Stand in the place where you live... now answer your phone.

March 16, 2005 5:46 AM

Out of Time : a long time R.E.M. fan discusses the albums made for Warner in terms of how they changed his life on first listen. The review is honor of the band's decision to rerelease their albums from this time period on DVD (with few to no "extras"). The band arguably hit their nadir with Around The Sun, reintroducing fans to their previous greatness might not be a bad idea. But will old fans pay $24.99 for albums they already own? Furthermore, what does it say about a great band when their songs are available as ringtones?
posted by grapefruitmoon (101 comments total)

It says that they haven't had a good album since Lifes Rich Pageant. Any album after that is just terrible, and the last album without complete crap on it was Automatic for the People. They must be embarrassed to release their music now.
posted by about_time at 6:05 AM on March 16, 2005

I like REM. I don't like REM.

That's the conversation you get with a post like this. If that's what you like, sit back and enjoy!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:11 AM on March 16, 2005

I like REM
posted by matteo at 6:18 AM on March 16, 2005

Some bands I like to name check,
And one of them is REM,
Classic songs with a long history
Southern boys just like you and me.
R - E - M
Flashback to 1983,
Chronic Town was their first EP
Later on came Reckoning
Finster's art, and titles to match:
South Central Rain, Don't Go Back To Rockville,
Harbourcoat, Pretty Persuasion,
You were born to be a camera,
Time After Time was my least favourite song,
Time After Time was my least favourite song.
The singer, he had long hair
And the drummer he knew restraint.
And the bass man he had all the right moves
And the guitar player was no saint.
So lets go way back to the ancient times
When there were no 50 states,

And on a hill there stands Sherman
Sherman and his mates.
And they're marching through Georgia,
we're marching through Georgia,
we're marching through Georgia
G-G-G-G-Georgia
They're marching through Georgia,
we're marching through Georgia,
marching through Georgia
G-G-G-G-Georgia
and there stands REM

-Pavement
posted by picea at 6:20 AM on March 16, 2005

ssF, how about I like REM and I don't like REM?

Anyway, thanks grapefruitmoon, I thought that was an interesting essay, and pretty much encapsulated my thinking. Even though I cannot consider R.E.M. my favorite band (these days it maybe not even be in the top 10), I believe Automatic for the People is a masterpiece of modern pop music, and would be absolute perfection if "Everybody Hurts" had been left off.

But the loss of Bill Berry, and the decision not to replace him, has been devastating.
posted by pardonyou? at 6:22 AM on March 16, 2005

they haven't had a good album since Lifes Rich Pageant

My sentiments exactly. This guy started listening to REM after I stopped. Thank you, about_time, I think that every other reference to "old R.E.M." I've heard in the past decade was to Green or Document.
posted by Zurishaddai at 6:35 AM on March 16, 2005

The essay reveals what makes REM special ... there's something about their music that makes it a kind of soundtrack for people's lives. I found the same to be true for me, from Murmurs on through Around the Sun. They may not be as creative now as when they were younger, but then again who is? I still enjoy them, both for what they are, for what they were, and for the fact that they remind me of how I was.
posted by SSShupe at 6:39 AM on March 16, 2005

Furthermore, what does it say about a great band when their songs are available as ringtones?

That they have enough fans to make it a commercially viable proposition. And, indie cred aside, R.E.M. have never been shy about liking money.
posted by jonmc at 7:00 AM on March 16, 2005

Furthermore, what does it say about a great band when their songs are available as ringtones?

It's the end of the world as they know it.
posted by caddis at 7:07 AM on March 16, 2005

I remember seeing REM in 1988(?) for the Orange tour. The guy in front of me kept shouting "Radio Free Europe" between every song. Despite having fairly good seats in the (could it have been the LA Coliseum?), it was that show that made me vow never to see another concert in a venue of that size.

After Orange, I had no more interest in the band.
posted by Slothrup at 7:19 AM on March 16, 2005

Morrissey has songs available as ringtones and I dare suggest that he's a great deal more viable than R.E.M. today, with or without ringtones of "Don't Go Back to Rockville".

Green was the beginning of the end of a fantastic band--the first time I heard "Stand", I realized it was all over but the shouting.
posted by gsh at 7:20 AM on March 16, 2005

Furthermore, what does it say about a great band when their songs are available as ringtones?

It's the end of the world as they know it.

but do they feel fine?
posted by mrg at 7:20 AM on March 16, 2005

the first time I heard "Stand", I realized it was all over but the shouting.

Why? Because they made an accessible hit single? Didn't know that was a crime against cool.
posted by jonmc at 7:25 AM on March 16, 2005

what does it say about a great band when their songs are available as ringtones?

I love my Kashmir ringtone, thankyouverymuch.
posted by terrapin at 7:27 AM on March 16, 2005

I loved them through Monster, and then they sploded. I kept buying them until Reveal, then I gave up. There was a moment of genius, a real opportunity to do something new and vital, on Reveal, which was the song "Saturn Return," but the rest of the album was like a bad R.E.M. cover band. Sounds like the new album is worse. R.I.P. R.E.M.
posted by goatdog at 7:29 AM on March 16, 2005

I love Lifes Rich Pagent as much as anyone, but I commend Deusner for recognizing how rapturously good New Adventures in Hi-Fi is, and how there were plenty of great singles on every one of the other Warner albums Green through Reveal. Not too many people manage to be putting out great music 20 years after their first releases. Check the circa 1983 Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney records if you want, or the circal 1986 Robert Plant and Peter Townsend records, maybe.

