, and subsequent albums never woke me up.

 

I was in college when R.E.M. ceased to be interesting to me, and that may have had a lot to do with why that shift occurred. I was being exposed to so much music, a lot of which was the result of other artists finding their way down trails that R.E.M. had blazed years before. As I delved deeper into the underground (and the Underground), R.E.M.'s ventures into major-label-land just bored me to death. It all sounded too big, too slow, too calculated, too disinterested, from a band that had once packed so much raw tension into each three-minute burst, even the supposedly "slow" or "quiet" ones. It seemed like Peter Buck had lost interest in his early rapid-fire guitar technique, and Stipe's lyrics were becoming trite and bland.

 

Despite all this, I was still filled with anticipation each time the band released a new record, and was still bitterly disappointed each time that new record failed to excite me. There was a time in my life when R.E.M. was the Most Important Band In The World to me, and for them to be relegated to "I used to love those guys" status was indescribably sad.

 

I am not sad about their breakup, because they've basically been dead to me for the last couple of decades.

This.

Although, I think that I like Out of Time more than you. ("Texarkana" is one of my favorite songs of theirs.)

[remphish1]

I do think when you grow up with a band has an influence...unlike Poptodd and Cryptique I got into music just as Green came out. That was the REM I grew up with. Out of Time came out when I was 10 and it was not like anything else I ever heard. Sure I like the IRS stuff immensley but the Warner Brother years are when REM was shaping the musical landscape to me.

[jakobnicholas]

I stumbled on a blog by great sportswriter Joe Posnanski. Below are his thoughts...very well done, I think:

 

"I have this story about R.E.M. that I wrote when the band announced that it was closing down, and I have not had the time to finish it, and by now it’s probably too late to finish it. So I’ll put one R.E.M. thought here. I love R.E.M. It’s pretty close to Springsteen love. My favorite R.E.M. moment happens in a song called The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight. That’s not one of my 40 favorite R.E.M. songs, by the way, but it has what I think is the quintessential R.E.M. moment.

 

See, what makes R.E.M. so cool to me is that you always got the feeling that they never stopped trying and seeking and all that. At some point, they might have been the biggest band in the world. They could have just re-released some version of Out of Time over and over again, made a bajillion dollars, and lived what most people would consider a rich life. But, no, they did Out of Time once, and they did Automatic for the People once, and they kept moving, kept pushing their music in all sorts of directions — including directions that, frankly, I didn’t like at all. But that’s OK. I didn’t want them to make music for me. I wanted them to follow the muse, wherever it led them, because that’s what I admire in people, that’s the only way you can do a song like Gardening at Night or (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville or Nightswimming, or Moral Kiosk, or even a mishmash of things like Radio Song. And R.E.M., to their everlasting credit, did follow the muse and kept following it.

 

Anyway, The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight is a typically weird R.E.M. song, and there’s a part where Michael Stipe is singing:

 

Baby, instant soup doesn’t really grab me

Today I need something more, sub sub sub substantial

A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some Nescafe and ice

A candy bar, a falling star or a reading from Dr. Seuss

 

That’s an R.E.M. lyric for you right there. In any case, something funny happens after “Dr. Seuss.” It sounds — and I’ve listened to this many times — it sounds like Michael Stipe is breaking up. He sounds like he’s laughing right through the next lyric. I can’t be SURE that he’s doing this. No matter how many times I listen, it is not entirely clear. And, to be honest, I don’t really want to know for sure. It SOUNDS like he’s laughing, and that has always been good enough for me. I have always tried to imagine what the other guys in the band did to make him laugh. Put on Dr. Seuss hats? Drop their pants to reveal Dr. Seuss underwear? Asked for more cowbell? I don’t know.

 

But I love that laughter. R.E.M. did serious songs, many of them on very serious topics, but listening to the music always made me very happy. I think surprisingly often about that moment when it sounds like Michael Stipe breaks up, and I find myself wishing that all of my favorite artists — writers, actors, musicians, whoever — have those moments when they feel the same joy performing that I feel receiving."

