| Author | Message | ||
     Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2254 Registered: 10-2004 |
http://pitchfork.com/news/44074-rem-brea k-up/ Only about 22 years too late! Oh well, better now than never. It's not like any of their output over the last two decades has been anywhere near my radar, but I've been wondering why they haven't broken up for a while now. | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 254 Registered: 05-2005 |
22 years ago ... circa 1989 - that would be about right, just after the Go-betweens had tired themselves out playing REM off the stage every night. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1393 Registered: 10-2008 |
cue the money spinning reunion in 2016 or 17. coincidentally that would be 30 years after they should have broken up. you guys above are more generous than me, i'm not giving them document or green. although between both albums you might just have scraped together a decent-ish record. its a crying shame how this band turned out really. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2255 Registered: 10-2004 |
Honestly, as I've stated many times, I could live a perfectly decent life without anything after Fables. I just wanted to at least give them Document - let them have their first real "hit" before calling it a day. But just imagine how highly revered and respectable they'd seem if they'd have called it quits after Document, or even after Fables. They could've walked off the stage with integrity intact, sat around doing BS solo projects for a couple decades, then joined the reunion bandwagon. Instead they opted to stick around and become an embarrassingly stale, arena-rock, MOR behemoth. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 771 Registered: 05-2005 |
For a band that started out SOOOOO good what a terrible ending. I've been listening to a little R.E.M. lately and I agree with everything everyone has said above! The last albums, despite the self hype, were abysmal - over polished polite songs with no rev. The last 3 were pointless - you only bought them in the vague hope that they might have something decent. I LOVE Pageant but Document was, for me, their first major miss-step. After that, apart from Out of Time (you know I like perfect pop), it was hanging on grimly - especially Monster - imagine R.E.M. doing grunge - sacrilidge! I truely hope they don't do any solo albums - they will ALL be crap unfortuneatly. R.E.M. didn't need to "Walk with the Zombie" - they WERE the Zombie! - the walking dead - and after brains! When I heard the news this morning I immediately thought GOOD. R.I.P. the early 80's R.E.M. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2266 Registered: 01-2005 |
Yes! More opportunities for future Robyn Hitchcock and The Venus 3 albums and tours. I thought they should have packed it in after Automatic For The People, as I still care a lot about Nightswimming and Find The River. If those two were on a Stipe solo album intact, then I could back it up one album and agree with Geoff on Out Of Time. However I still find Green to be unlistenable, and Life's Rich Pagent as the last album that they were hitting the note on more than 3/4 on the ditties per album. | ||
| frank bascombe Member Username: Frankb Post Number: 510 Registered: 01-2007 |
Nightswimming has been voted second best REM song in Rolling Stone magazine-kind of intersting. I probably would say Sitting Still/Driver 8 Maps and Legends, Fall on me | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1406 Registered: 10-2008 |
amen to that frank. i hate all that rem piano ballad stuff, which is where a lot of that coldplay/keane bullshit stems from. | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 772 Registered: 05-2005 |
For me, the top 5 songs are: Driver 8 So Central Rain Fall on Me Radio Free Europe Cuyahoga Apart from the deliberate misstep of "Underneath the bunker" (echoing, in my mind, the deliberate misstep of CTA 102...), Life's Rich Pageant is nearly perfect. The harder edge rock of "Begin the Begin" deliberately shakes you up and gets you a tad disgruntled and then they deliver classic R.E.M. in spades. "These days" was for a long time my major motivating song. Love that album. | ||
| skulldisco Member Username: Skulldisco Post Number: 1409 Registered: 10-2008 |
sitting still harborcoat cuyahoga driver 8 fall on me no real order, and one or two might not always be in the top 5 apart from sitting still and driver8 which are constants perfect circle is a contender for the top 5, which just shows that they could write piano based songs (albeit in the early days) and contradicts what i said above. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2269 Registered: 01-2005 |
Perfect Circle Catapult Sitting Still Pretty Persuasion Fall On Me Bonus picks: Driver 8 Wolves, Lower Harborcoat Begin The Begin Gardening At Night | ||
| frank bascombe Member Username: Frankb Post Number: 511 Registered: 01-2007 |
pretty good consensus here, I'd add any of these to my faves | ||
| Shane Greentree Member Username: Realinspectorshane Post Number: 98 Registered: 03-2007 |
Nice lists! Adding another five to the IRS purism brigade: -Seven Chinese Brothers -Life and How To Live It -Gardening At Night -Laughing -(Don't Go Back To) Rockville | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 773 Registered: 05-2005 |
Can't go wrong with the early stuff can you? Driver 8 seems to be a constant. There's something about the yearning metaphor of "life" in that song that gets me all the time - "Children look up all they hear is sky blue bells ringing.." - what a great line! | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2261 Registered: 10-2004 |
Top REM songs for me: Gardening at Night Wolves, Lower Catapult Laughing 1,000,000 | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2272 Registered: 01-2005 |
There are still a couple of songs on Chronic Town that no one has picked! Also a neglected song or two off Murmur that deserved to be mentioned!. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 2262 Registered: 10-2004 |
I love all the songs on Chronic town, to be honest. Those three the I picked are just slightly better than the other two, imo. | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 255 Registered: 05-2005 |
Bill Berry was the talisman of the band - when he left, they didn't do much thereafter. Bill Berry once said somewhere that 'Everybody hurts' disproved the maxim that you can't polish a turd (Ed.-double negatives are difficult to understand). Apparently the song had been around for aeons and nobody in the band particularly liked it. Chronic Town - when I first heard (80's) I thought the production was awful. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2274 Registered: 01-2005 |
Chronic Town hooked me from the first, although I didn't buy it until late June of 1983. I've told this story before, but I vivdly remember playing it two or three times in a row while packing my backpack and getting everything ready for my weeklong trip to Isle Royal National Park in July of 1983. The songs stuck with me during the beautiful long days of hiking up and down the Minog Ridge. I bought Murmur the following week. Here is a decent youtube video of an Isle Royale backpacking trip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRAdQs8qP CM | ||
| cosmo vitelli Member Username: Cosmo Post Number: 361 Registered: 05-2005 |
wolves,lower sitting still talk about the passion so.central rain life and how to live it they once said that they would split up if any member left but they didn't did they? | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 4077 Registered: 05-2005 |
I've just listened to a hilariously terrible mix of Catapult done by Stephen Hague. Before today I didn't know this existed. No wonder it never saw the light of day. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 2300 Registered: 01-2005 |
Maybe one of these days I'll get Up, Reveal and Around The Sun and complete my R.E.M. collection. Which of those albums do you rate the best? | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 506 Registered: 10-2006 |
I really wouldn't bother with Around the sun, Michael, even the group more or less disowned it. I have a soft spot for Reveal however, it's a very shimmery summery Beach Boysie effort, worth hearing. | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 258 Registered: 05-2005 |
Reveal is the pick of those three imho. Actually, it's not quite as bad as .... people might care to admit. It's sun soaked as Stuart said. I actually quite like it! | ||
| Geoff Holmes Member Username: Geoff Post Number: 794 Registered: 05-2005 |
"Reveal" is, dare I say, GOOD! I love all of the layers in "All the Way to Reno", especially the perfect backwards guitar stuff. Very tasty! I like most of "Up" too. Last 2 songs in particular are blinders! "Falls to Climb" - Whoah!!! Really didn't like anything after Reveal at ALL. Get Reveal and see how you go. After listening to "Reckoning" all week, I'd imagine it would sound a bit too slick for me at the moment. |