I am not convinced that I've given Around the Sun enough time to judge fairly, but the fact that I haven't felt the need to do so may be judgment enough.
posted by MattD at 7:35 AM on March 16, 2005

Personally, I mark "Everybody Hurts" as the beginning of the end. From "Monster" on, they've been so awful that it's soured me on the earlier albums, which I use to love.
posted by Shoeburyness at 7:36 AM on March 16, 2005

Something interesting is that the re-releases are a package of a conventional CD and a conventional DVD with movie-style Dolby 5.1 encoding for output into conventional home theater systems. This could be the death knell of the SACD and DVDA formats which require premium priced players and (especially annoying) six separate RCA cables to an amplifier with a six-channel input to get the surround sound, versus a single strand of optical audio cable for regular DVD.
posted by MattD at 7:45 AM on March 16, 2005

Not too many people manage to be putting out great music 20 years after their first releases.

Yes, very true. Though there are some great ones every decade: Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, and Paul Westerberg come to mind. Westerberg's Stero and Mono albums are as good as any Replacements albums.
posted by about_time at 7:49 AM on March 16, 2005

Monster is my favourite REM album and What's the Frequency Kenneth and Crush with Eyeliner are two of my favourite songs while I hate Losing My Religion with a passion. Unbelievable as it may seem.

As an aside, all the reviews of their latest album seem to have been written by the same tone-deaf, music hating halfwits who declared the latest U2 effort a "return to the glory days of Boy". That or magazines are publishing press releases as reviews these days.
posted by fshgrl at 7:50 AM on March 16, 2005

Aw, I liked Document pretty well - okay, it was one of my first records (fine, fine, cassette tapes, happy now?) and it's held up a lot better than Kick or The Joshua Tree... but yeah, on this issue I too am a snotty indie kid who liked R.E.M. better before they were on a major label. (There are good singles afterwards though.)

Because they made ("Stand") an accessible hit single? Didn't know that was a crime against cool.

It was a crime in 1988! :P And "Stand" is kind of annoying, and heralds the onset of (shudder) "Shiny Happy People".
posted by furiousthought at 7:54 AM on March 16, 2005

Around the Sun is... the first truly irrelevant, inessential, bad R.E.M. album

Well he's got THAT right.
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:06 AM on March 16, 2005

I side with those who thought REM better prior to the Warner deal; I just picked up "Life's Rich Pageant" on disc (used to own on cassette) and it's by far my favorite REM record, for the blistering "Begin the Begin" (best straight rock song the band ever wrote, IMHO) and delicate "Flowers of Guatamala," and for a dozen reasons in between.

I didn't dislike the initial Warner albums, tho - my band's now playing "Pop Song 89" - but I started to lose interest around the time of "Automatic for the People." Maybe because by that time I was in my early 20s, working, and leaving those teenaged things behind. Last disc I bought was "Monster," and it disappointed me. Haven't listened to any new REM since.

But the cool thing is, the old REM is enough.
posted by kgasmart at 8:07 AM on March 16, 2005

Chronic Town, baby. Yeah! 1982.
posted by Shane at 8:08 AM on March 16, 2005

It was a crime in 1988! :P And "Stand" is kind of annoying, and heralds the onset of (shudder) "Shiny Happy People".

Well, "Shiny Happy People," did cross the line from catchy into cloying. But REM never had a problem making catchy singles, as a matter of fact, I'd say that the melding of their pop songcraft with their more artistically ambitious impulses was what made them such a special band*, and why their best stuff will age a lot better than some of the more self-consciously "arty" indie-rock of the same period, which is already beginning to sound as dated as Iron Butterfly.

*this is pretty much the case with most of the most important bands in rock history: the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, even the Velvet Underground and the Ramones.
posted by jonmc at 8:13 AM on March 16, 2005

as a matter of fact, I'd say that the melding of their pop songcraft with their more artistically ambitious impulses was what made them such a special band

Here, here.
posted by kgasmart at 8:20 AM on March 16, 2005

Here, here.

I was recently having a conversation in a bar about some band or another (I can't remember which, and it dosen't matter), where the guy I was talking to said something like "Well, they made some great songs to sing along to, but.."

Well, to me that's the first order of business: the music, the songs. Everything else (styles, politics, image) is important and interesting, but if you can't take care of the tunes, then all the rest becomes irrelevant, and if you have the tunes, but none of the rest, it's forgivable.
posted by jonmc at 8:25 AM on March 16, 2005

I remember seeing REM in 1988(?) for the Orange tour

Err, wouldn't that have been the green tour? Pop Song 89?

Anyway, yeah, they are (were) great and they suck. Like a lot of things..
posted by fixedgear at 8:35 AM on March 16, 2005

As an aside, all the reviews of their latest album seem to have been written by the same tone-deaf, music hating halfwits who declared the latest U2 effort a "return to the glory days of Boy".

I agree. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is nothing like Boy. It's far better.
posted by pardonyou? at 8:36 AM on March 16, 2005

Here's the thing about REM - they haven't been REM since Bill Berry left to go ride around on his tractor in Athens after the Monster tour/New Adventures In Hi-Fi, in the fall of '97. They haven't been the same since.

At some point during their creative/commercial/critical peak ('88 thru '94, I would argue - though I am aware that many indie snobs will tell you that they peaked w/Murmur in '83, I disagree) there was an MTV behind-the-scenes interview somethingorother w/Mills & Stipe. They were asking about the other band members and what they contributed. Stipe answered about Berry with something along the lines of "Bill makes sure that we keep the hook, the riff intact. He'll keep us from drifting off and say, c'mon guys, let's keep things together."

