[Closed] R.E.M

My favourites:

Automatic For The People
Green

Either of those are great and I'll add Document to the list.

Out of Time and Automatic for the people were the crossover successes, Green and document were probably them at their indie best .

Fabulous band, you'll not be dissapointed

+1 Document.

Eponymous is a great collection of their indie stuff. Good place to start.

I liked that song about pushing an elephant up the stairs... Can't remember the album but it was a long time after the success of Automatic which was an amazing album, but IMO, it hasn't aged very well...

Right, thanks you chaps. I've got Automatic For The People on now.

This is on Document I think

Elephant up the stairs was up.

Second out of time. Green is excellent, automatic for the people also had some great stuff though didn't work for me in quite the same way.

Eponymous is a good starter, monster is rather different to most of their other albums but certainly up there for me.

New adventures in Hifi is probably not a great "starter"

In practice I'd recommend most of their stuff. Personally though I'd probably stay away from dead letter office.

Love Automatic and Out of Time, later ones too, but also Murmur is rather good I think.

REM did a collaborative album with the Troggs - "Athens Andover", jamba will love that

Most of them are decent - If I was going to pick just one it would probably be Green - iirc that was the last one before the mandolins.

Elephant up the stairs is called The Great Beyond and wasn't on any studio albums but was recorded as part of the Man on the Moon soundtrack.

I'd recommend Life's Rich Pagaent from their earlier albums which loses some of the inscrutability (a bad thing for some) and where they started to aim for the big time with a bit more crunch.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi is a fan favourite and actually contains some of their best songs.

That said, most folks will start with Automatic and Out of Time which is how most people think of REM.

Document, even easier stuff I really like (maybe as I first saw them in days of Fables and so on).

one of my all time favourites, unplugged makes me shiver --

No one else liked it much but Fables of the Reconstruction is still a favourite of mine along with Murmur and Reckoning.

hi fives to avdave2 🙂

Funny how the world moves on- it only seems yesterday that REM and U2 were touted as the two biggest bands in the world.. awarded the most expensive recording contract ever at one stage iirc.
Murmur was the first album of theirs I bought, on the back of Radio Free Europe.
They seem a bit like Talking Heads to me, huge in their time, but now rarely mentioned- I still find their music phenomenal, but I don't get out much these days, and I'm not sure what people who didn't grow up with the band think when hearing their music- has it stood the test of time?

Murmur. Radio Free Europe is awesome.

I would still see Talking Heads as one of the most influential bands ever, you can hear their influence in lots of later stuff, still on my playlist

Out of Time for me is just brilliant

I am a bit left field to most I really like Monster
track 10 is my favourite - Let me in. just a fantastic piece of music and lyric combination.

I'd recommend Life's Rich Pagaent from their earlier albums which loses some of the inscrutability (a bad thing for some) and where they started to aim for the big time with a bit more crunch.

Yeah, that's my favourite from the IRS period. Fall On Me and Begin the Begin are the two stand out tracks IMO.

Not REM, but a couple of interesting Stype covers from Youtube:

Can you tell I'm a Maniacs/Merchant fan?

Out Of Time made me discover REM back around A-Levels time, quite a melancholy album, but it was enough for me to hunt down most of their album back-catologue... I had no idea ta the time that they had stuff going back to ~1980! 😯

About the only song I don't really like that much on Out Of Time is Shiny Happy People, far too cheery and it was played to death on MTV! 😆

Shocking how old Michael Stipe looks now! 😯

I wish I hadn't clicked on that link, I didn't know Out Of Time is 25 years old! 😯

Murmur
Lifes Rich Pageant
Document

Would be my pick. They were a superb band at their peak, brilliant live on the Green tour, but started going off the boil after that.

sadtomato - Member
Elephant up the stairs is called The Great Beyond and wasn't on any studio albums but was recorded as part of the Man on the Moon soundtrack.

I'll go to the foot of our stairs, you're right. I'd put two and two together based on my vague recollections of release dates and clearly got 3.

"What's the frequency Kennith" ?

I'm with kcal and avdave2 loved all the early albums, Reckoning in particular, up to Automatic for the people.
Saw them a few times in concert, really good live band almost made enduring The Cranberries as a support act worthwhile!

They seem a bit like Talking Heads to me, huge in their time, but now rarely mentioned- I still find their music phenomenal, but I don't get out much these days, and I'm not sure what people who didn't grow up with the band think when hearing their music- has it stood the test of time?

Talking Heads just a totally different league. You can put on [i]remain in light[/i] or [i]fear of music[/i] today and it still sounds exceptional.

I'm with (giant_scum) kcal and avdave2 loved all the early albums, Reckoning in particular, up to Automatic for the people.