[moxiebean]

That’s an R.E.M. lyric for you right there. In any case, something funny happens after “Dr. Seuss.” It sounds — and I’ve listened to this many times — it sounds like Michael Stipe is breaking up. He sounds like he’s laughing right through the next lyric. I can’t be SURE that he’s doing this. No matter how many times I listen, it is not entirely clear. And, to be honest, I don’t really want to know for sure. It SOUNDS like he’s laughing, and that has always been good enough for me. I have always tried to imagine what the other guys in the band did to make him laugh. Put on Dr. Seuss hats? Drop their pants to reveal Dr. Seuss underwear? Asked for more cowbell? I don’t know.

I think I remember reading that Michael was cracking up because he kept mispronouncing "Dr. Seuss" as "Dr. Zeus".

[dtram]

 

R.E.M.'s ventures into major-label-land just bored me to death. It all sounded too big, too slow, too calculated, too disinterested, from a band that had once packed so much raw tension into each three-minute burst, even the supposedly "slow" or "quiet" ones. It seemed like Peter Buck had lost interest in his early rapid-fire guitar technique, and Stipe's lyrics were becoming trite and bland.

 

decades.

 

This feeling is what i was refering to in a post before on how some old school fans left the band. I totally respect anyones opinion to like what they like but i vehemently disagree that they were being calculated or disinterested. I was fortunate to be working in radio in 1991 and was the person who met Peter and mike in the lobby and rode the elevator with them to take them up to our station. They seemed genuinely happy that i told them i loved the record. I don't remember all that was said but in my conversations with them that day and all the interviews of the time, they clearly thought they were going out on a limb with OOT and that they might have lost their audience. To make a baroque pop record with a lead single featuring a mandolin does not sound calculating to me. They have always lived by that risky muse and sometimes it backfired, e-bow anyone?

 

As for peters guitar technique, he was clearly trying to get away from that sound, not because of being disinterested but because he wanted to try new things and not keep repeating himself. If you ask me, rem have ale ays tried to stretch their sound and that is what led to the disintegration of their audience. When the songs became a little more straightforwardly poppy, the IRS fans split. When they got all glam, the acoustic era fans split. They could have kept the same sound, more or less and been U2 but they chose a different path.

 

As for stipes lyrics, they evolved as he did. Your head is not in the same space at 30 than it was at 20 or at 40 or 50. Again, that to me doesn't signal any of the negatives like being complacent or calculating.

 

And Green is an amazing pop record, crap it's not.

[Analogman]

I like the songs You Are Everything, World Leader Pretend, The Wrong Child, Hairshirt, and I Remember California.

[dtram]

I like the songs You Are Everything, World Leader Pretend, The Wrong Child, Hairshirt, and I Remember California.

 

Made up most of what would have been the real "air" side. Originally, one side was going to be more acoustic, air, and the other heavier, metal, but they kind of mixed it up at the end.

 

Don't like the eleventh untitled song? One of my faves. Was listening to the green demos the other day, some really cool unreleased stuff on there including a song called Title that was dropped because it was considered too rem sounding.

[Analogman]

I forgot about that one. Is that the song Michael plays drums on?

[dtram]

I forgot about that one. Is that the song Michael plays drums on?

 

Peter. The story was that the beat was so goofy that bill couldn't play it but i never bought that, I'm sure he could play it if he needed to but it was a cooler story to let Peter play it. I believe the working title to the song was So Awake, Volunteer as some of the lyrics were included in a fan club package from the era with that title.

[Analogman]

That's right.

 

I often forget I was actually in the fanclub for a year.

 

Silver Bells (1993)

This fan club single marks the only time R.E.M. issued a record where both sides were Christmas songs (the flip was an instrumental cover of "Christmas Time Is Here" from A Charlie Brown Christmas). The band arranges "Silver Bells" (which first appeared in the 1951 Bob Hope movie The Lemon Drop Kid) as a country weeper, drenching it in maudlin steel guitar and handing the lead vocal over to Mike Mills, who sings it with an over-the-top hick accent. Introducing the guitar solo, Mills drawls, "Play it, Santa," and Peter Buck proffers 16 poignant, single-string bars that would make Luther Perkins proud while wryly inserting the melody from "'Til There Was You," for reasons not entirely clear.