Well, if you look at the history of REM post-Berry, any fan will tell you that over time, it's become more and more the Michael Stipe Experimental Music Project where their tunes stray longer and longer and get more ethereal/dreamlike - except this is not a compliment. They are dull and endless. They have no riff, no beat, nothing to latch onto. This is why, despite owning every other REM record, I have yet to waste $15 on Around The Sun just so that I can claim I have the whole catalog. Reveal was such a colossal disappointment in my eyes that I'm still not over it (Imitation of Life is the ONLY song that sounds like the band remotely near its prime). At this point, I don't think Peter Buck cares about anything but the paycheck from the band, I don't know where Mills sits on anything, but I cannot fathom Stipe's blue painted Zorro mask and it's hard to take them seriously.

And I love this band. When it was the real REM. 1981-1997. Everything after that is questionable at best.
posted by GoodbyeOhio at 8:57 AM on March 16, 2005

jonmc : As far as liking money goes, R.E.M. has actually shied away from it in the past. They could have gotten a much much bigger deal when they started, but they chose to sign with the I.R.S. label because they liked them. While in recent memory, they've done things that to me seemed gimmicky and money grubbing (namely that "best of" collection), they certainly didn't start out that way.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:05 AM on March 16, 2005

I got into R.E.M. in the early 80s (Document was their first "new album" for me--and they sold out with an accessible single!).

Out of Time is almost like a remake of Green, with similar musical styles and similar themes. They both start off with a rockin' song, and both have a revealing personal song. I was surprised that "Losing My Religion" was considered the "Michael Stipe opens up" song; I've always thought "World Leader Pretend" was more revealing.

Monster was their first album I didn't like. It seemed like they changed from being leaders and doing their own thing to following others. (U2 did the same thing around the same time.)

I've liked New Adventures in Hi-Fi the couple of times I've listened to it (and this reminds me to check it out again). I'm think I own Up and I'm pretty sure I own Reveal, but I don't remember much about Up and I'm not sure I've ever listened to Reveal.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:05 AM on March 16, 2005

On the other hand, grapefruitmoon, I believe their deal with Sony was an exercise in liking money. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with that.

And artistically? I like the stretch from Life's Rich through Out of Time, but that's probably mostly a function of what was going on in my life when those albums came out. I agree with the idea that when Bill Berry left, the band stopped being interesting.
posted by COBRA! at 9:10 AM on March 16, 2005

I agree. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is nothing like Boy. It's far better.

Well I like Boy better but at least we can agree that it and HTDAAB are probably the least similar U2 albums, despite the entire music press telling us otherwise. Same with this album and the return to early form claims. I'm starting to think the reviewers just don't care.
posted by fshgrl at 9:11 AM on March 16, 2005

jonmc : As far as liking money goes, R.E.M. has actually shied away from it in the past.

Quote from Pete Buck in an MTV interview on fame & fortune: "I'd prefer more fortune, less fame."

The owner of IRS also said he made a ridiculously high offer to renew their contract, so that the major label would counter-offer even more.

Does this all mean that REM have no integrity of (heaven forbid) "cred,"?

Of course not. I support the idea of independent labels and independent artists, but the handwringing and cries of "sellout," always struk me as adolescent, indie-kid posturing for people who desperately need to believe in the "starving artist in the garret," bs.
posted by jonmc at 9:11 AM on March 16, 2005

For me, the last time R.E.M. was relevant was Automatic For The People. The last time the were GOOD was Life's Rich Pageant. This whole article, to me, is about as useful as a discussion of U2 starting with Zooropa. Which is to say, useless.
posted by spicynuts at 9:15 AM on March 16, 2005

ok kids nola is here to set you all straight.

REM was never "great" and they where never meant for the rest of you, sorry but its the truth.

they played the music of small college town garage bands, and they were better sounding then "pilon" or "love tractor". they played around the south east at small venues and the flourished by word of mouth.

REM success in a lager market was because they were not madonna, or prince, or any number of other flashy 80s super stars. by the time REM was hitting the charts well beyond sleepy little athens, everyone but yonxas was sick of the 80s and all the shitty super stars of that decade.

if you want to know why REM is dead inside its because they were never meant to be super stars of a decade.
posted by nola at 9:16 AM on March 16, 2005

Murmur and Reckoning were it

They've had moments since the early days, but it's just not had the same feel...
posted by Windopaene at 9:17 AM on March 16, 2005

if you want to know why REM is dead inside its because they were never meant to be super stars of a decade.

Keep telling yourself that.
posted by jonmc at 9:17 AM on March 16, 2005

The interesting thing about REM is that everybody agrees that they were once awesome, and everybody agrees that they now suck, but nobody agrees on exactly where the transition from good to suck was. Personally, I think it was with New Adventures in Hi-Fi -- I didn't like Monster the first time I heard it but it has grown on me -- but I think I've heard claims all the way from Murmur to Reveal as the tipping point.

Weird coincidence: I'm wearing my one REM t-shirt today, one I got right around the end of the Monster tour long long ago but amazingly hasn't fallen apart yet. One thing you can say about REM -- they may not make good music, but their apparel sure is sturdy.
posted by jacobm at 9:19 AM on March 16, 2005

jonmc : I wasn't saying that they weren't in it at all for the money, far from it.

But if you look at how they spend their money and how they choose to live in conjunction with how they started out - they certainly can't be blamed for only being in it for the money. I know that Michael Stipe gives quite a lot to various charitable/nonprofit organizations in Athens, as for the others... well, working on a farm is hardly an endeavor that's going to make you a heap of cash.

As for the "I'd prefer more fortune" comment, I think that has more to do with the intrusive nature of fame (which I know that Buck has not enjoyed) more than it has to do with wanting oodles and oodles of money.

I also don't think money has anything to do with "cred" or what have you. I just thought that the comment "Well, they've never shyed away from money!" wasn't a terribly fair generalization to make in this case.