Saw them on the Fables and Green Tours ('85 & '89) at Barrowlands.

Can't remember the last time I played them though...

They were always fantastic live and all the early stuff, that on record tends to sound rather 'thin', sounds much better live IMHO. I'd therefore maybe track down a live album. I think the only official one might have the 2005 "Live" album.

'Unplugged 1991/2001: The Complete Sessions' is well worth a listen

Saw them several times but the highlight would be at Madison Square Garden in 2003. Absolutely unbelievable.

I think they get a bad press as they hit mainstream success around the same time grunge was big, so they were always seen as being a bit "dad rock" against the Seattle scene.

They opened the MSG gig with this and it's still a favourite

@metalheart I was at Barrowlands in '89, man it was hot!

[quote=vinnyeh ]Funny how the world moves on- it only seems yesterday that REM and U2 were touted as the two biggest bands in the world..

Like it or loathe it, U2 are probably still one of the biggest bands in the world. Still selling out massive arena tours.

My favourite..well;one of perhaps 20, R.E.M song.

Massive R.E.M fan. Started to like them based on Out of Time, used to pester my folks to play it. Actually prefer the earlier stuff though. There's a good best of.. covering the early years which I really like, cant rember the name though

[quote=ferrals ]Massive R.E.M fan. Started to like them based on Out of Time, used to pester my folks to play it. Actually prefer the earlier stuff though. There's a good best of.. covering the early years which I really like, cant rember the name though

The IRS Years

One of the most defining songs for R.E.M. In my opinion would be 'World Leader Pretend', in terms of what the band is about.

In terms of sound, though, it's got to be 'Texarkana'. Just make sure you have the volume cranked for that opening bass line!

SaxonRider - I think we are kindred spirits, "World Leader Pretend" spoke to me about myself in my early 20's more that any other song. Still one of my favourites.

Big R.E.M. fan, got into them around Document, then Green and Out Of Time (these are their best albums). Then started working back through Murmur, Fables, Reckoning etc. (all good albums).

Automatic was a bit of a dip but Adventures In Hi-Fi killed my interest off. Monster was good though and some of Up is OK.

giant_scum - Was that at Cardiff Arms Park, summer of '96? God the Cranberries were awful!

@metalheart I was at Barrowlands in '89, man it was hot!

All the IRS albums are essential listening. Warners output; Green-very good, Out Of Time-good, AFTP- pretty good, Monster- good, NAIHF, very good, everything after that is a bit MEH. Should have split after Bill Berry left.

longwayhome I was at the Murrayfield concert! Who were the other support acts?Belly, Micheal Frantis Spearhead, Cranberries was there another group?

Going against the grain, I really enjoyed Monster. Underrated album

I think Monster and New Adventures In Hi-Fi are their best. That's the great thing about them, something for everyone

I'm not a massive R.E.M. fan but have been listening to Country Feedback on an unplugged album and viewing on YouTube almost every night for the past few weeks.
I love playing along to it on my acoustic. A song I'd never heard of before but suddenly discovered it.
Will download all the albums/ songs mentioned here as there might be another gem that I've missed.

I've got a DVD of them in concert from Germany back in 2003 (I think) called Perfect Square. Cracking concert, worth a look if you can find it online.

Rubbish quality but some of the bingo handjob gig is on YouTube.
Probably one for the purists.

I was at Madison Square garden for their last tour. Great band.

Around the Sun is a good album. McAlpine 1994 was a good gig!

Around the Sun is a good album. McAlpine 1994 was a good gig!

I was there too, great gig. Got free tickets too. Worked at the Grahams builders merchants around the corner and we got some freebies through supplying materials for the stadium itself.

Automatic was a bit of a dip but Adventures In Hi-Fi killed my interest off. Monster was good though and some of Up is OK.

Odd, New Adventures In Hi-Fi was probably what turned me from someone who bought the odd R.E.M. CD into an actual fan, but I've never really attuned to Monster at all.

The three albums after New Adventures (Up, Reveal and Around the Sun) feel different to a lot of their other output but things became more familiar with Accelerate and I still rate Collapse Into Now (their final album) fairly highly.

Love all of their stuff, even the later albums. Document is a fantastic album.
Country Feedback is one of my all time favourite songs.

Quality choice hebdencyclist, Half a World Away along with Gardening at Night are two still regularly on my playlists.

Massive fan here. Here's a random offering from later in their career. A fine song in a rather nice Volvo.

I sometimes think of REM like Coldplay (but not shit) you know all the songs, but I've not many people who have them as their favourite band barring all others.

Anyway, they're wonderful, I was listening to the radio the other day and 'Nightswimming' came on and slapped around the face. It a great song, liked it when it was new, but with more mature ears it's better.