[dtram]

Love their silver bells. I have never been a fan club joiner sort of guy but have been in since '90. I missed the first 2 years because i didn't realize you got cool stuff. When i met Peter and mike in the meeting i described above, i asked Peter if there was any chance in getting the first 2. He said to call the office and tell them i talked to him and he said to hook me up. When i called, They said they only had archive copies of the first but would send me the second. Thats how cool those guys were. Eventually did get he first 6 years and a lot of record shows later, that one was a toughy. I wonder how many people have them all. Cant be more than 3000 since that's how many of the first one they made.

[remphish1]

I have 1998-2010 from the fan club I wish they would release a cd with all a and b sides from the fan club as an album!

[dtram]

I have 1998-2010 from the fan club I wish they would release a cd with all a and b sides from the fan club as an album!

Doubt that will happen. I see them keeping them scarce and real collectors items to search out and I guess I prefer it that way. If you wantt them all, let me know and ill zip em up and give them to you.

[remphish1]

Doubt that will happen. I see them keeping them scarce and real collectors items to search out and I guess I prefer it that way. If you wantt them all, let me know and ill zip em up and give them to you.

YES PLEASE!

 

Thanks!

[dtram]

No prob. I guess just up to 97? I will try and zip them up tonight but no guuarantees. Ill post the link here so anyone else who wants them can grab them.

[remphish1]

No prob. I guess just up to 97? I will try and zip them up tonight but no guuarantees. Ill post the link here so anyone else who wants them can grab them.

Sure whatever you can do will be appreciated!

[blureu]

Thanks!!

[dtram]

No prob. I guess just up to 97? I will try and zip them up tonight but no guuarantees. Ill post the link here so anyone else who wants them can grab them.

 

Edit, not sure how this posted twice.

[auctioneer69]

No prob. I guess just up to 97? I will try and zip them up tonight but no guuarantees. Ill post the link here so anyone else who wants them can grab them.

 

Edit, not sure how this posted twice.

 

 

Would love to see an R.E.M. box-set. Don't know if there's that much good unreleased material but fan-club singles and soundboard recordings of some of their covers would be great.

[dtram]

Ok, here it is. Dont kill me if you have a problem. i refuse to pay for Winzip so I used a free program called 7-Zip. I have had no issues unzipping with this program but it is the first time I have ever tried to zip. If anyone has a problem let me know. This is 1988-1998 including the Deck The Halls from the '88 Winter Warnerland album. If all goes well, I'll try and put up the rest in a few days.

 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/blxdx5

 

From Wiki:

 

Year Tracks Format

1988 "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"

"See No Evil" (Television cover) Green 1989 "Good King Wenceslas" (traditional)

"Academy Fight Song" (Mission of Burma cover) 7" vinyl 1990 "Ghost Reindeer in the Sky" (spoof of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by Stan Jones)

"Summertime" (George Gershwin) 7" vinyl 1991 "Baby Baby" (Vibrators cover)

"Christmas Griping" (R.E.M. original) 7" vinyl 1992 "Where's Captain Kirk?" (Spizzenergi cover)

"Toyland" (Victor Herbert/Glen MacDonough, from Babes in Toyland) 7" vinyl 1993 "Silver Bells" (Jay Livingston/Ray Evans)

"Christmas Time Is Here" (Vince Guaraldi/Lee Mendelson, from A Charlie Brown Christmas) 7" vinyl 1994 "Sex Bomb" (Flipper cover)

"Christmas in Tunisia" (R.E.M. original) 7" vinyl 1995 "Wicked Game" (Chris Isaak cover)

"Java" (Allen Toussaint instrumental cover) 7" vinyl 1996 "Only in America" (Jay & the Americans cover)

"I Will Survive" (Gloria Gaynor cover) 7" vinyl 1997 "Live for Today" (R.E.M. original)

"Happy When I'm Crying" (performed by Pearl Jam; Pearl Jam original) Not Included 7" vinyl 1998 "E-Bow the Letter" (live video, with backing vocals by Thom Yorke)

"Lucky" (live video, performed by Radiohead with vocals by Michael Stipe; Radiohead original)

- (both recorded at the Tibetan Freedom Concert, Washington, D.C. 6/14/98) VHS

Edited October 12, 2011 by dtram

[blureu]

Thanks again.