COBRA! : Yes, I know. I said that they "didn't start out that way" but that they had done things recently to indicate that money is a factor in their business dealings. (I have now restated my previous comment in simpler terms. Did it not make sense the first time?)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:21 AM on March 16, 2005

Well, I'm nearly 40, so my essential REM albums are Reckoning and Fables of the Reconstruction. To me, the next few after that are "pretty good" and the next few after that are "has a few good songs on it". I think the last one I bought was Up. But I know that my tastes regarding this band were formed by my relative youth and formative-experience-receptiveness during certain years, so I can't claim that my tastes are better than anyone else's. (except for the fact that REM really started to suck in the 90s)
posted by matildaben at 9:22 AM on March 16, 2005

One thing you can say about REM -- they may not make good music, but their apparel sure is sturdy.

Amen to that. I bought a Green shirt in my freshman year of high school, and I'm still wearing that mother to the gym.
posted by COBRA! at 9:22 AM on March 16, 2005

I don't know where Mills sits on anything,

On the Up! tour I was the band's personal production assistant for their shows at the Bowery Ballroom and for the VH-1 Storytellers production. This meant that I was with the band or backstage for pretty much an entire week straight. I can tell you exactly where Mills sits...he sits on the lap of his 20 year old, tarot card reading, astrology spewing, gum popping, Von Dutch wearing girlfriend. This guy was so Hollywood it was disturbing. I was disgusted. Until he sat down for the Storytellers production and played "Don't Go Back To Rockville" solo on the piano. And then all was forgiven.
posted by spicynuts at 9:23 AM on March 16, 2005

crap...forgot to close the italics tag. sorry.
posted by spicynuts at 9:25 AM on March 16, 2005

(I have now restated my previous comment in simpler terms. Did it not make sense the first time?)

Well, it wasn't clear to me what you consider "recent." The Sony deal was almost ten years ago. At any rate, I'm not here to get into a knife-fight over whether they're a bunch of money-grubbers. I certainly agree with you that during their IRS days they were way less commercial than, say, Kiss.
posted by COBRA! at 9:27 AM on March 16, 2005

jonmc: sure, the 90s REM was something not uninteresting. If that was the only REM that existed, then they would be remembered as a mediocre pop band that somehow often rose above the crowd and made something fun. Kind of like the Smashing Pumpkins.

But the 80s REM was a monumental achievement. Their stuff in those years was more important, to my ear, than the Replacements, than Husker Du or the Minutemen, than almost anybody else's, because they were great without being pretentious, and because they sought beauty without being trite.

And you can't blame some of us, given these facts, and given how much those four records mean to us, for being a little annoyed; if the 90s REM didn't exist, their early work would be able to shine all the more, and the world would be a better place. I get the feeling, at least, that the guys in the band would've been happier if they had broken up in 1990.

Sure, the music is what comes first. But tight pop hooks don't make music. REM seem to have spent the last fifteen years trying to prove that, even if you have a nice riff in the middle of the song, if you don't care about what you're doing, the music will be trash.
posted by koeselitz at 9:29 AM on March 16, 2005

I can tell you exactly where Mills sits...he sits on the lap of his 20 year old, tarot card reading, astrology spewing, gum popping, Von Dutch wearing girlfriend. This guy was so Hollywood it was disturbing.

Or perhaps he's just horny. Were he not in a band, I doubt chicks like that would go anywhere near him. It's a rock star perk that most of us would avail ourselves of, methinks.

As for the "I'd prefer more fortune" comment, I think that has more to do with the intrusive nature of fame (which I know that Buck has not enjoyed) more than it has to do with wanting oodles and oodles of money.

For sure, but I don't think they particularly mind the wads of cash either.

But tight pop hooks don't make music. REM seem to have spent the last fifteen years trying to prove that, even if you have a nice riff in the middle of the song, if you don't care about what you're doing, the music will be trash.

Oh, agreed. Hooks minus caring=Sum 41 or Britney. Caring minus hooks=heartfelt wanking. Hooks plus passion=great rock and roll.

And I was listening to REM in the 80's too. I was quite happy when they broke big, and still like a lot of their later stuff.
posted by jonmc at 9:35 AM on March 16, 2005

COBRA! : I see your point. I guess 10 years to me seems "recent" in terms of a band that started 24 years ago.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:36 AM on March 16, 2005

jonmc : I'm sure they don't mind the giant wads of cash! My only point was from all the interviews I've read, it doesn't seem to me like they started out for the cash.

Whether they've stayed in it for the cash, who knows, but I think the cash helped.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:38 AM on March 16, 2005

Whether they've stayed in it for the cash, who knows, but I think the cash helped.

Yes, but they have enough money that they (like Berry) could quite easily afford to retire and kick back, so they must still enjoy playing music at the very least.

And 24 years isn't that long, Rush have been at it for over 30 years with only one personnel change, and almost no change in style. And they've managed to get quite wealthy and famous doing thing their way. (I'm not a Rush fanatic, but I do like them and was always comforted by the idea that somewhere out there Rush was always doing their thing).

And that's to say nothing of old R&B and Country guys who still record and tour well into old age.
posted by jonmc at 9:45 AM on March 16, 2005

REM is to post 80s rock
what ginger is to sushi.

a pallet cleanser
posted by nola at 9:50 AM on March 16, 2005

Monster was their first album I didn't like.

It was the last album of theirs that I bought, and I'll tell you why - it sounded as if REM at that point was being influenced by grunge, and that put me off. Sort of like when Rod Stewart did "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy."
posted by kgasmart at 9:51 AM on March 16, 2005

Maybe their albums haven't been as strong since their early days, they sure have released some killer singles. For example "Imitation of Life" from a few years back is, IMHO, amazing. It is easy to write off a band as being irrelevant, but to do so kind of misses the point.