The bonus for me of having a streaming service rather than buying tracks is I can really dive into them for a bit, and put them back out to pasture in a few weeks for a few more years.

I was listening to the radio the other day and 'Nightswimming' came on and slapped around the face.

Nightswimming reliably makes me go all soppy and nostalgic. In fact, all the early-90s REM stuff pushes buttons, it was huge when I was 16 and discovering girls and parties and whatnot and it basically short-circuits my brain back to hormonal mayhem and teenage angst. Marvellous stuff.

They played Huddersfield on the Monster tour, in the then-brand-new McAlpine stadium. No decent bands [i]ever[/i] played Huddersfield, let alone a genuine Biggest Band In The World™ band, so it was officially a major event and everyone, everyone went to see them. Oasis were supposed to support but the workshy Manc bastards didn't show up. REM were brilliant, though. I didn't even bother going to try to buy overpriced underage beer cos I didn't want to miss any of the songs. Cracking show, great band.

If you like something, you should buy it

My cousin started me off on REM when I was 13 with Monster. Loved all their stuff, but never got to see them live.

WHERE'S THE CASH COW REUNION ALREADY?!?

😀

Fascinating piece about out of time here
[url= http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/longbox ]http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/longbox[/url]

Long time fan here, got pretty much everything. Some beautiful melodies and Michael Stipe has some beautiful sentiments when you get to grips with a lot of his lyrics. Their reputation for being depressing is, IMO from people who've not actually listened to what he's saying properly. Everybody Hurts for e.g. was showing great empathy for people feeling down - supportive, not negative.

Either way, I think they made the right decision to split when they did - I don't think their songwriting was the quality it had been when they were younger and less famous.

I still rate Murmur as one of their best - Perfect Circle, Shaking Through - songs of huge beauty...

Fables, Life's Rich Pageant, Green are the best of the early albums for me. Out of Time is a timeless classic, Automatic v good but have probably overlistened to it. Up, Reveal and Around The Sun have some great songs but maybe not as consistent as whole albums as the early stuff. Last album Collapse Into Now had some good stuff too.

If you don't have access to a streaming service I would start with the IRS Best Of and the WEA Best Of and take it from there - they're both accurate representations of their best stuff.

I'm hoping Michael Stipe will do some solo stuff - it's bound to be interesting

Another New adventures in hi fi appreciator here.
I was surprised when I found the lyrics to sidewinder weren't "calling Chuck Baker" but we're "come on in try and wake her up now".

come on in try and wake her up now".

Actually it was

Call me when you try to wake her up / Call me when you try to wake her

I believe that came about because the lyrics were written by Michael Stipe whilst Berry, Buck and Mills wrote the music and then they crowbarred it all together into a song in the studio - hence the gabbling trying to fit in more syllables for which there were notes 🙂

You have some exciting listening ahead of you, brilliant.

I saw them live around 1998 in California and they are one of my favourite bands. Don't miss out on Collapse into Now, it may be their last album but it's great and I was listening to it a few nights ago

Jealous in a way that it's all ahead of you. Enjoy.

I, like the OP, never really liked them but a few years back my friend had a spare ticket and invited me along to their arena gig in Sheffield. I wasn't expecting much.

Anyway, we got in and while waiting for them to come out found out that it had been cancelled as one of them was sick.

So what did they do? Stipe and the other one played a five song acoustic set. It was brilliant and made the arena seem like a back room in a pub. And they honoured the tickets for their return gig.

REM were a huge chunk of the soundtrack to my defining years as a student and as such means a while lot to me. Hearing them switches buttons much like the effect described by mintimperial above. Just dreamy wistful tear-jerking uplifting stuff.

I wish I was 19 again. I truly do.

Life's Rich Pageant , Document & Green for me.
There was an interesting REM bbc radio documentary a while back....

Out of Time for me. Any album will be improved by having Kate Pierson sing on it.

And Talking Heads were a great band. I saw their "Stop Making Sense" tour and it's still the best concert I've ever seen.

It was more years ago than I care to think, though...

REM - a major part of the soundtrack to my late 30's, with all the crap of divorce and then ill-considered, short term "relationships", if you could call them that.
And gigging a lot and racing a lot and being as fit as a butcher's dog......

And then meeting my, then recently widowed, wife. We laughed together, cried together and did pretty much everything else with REM somewhere around. Here we still are, 26 years later.

I love REM, probably my favourite band.
I keep going through phases of the early stuff, then recently it was Out of Time because of the 25 anniversary. Which made me feel old.
Around the Sun is the only album I wouldn't listen to as an album - definitely their weakest in my eyes...but even then it has 'Leaving New York' which I love.
Was at Murrayfield in 95 and saw them about another three times. Glad they quit with dignity.