what do you think of R.E.M.?

mazza · Post by **mazza** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:27 pm

this topic always splits my friends.

i don't mind them, i don't have all their stuff, and i don't want it either. but i really love some of their songs.

some of my friends adore EVERYTHING they do and think the sun shines outta michael stipes arse.

and some of them hate them and think stipey-boy is a whining weirdo.

what do you think?

ORBITAL · Post by **ORBITAL** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 7:53 pm

REM......I just dont get it.

natty · Post by **natty** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 8:23 pm

They've done some good music, some possibly unforgivable music (shiny happy people) and are a far better live act than I would have ever thought (Glastonbury the other year). Not a band I could spend much time over, but not one I'd rather didn't exist, either.

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Tue Jan 27, 2004 11:45 pm

They were quite popular on campus in their indie years ('82-'86) but I always thought they were tiresome, just as I thought the Smiths - a very similar-sounding group in many ways - were tiresome. The odd good pop song emerged from their camp, but they haven't done anything I couldn't live happily without. I go thumbs down on them.

Stipe too is as irritating an irritating poseur space-cadet as I've ever had the pleasure of interviewing. I've also heard some stories from other journos about his off-the-record nastiness to underlings and lower-wagers.

Phillipo · Post by **Phillipo** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 3:10 am

I like maybe 4 songs, and that's it. I've never felt the need to listen to an album of theirs...

nasty · Post by **nasty** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 12:59 pm

personally I don't understand why they've felt the need to record so much... I've enjoyed the odd album such as reckoning or new adventures in hifi but not so much as i would ever want to own them. Oh, and from what you read, Michael Stipe always seems to be the first on the phone to miserable rock stars doesn't he? (thinking Kurt Cobain, Thom Yorke here...)

steven · Post by **steven** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:45 am

I hate them so much-stupid/smug/baldy/face paints/stupid dance/ear monitors hanging out/every so-called return to form/Peter Buck playing with all the bravado of a dead trout/crap/crap/crap/crap,etc...Oh yeah..when he yells "Come On!" during Man In The Moon/hate/hate/hate...
However..
"LIFES RICH PAGEANT" {1986)is,I believe,one of the greatest achievements in rock.
An album with an acute sense of history;not just of music,but of the South,of being human,of being alive and concerned-you almost feel that you are learning something important when you listen to it.
There's no "message" or concept but somehow important information seems to pass through that wall of sound production;feedback glowing guitars,Hammond every-where but nowhere,snare drum tightened using the compressor from a F1 pit team,"Lets get the vocal even lower in the mix",etc
A sense of community,of agriculture,of summer.A sense that the only thing more important than the land are the people who live there.
A truly beautiful work that also completly kicks ass-I genuinely thought I was going to die during "These Days" at Barrowlands.
All this greatness so long gone-I think it would be hard for anyone hearing for the first time today to enjoy it as much because REM have so spoiled all that they did in the 79-89 period.
But if you see it cheap,and no-ones looking,pick it up and see that they were once everything you ever wanted from a guitar band.[/i]

Adovadotchka · Post by **Adovadotchka** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:41 pm

This is a hard one for me...REM was a huge part of my young life. but they have put out a lot of boring crap alongside gems like Life's Rich Pagent, which I agree is their best album. Other albums have better songs, but are not as consistent. All that has nothing to do with how I feel about REM now, though...even when they make songs that sound like their old songs I'm not really interested anymore, like the REM cannon has been closed.

JesusBlood · Post by **JesusBlood** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 7:57 pm

The whining, the face paint, the deaf-aid ear monitors, the balls-aching pretentiousness...

Self-regarding wank

waterpistol · Post by **waterpistol** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 5:21 am

I have no love for REM, but I am quite sentimental about those first few albums. At the time, they were definitely a breath of fresh air, at least over here. Saw them live in Toronto... it was a decent show. And I still think Radio Free Europe and So. Central Rain are great tunes.

But then they started to believe their own press and it all went to shit.

danmaw · Post by **danmaw** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:23 pm

I quite like them! they had a period in the early nineties when they were totally overplayed in the uk, and i kind of went off them. but now they are not so hyped and force fed to me i can see they have produced some real quality stuff! i guess its the more middle of the road side of me coming out!

roger plywood · Post by **roger plywood** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:26 pm

bald, crap and not as good as the bee gees.

will this do? · Post by **will this do?** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 5:45 pm

They outlasted Husker Du (who I always liked...funny no one else remembers them - not even all those execrable Nu-Punk bands (like Busted and Limp Biscuit 182!) who I think sound exactly like them only shit - this could be an error on my part though, cause I lost both my Husker Du records about 10 years ago and haven't knowingly heard a note by them since.