Since when is music primarily a matter of relevance? What about the songs, man?
posted by Quartermass at 9:54 AM on March 16, 2005

Can we have some REM top fives please?

Mine:
1) Kouhotek
2) 7 Chinese Brothers
3 ) The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
4) Superman
5) The Great Beyond
posted by dydecker at 9:55 AM on March 16, 2005

REM is to post 80s rock
what ginger is to sushi.

a pallet cleanser

They've been reduced to cleaning these?

Maybe they didn't make as much money as I thought.
posted by jonmc at 10:08 AM on March 16, 2005

1 begin the begin
2 7 chines brothers
3 you are the everything
4 driver 8
5 pilgrimage
posted by nola at 10:09 AM on March 16, 2005

1) It's The End Of The World As We Know It
2)Can't Get There From Here
3)Driver 8
4)Don't Fear The Reaper (live cover)
5)Radio Free Europe
posted by jonmc at 10:14 AM on March 16, 2005

I feel bad that they keep going. But "Murmur" was a timeless masterpiece, and all the crap they produce today won't change that fact. I don't blame them for keeping it up, though--imagine the restraint it takes to bow out at the top of your game, or at least the artistic integrity.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 10:41 AM on March 16, 2005

Can we have some REM top fives please?

There happen to be five songs on Chronic Town. The whole CD is joyously manic. It's on Dead Letter Office now, of course.

Okay, I love "End of the World as We Know It" too. A local radio station, 107.9 "The End," played that song for 24 hours straight on their first and last days of existence. Both times I spent several hours stick in traffic, banging my head the entire time.
posted by Shane at 10:42 AM on March 16, 2005

1) Pilgrimage
2) Just a Touch
3) Radio Free Europe
4) Seven Chinese Brothers
5) Catapult

Honorable mention non-album tracks: "Romance" (on Eponymous) and "Last Date" (on R.E.M. Singles Collected.)

Wow, this is really hard. Sorry, "Camera," "Harborcoat," "Pretty Persuasion," "These Days," "Exhuming McCarthy," "Superman," "Stand," "Me In Honey," "You are the Everything," etc, etc, etc ....
posted by escabeche at 11:12 AM on March 16, 2005

Huh. If nothing else, this article proves that bands are mirrors: and that as we age, the bands we loved are forced to bear the changing of the emotional load of our youth to the emotional load of our aging. I can't say whether REM are "better" or "worse" than they were, but I expect to read much more such discourse in the future that entangles the process of getting older with the reflections of our musical selves.

There's a fantastic essay by Jonathan Lethem entitled "The Beards" in the February 28th issue of the New Yorker that addresses this (brief pause here to spit hatred at the New Yorker's website, where you cannot find this article, or anything else older than a week):

In recollection, the shiny, self-pitying grandeur of Pink Floyd is among the uneasiest tokens of my teen-age tastes... Pink Floyd was at odds with the musical tastes I'd cultivated, those along more punk lines, and requiring Talking Heads- or Elvis Costello- style ironies to deflate the sort of hippie pieties that thrived, unmistakably, beneath Pink Floyd's wounded rage. Such self-conscious posturing (my own, I mean, not Elvis Costello's) doesn't stand a chance against the kind of helpless love I still feel if I play "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", Parts 1-5", especially on headphones.

The music that we loved when we were young is not replaceable or explicable. An old friend of mine held a sort of 70s retro party recently to celebrate a home theatre purchase, during which we all smoked pot (first time in 20 years, for me) and watched a Yes DVD (first time I'd listened to them in about 20 years, too). I realized about half way through that the music completely bypassed and disarmed all my critical faculties: I honestly could not make a case for it being good or bad in any abstract sense, because Close to the Edge saved my life in high school, the way music does.

I like REM, respect them well enough, and I'm glad as a forty-something that Stipe's out there as my contemporary in age, but I do not feel betrayed by them.
posted by jokeefe at 11:14 AM on March 16, 2005

My top five:

1. The One I Love
2. Talk About the Passion
3. Don't Go Back to Rockville
4. Superman
5. Fall On Me

Subject to change at any moment, with "Daysleeper" popping in there frequently.
posted by spicynuts at 11:30 AM on March 16, 2005

1) Nightswimming
2) Leave
3) Pilgrimage
4) Near Wild Heaven
5) Gardening At Night
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:31 AM on March 16, 2005

Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...

...or REM.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:42 AM on March 16, 2005

Hell. REM songs my piece-of-crap bar band is currently playing:

1. So. Central Rain
2. Don't Go Back to Rockville
3. Pop Song 89

Other songs I'd love to do:

4. Begin the Begin
5. Superman
6. Driver 8
7. What if We Give It Away?
posted by kgasmart at 12:15 PM on March 16, 2005

jokeefe, interesting point, but I do think it's possible to think critically about music that saved your life way back when. I look at the bulk of what I listened to growing up in the '80s and can barely stand it now; Simple Minds? What was that about?

At the same time, though, I find myself gravitating to the songs that I haven't heard or even thought of in years, specifically because they evoke precise memories:

Summer of '85, Ocean City, Md., the blonde southern belle who I fell in love with at 18 and spent the whole summer missing: Psychedlic Furs, "The Ghost in You."

May '87: My girlfriend, 2 years older than me, graduates from college and heads back west to L.A.; we're hanging out by the pond on campus, tearful parting, and playing is: "Always" by Atlantic Starr.

See, I know how lame Atlantic Starr is; I realize how ludicrous it looks in my music collection, next to all the indie cred/educated classic rock stuff. It's not that I don't know, from an intellectual/critical point of view, that this song is dreck. It's just that given it's attachment to a milestone event in my life, it simply doesn't matter.
posted by kgasmart at 12:21 PM on March 16, 2005

Not too many people manage to be putting out great music 20 years after their first releases.

Insert my obligatory Paul Weller and Neil Finn references here.
posted by scody at 12:23 PM on March 16, 2005

Let me be another voice that *hearted* Monster. Brash, unfinished, noisy, angry rock? That was the point, IMHO.

And "Harborcoat" is their best song of all time.
posted by bardic at 12:29 PM on March 16, 2005

I look at the bulk of what I listened to growing up in the '80s and can barely stand it now; Simple Minds? What was that about?

I can't relate to that. While I've certainly expanded my listening over the years, I have yet to ever abandon anything. I still like Twisted Sister like I did when I was 13, I even still enjoy the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," as much as I did when I was 6.

Maybe it's because I've never "cultivated" tastes. Being something of a social misfit has it's pluses. If you don't fit in to begin with, you don't have to do anything to fit in, which relieves you of a great burden. (and I realize that many people will say, "but I was a social outcast because I listened to REM!" Maybe, but you probably found a crowd of freinds where REM listening was the norm. Still other people went to college and found REM listening to be the norm there. I'm not saying that any of this precludes genuinely liking REM's music, merely observing that peer groups and norms come in all shapes and sizes).
posted by jonmc at 12:33 PM on March 16, 2005

Hah, I remember that, Shane. Around the time when The End went under, I had a very long commute to school... we listened to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" the whole way, of course.

I'm surprised to see so few songs off of Document namechecked in these top 5 lists. It's a great album [although the recent takeover of Fleet by Bank of America has "Exhuming McCarthy" stuck in my head every time I go to the ATM nowadays.]
posted by ubersturm at 12:38 PM on March 16, 2005

1. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
2. Country Feedback
3. Welcome To The Occupation
4. Fall On Me
5. Finest Worksong

Obligatory pet semi-obscure music-geek pick: (All I Have to Do Is) Dream (live; available on Athens, Ga.: Inside Out)

And following up on matildaben's and jokeefe's comments, both of which I thought were really well-phrased explanations of why our reactions to the music of our youth are so intense (and also why presumably people feel compelled to proclaim so proudly that they think REM's been shite since Murmur):

Music is, to my mind, the most subjective of art forms, and often the most personal, and for these and other reasons possibly the most powerful. Just think of how Peter Buck can convey as much mood and emotion and transportive otherworldly dreamscape in a couple of seconds and a half-dozen jangly notes as it'd take a novelist a hundred pages to muster. Add to this raw power the heightened emotional state and relatively blank canvas of the teenage mind, and you've got a potent cocktail for creating a mind-blowingly transcendent experience.

No wonder REM's (or any band's) impact sometimes pales on the twentieth listen to their eighth album or whatever. No wonder "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will always make me want to break shit NOW!, whereas, say, the Stooges' "Search and Destroy," which is at least as powerful a song but which I first discovered at a much later and less emotionally charged time, will always just make me marvel a little and wonder how the hell they got that guitar sound.
posted by gompa at 12:45 PM on March 16, 2005

Top 5? No way.

Man this is hopeless to try to narrow down. And for my money, Life's Rich Pageant is their best complete album.

Top five from pre-I.R.S./I.R.S years
1. Superman
2. Wolves, Lower
3. Romance
4. Can't Get There From Here
5. Pretty Persuasion

Honorables: Just A Touch, Moral Kiosk, Rockville, Ages of You, Driver 8, Second Guessing, Windout, Cuyahoga, Gardening at Night, Exhuming McCarthy, Pilgrimage.

Top five from WB years:
1. Turn You Inside Out
2. Sweetness Follows
3. Try Not To Breathe
4. Crush With Eyeliner
5. Losing My Religion

Honorables: Low, Great Beyond, Bang & Blame, What's the Frequency?, Nightswimming, Pop Song 89.

sidebar: whoever is from seattle, is The End dead too, as a radio station? that would be depressing.
posted by GoodbyeOhio at 12:52 PM on March 16, 2005

I can't relate to that. While I've certainly expanded my listening over the years, I have yet to ever abandon anything. I still like Twisted Sister like I did when I was 13, I even still enjoy the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," as much as I did when I was 6.

I've abandoned much, but most of it was the stuff that I listened to because everyone else was listening to it.

Kajagoogoo, anyone?

It was REM, in part, that helped me get over such nonsense.
posted by kgasmart at 1:17 PM on March 16, 2005

No one puts Swan Swan H in his top five?
posted by trharlan at 1:24 PM on March 16, 2005

Top ten in no particular order:

7 Chinese Brothers (or even Voices Of Harold ;-))
Finest Worksong [Mutual Drum Horn Mix]
Bandwagon
Begin the Begin
Cuyahoga
Life and How to Live It
Perfect Circle
Radio Free Europe [Original Hib-Tone Single]
Wendell Gee
You Are the Everything
posted by fixedgear at 1:42 PM on March 16, 2005

I still remember when I first really took note of who REM was - when "Stand" was played on the bus to school when I was a high school freshman. Green became the first album I ever bought. By my freshan year of college, I had their entire collection to date. Looking back, I could have happily stopped then, with Automatic for the People. Everything else since then has been purchased out of habit really - a few good singles, but nothing really impressive.

I still feel that AftP is their overall best, and one of the best albums ever. Life's Rich Pageant is easily my second favorite.