steven · Post by **steven** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:14 pm

Last studio album was 1986(I think) "Warehouse=songs and stories" but there was a really good live album from their final US tour called "The LIving End" released 2 or 3 years ago.
Various Bob Mould and Sugar releases are patchy-last seen doing Electro-pop supporting Flaming Lips or was it Mercury Rev.
Grant Harts Novamob stuff was better.The bass player became a real estate agent or did he join The Darkness?
I believe Bob Mould was to give up music to become editor of a Wrestling magazine in LA<no really!
Classic pop/speed metal-gone but forever ringing in our ears.
Doesn't stop REM from being crap,though.

Post by **BzaInSpace** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 7:41 pm

REM... its weird... theres songs on 'AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE' that can level me to tears... but most of the rest just sounds tired.

I liked 'Crush With Eyeliner' though.

Generally speaking, people who don't really like music very much often site REM as their favourite band...

stevie · Post by **stevie** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 4:47 pm

steven wrote:Grant Harts Novamob stuff was better.

The last days of Pompeii's a fuckin' great album. Up there in amongst my all time favourites. Husker Du didn't husker du anything for me though.

As for REM, they've done some amazing stuff, Orange Crush to name but 1, and they've done a shitload of not only bad but irritating as fuck stuff. Shiny happy people for instance and there's more but I'll just get annoyed if I mention any more.

Post by **spzretent** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 8:10 pm

REM?
Highly Highly overrated!
Chronic Town was great.
Murmur Ok
Reckoning good.
The rest pretty ordinary.
That makes for quite a body of mediocre work.

Husker Du?
Go back and give:
New Day Rising
Flip Your Wig
Candy Apple Grey
& Warehouse Songs & Stories
another listen. Shit hot records.
Zen Arcade is one of those overrated masterpieces.

will this do? · Post by **will this do?** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 1:32 pm

There's a troup of carnival musicians near here trading under the name "Busker Du" (really).

Flip Yr Wig and Warehouse were the two tapes I had, as it happens...I must try and get them back.

REM - they really honestly sound the same to me all through their 40 year career to date - I could not distinguish between them. I have "eponymous", which traces the first 10 years, and "green", but from that point onwards only heard the stuff they pushed towards the radio.

And so it is that I say in all sincerity: "Shiny Happy People" is no better or worse than anything else I've ever heard by them. In fact, nothing I've heard by them is any better or any worse than anything else I've heard by them. But I wasn't really listening.

waterpistol · Post by **waterpistol** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 4:26 am

steven wrote: I believe Bob Mould was to give up music to become editor of a Wrestling magazine in LA<no really!

ha! Close... Bob has his own blog http://modulate.blogspot.com/ that features regular rants/raves on wrestling. He also co-dj's a regular night at a Wash DC club, and I've even seen his name on the musical credits for a decorating show (!) Busy boy. and good for him... I loved Husker Du.

steven · Post by **steven** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 12:06 pm

Wow! Thanks Waterpistol.
Now that's what I call a homepage!-minute by minute account of lost genius of rock!And if I ever feel the need to "cross the final frontier" I'll know where to get all my beafcake-porn!
I have not seen him since Halloween98 in Paris so I will need to catch up.
I've got a guitar string somewhere which he broke during "Whichever Way The Wind Blows" in Glasgow92-he was crying by the end of the song!{it was the night after Nirvana at the QMU}
Good to see that he seems happier these days
Cheers..

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:20 pm

praise god, i love candy apple grey, new day rising and flip your wig, absolutely brilliant. first thing that is going on the turntable tonite, c'mon, everybody sing it "NOW HE"S HARDLY GETTING OVER IT", ahhhhhh, what a brilliant band they were. cheers for whoever brought this up. thanks.

xxxshonnxxx

will this do? · Post by **will this do?** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 12:36 pm

I just remembered another SST band who I liked in those cold dark days when we were waiting for Nirvana: fIREHOSE. They were a bit muso, a bit straight, a bit...odd, but they were led by Mike Watt out of Minutemen (who I don't know) and Ciccone Youth (who I do know, and enjoy - and that's good enough for me).

They had some good tunes though, and must have been an influence to someone, cause Brave Captain was what Martin Carr (Boo Radleys) called his solo project (though, thinking about it, that name was pobably a quotation anyway...).

Another good one was "For the Singer of REM". Which is why I remembered them here'n'now. It was a good tune, but probably a bit clever-clever, in that it musically quoted several REM tunes, and parodied some of the words (perhaps).

As you were.