Top Five (no particular order)
1) Find the River
2) Fall on Me
3) It's the End of the World as We Know It
4) Near Wild Heaven
5) Untitled (from Green)

Also Very Close: Drive, Superman, Imitation of Life, Ignoreland, Begin the Begin, You Are the Everything, Nightswimming, The Great Beyond
posted by evilangela at 1:47 PM on March 16, 2005

I look at the bulk of what I listened to growing up in the '80s and can barely stand it now; Simple Minds? What was that about?

*clutches vinyl copy of "Sons and Fascination" to her bosom* I still love that record. I still even listen to it occasionally.

I can't relate to that. While I've certainly expanded my listening over the years, I have yet to ever abandon anything. I still like Twisted Sister like I did when I was 13, I even still enjoy the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," as much as I did when I was 6.

Yep. I've never left anything behind, even if I may not actually play the music itself for years at a time. Though of course I am writing as someone who just this week fell in love with Echo and the Bunnymen's "Porcupine" all over again. It goes around, it comes around.
posted by jokeefe at 1:53 PM on March 16, 2005

And following up on matildaben's and jokeefe's comments, both of which I thought were really well-phrased explanations of why our reactions to the music of our youth are so intense

I just noticed this. That has to be the first time our names have been linked together in a sentence since we were an item, lo these many long years ago.

Suggested next topic for discussion: music that you can't bear to listen to after a breakup, and eventually recovering it. :)
posted by jokeefe at 1:57 PM on March 16, 2005

jokeefe: "Yep. I've never left anything behind, even if I may not actually play the music itself for years at a time. Though of course I am writing as someone who just this week fell in love with Echo and the Bunnymen's "Porcupine" all over again. It goes around, it comes around."

If the worst music you've ever liked was Twisted Sister, the Bay City Rollers, Simple Minds, and Echo and the Bunnymen, then it sounds to me like you've just been lucky enough to like relatively good music all these years.

Me, I feel like this: everybody leaves things behind. If you don't play things for years and years, you're likely to die before coming back to some certain thing, and that's a good thing; progress can be real, and we can become better people. To say otherwise is to deny that there is such a thing as good music or bad music; and I can assure you that I listened to some bad music in my youth.

That's not to say that I've rejected my memories or rejected who I am as a result of my experience. But I certainly can realize that that music that I listened to was shit, and I can realize that, even though I enjoyed it then, I don't want to listen to it again.

All that said, the ten best REM songs of all time are:

1) Harborcoat
2) Harborcoat
3) Harborcoat
4) Harborcoat
5) Harborcoat
6) The Flowers of Guatemala
7) A Perfect Circle
8) Pilgrimage
9) Gardening at Night
10) The Moral Kiosk
posted by koeselitz at 2:12 PM on March 16, 2005

koeselitz, I may have to challenge you to a duel over Echo and the Bunnymen's honour.

And I still like to believe that the music I loved in my twenties was not shit, not a single track, but pehaps that's just my vanity talking.

And there is no accounting for taste, as the saying goes.
posted by jokeefe at 2:18 PM on March 16, 2005

jokeefe: maybe you misunderstand me. I mean to say: all the music you listed is good. And I'm not talking about my twenties, since I'm in my twenties. No, I'm talking about younger. Like, when I was eleven, I was listening to this.

Also, Echo and the Bunnymen are genius. I mostly took a bit of offense at them being lumped into a list of "guilty pleasures" or things that, even though they're not immediately desirable, one still holds on to. No deulling necessary; my copy of Ocean Rain is as well-worn as they come.
posted by koeselitz at 2:27 PM on March 16, 2005

gah, duelling...
posted by koeselitz at 2:29 PM on March 16, 2005

I even still enjoy the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," as much as I did when I was 6.

Amen, brother!

No one puts Swan Swan H in his top five?

Oh, I'd asbolutely put it in mine! (Full disclosure: I have not actually bought an REM record since Out of Time, I honestly though Document was semi-boring -- crossover hits or not -- and I did also like much of Automatic For the People)

1. So. Central Rain (though I'd like to list all of Reckoning, frankly -- fave REM album, hands down)
2. Swan Swan H
3. Half a World Away
4. Radio Free Europe
5. Shaking Through
posted by scody at 2:36 PM on March 16, 2005

wait, I thought I had "Perfect Circle" on there -- so I guess scratch "Shaking Thru" at #5. Damn... maybe I'll just compile a top 10.
posted by scody at 2:38 PM on March 16, 2005

koeselitz, my regrets, I realize I sounded snarky when I only meant to sound casually breezy.

Shall we share a moment of "Crocodiles", then? See you on the barricades, and all that? :)
posted by jokeefe at 2:40 PM on March 16, 2005

I've seen REM twice: on the Green tour, and the Monster tour. The former was much more enjoyable. I guess I lost interest along the way, because I didn't even realize until reading this post that they'd released any albums since New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Top five:

1. Near Wild Heaven
2. Fall On Me
3. Nightswimming
4. Texarkana
5. Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
posted by candyland at 2:57 PM on March 16, 2005

I liked Around The Sun. Is it up to their their Life's Rich Pageant standards? No. But DeNiro's never gonna make another Godfather II and I still think he's an incredible actor.

True, the ambiguity is missing from newer R.E.M. songs -- they're more narrative now. However, Stipe uses his voice as an instrument now more so than he did during the IRS years, which I think is a plus. And we're comparing 3/4ths of REM to the work they used to do as a four-piece. Damn that aneurysm.

Lastly, no telling how much the departure of Jefferson Holt effected the band.
posted by herc at 3:28 PM on March 16, 2005

Without Jefferson, I think they're lost.
posted by koeselitz at 3:54 PM on March 16, 2005

I suppose this is the perfect place to air my theory that you can tell the quality of a R.E.M. album by how much Mike Mills sings on it.

Not that I actually believe it, but still, it's the kind of thing that would be fun to believe.

And a tentative top 5 (subject to revision miliseconds after I post this).

5) Catapult
4) Ignoreland
3) Feeling Gravitys Pull
2) Country Feedback
1) Why Not Smile
posted by Kattullus at 4:09 PM on March 16, 2005

I mean to say: all the music you listed is good.

Cool. Standin' up for the sister.

I even still enjoy the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," as much as I did when I was 6.

Amen, brother!

I used to run around the house "singing" that as a tyke. It was probably a factor in my parents decision to put me on Ritalin.
posted by jonmc at 4:37 PM on March 16, 2005

(top of the head, no particular order, biased to the catchy)
Begin the Begin
7 chinese brothers
Pretty Persuasion
Swan Swan Hummingbird
West of the Fields
posted by Zurishaddai at 4:41 PM on March 16, 2005

Life's Rich Pageant is my second favorite. My favorite is New Adventures In Hi-Fi - the rock and roll album R.E.M. were trying to make with Monster, and probably Green and Document as well. Part of me thinks they'd have gone on to more greatness after that if Bill Berry hadn't left, but his departure made them into an entirely different band. Around The Sun is the first R.E.M. record I didn't buy- after listening to a pre-release stream of it, I knew I wasn't going to get it.
Oddly, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is the first U2 record I didn't buy, for pretty much the same reasons - both albums are mediocre, at best.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:55 PM on March 16, 2005

"I used to run around the house "singing" that as a tyke. It was probably a factor in my parents decision to put me on Ritalin."

When I was much, much younger, I had a promo cd of a bunch of various christian bands (yech) doing covers. Weirdly, I came to realize, rightly, that this was the best CD I owned. It was actually awesome. Sixpence None the Richer (remember them? "Kiss Me," and that cover of "There she goes?") did "Mr. Grinch," as I recall, and some very strange girl-punk band did "Convoy." These fit their personalities, and were just about the best these bands could do; it was actually rather quaint and nice. There was even some obnoxious ska band covering a sesame street song called "the j song," which actually made the wackiness that was ska into something fun to hear. It's surprising how nice some of these christian bands sound when they're not singing about Jesus.

Anyhow, the highlight was a very weird christian death-metal band (already strange enough, as they want to be clean for the parents, but mean for the kids) doing that song, "Saturday Night." Angry shouting, but not too angry, and trying really hard not to have fun. It was one of my favorite things growing up. I hope someday I can find that CD again, but I have a feeling it's long gone.
posted by koeselitz at 5:51 PM on March 16, 2005

I had a promo cd of a bunch of various christian bands (yech)

Believe it or not, dude, there actually is some really good Christian Rock that exists (to say nothing of traditional black and country gospel) and I don't mean music made by rock stars gone Christian like Dylan, Morrison & Muldaur, as good as their work might be. Nor do I mean "Contemporary Christian Music" which is soulless calculated pap put together by session hacks and publicity flack for the most part.

I'm talking about the Jesus Freak rock that got put out in the late sixties by former hippies gone Christian. The players had grown up playing rock so they were comfortable in the idiom, and they were commercially unsavvy and guilless, so the music has a sincerity that's hard to resist. The Water Into Wine Band and Joyous Celebration are definitely worth a listen. And I don't mean ironically.

Disclaimer: I am not an evangelical Christian, just a record geek. Just to put you at ease.
posted by jonmc at 6:06 PM on March 16, 2005

I even still enjoy the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," as much as I did when I was 6.

Amen, brother!

I used to run around the house "singing" that as a tyke. It was probably a factor in my parents decision to put me on Ritalin.

Cool, man. I know you guys dig Captail Kool and the Kongs.

I remember it: 1975, I'm 8, I think it was Don Kirshner's Rock Concert or some damned thing: "Sat-ur-day niiiiight." Hit me like a wrecking ball. One of those things that put me on the road to being a (until recently) closet pop geek.
posted by kgasmart at 6:54 PM on March 16, 2005

Oi.
1. Nightswimming
after that, Driver 8, Daysleeper, Sweetness Follows, Country Feedback, Gardening at Night...um...E-Bow the Letter, New Test Leper, Radio Free Europe, Near Wild Heaven, Catapult, Find the River.....
posted by hippugeek at 6:59 PM on March 16, 2005

Not Lame Records' "Right to Chews" has a version of "Saturday Night" by a Japanese band called Oranges. Just a song that makes you smile.
posted by kgasmart at 7:01 PM on March 16, 2005

I totally love how a thread on REM has wound up getting me to dance around my kitchen singing "Suh-suh-suh-Saturday nigh-HEIGHT!" right my roommate walks in the front door and chimes in "S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!" right on cue.
posted by scody at 8:32 PM on March 16, 2005

I'm gonna play "Saturday Night" when I teach my next Spinning class. Right after "Blitzkrieg Bop." That should freak them out pretty good.
posted by fixedgear at 2:18 AM on March 17, 2005

everyone but yonxas was sick of the 80s and all the shitty super stars of that decade.

Hey! I loved the 80's. I'm a staunch defender of all things Mod and Glam and Pop and Bubblegum.

REM was a good band. They had the opportunity to become great. But they changed, which is not necessarily bad, but it does make them different from what they were.

When an act has such fundamental change from what they were, they become a different entity. It happened with the Beatles, with U2, even with Madonna.

Sometimes the change is for the better, but usually not.

I think all of us have had the chance to have a "favorite band" change while we were still into them. It's disappointing but it happens.

Shit, half the country lost their mind when Dylan picked up an electric guitar.

I miss the 80's. The music and fashion are still unmatched. Did I mention I just bought Miami Vice Season 1 on DVD?
posted by Ynoxas at 3:58 PM on March 17, 2005