Thoughts on R.E.M.'s New Adventures In Hi-Fi

After 'Monster', this was a very strong showing. Some of their best post-Automatic material.

 

Has this been reissued lately? I'd love a copy. It's my favorite REM LP.

 

Interesting. I think it's a dud and often skip it.

 

hi, is your pressing with cat.# 9362 -46320-1 or -46436-1 ?
Alsdorf stampers on deadwax or other? any signs that same US Gateway matrices were used?
please share some info as there is nothing at all on discogs.
thanks!!

 

IMO, Sandinista! is at least on the same level of impression with Rope showing at the same time greater musical diversity and flight of fancy

 

I found it boring. Of their post-Green stuff, I like Monster best. Nothing compares to anything in their pre-Green era though.

 

It's all about opinions of course but I'm surprised that people can consider this their best album as I think around half these tracks are below par.

Wake Up Bomb, Undertow, Leave, Departure, Binky The Doormat and Low Desert don't grab me at all and New Test Leper is alright but nothing special.

I would say however that the version of Leave that was on A Life Less Ordinary Soundtrack (minus the car alarm) is better than than the LP version and the decision to release E-Bow the letter as the first single (not Electrolite??) was odd to say the least.

 

I think I suffers from that time where artists started to feel compelled to fill up the CD format closer to capacity. For me it's worked best by dropping 4 to 6 songs and considering that to be a separate EP. Thing is (when I'd listen to this material, which I haven't consistently in many years), it was never the same songs that I'd drop. Like you some feel subpar, but there's also a feeling that it's not really cohesive material, although I'm not sure that's a good reason as there are plenty of albums I like with diverse songs. So it ends up they gave me some good raw material & it's up to me to hit skip or design the playlist, and I'm good with that.

 

I think that's an excellent observation about artists feeling compelled to fill the running time of a cd - and the resultant drop-off in quality.
Worthy of a thread in its own right.

 

I think after the Monster album and tour, this was perfect!
This was the last set as a foursome and sadly Bill Berry left the band. "New Adventures" was a great title as their music and sound were was going in different directions. I don't think it was meant to be cohesive as they were writing songs on the road and doing things differently because they had been touring. It was a good last album by the original line-up which showed how much they had evolved over the last decade.

 

They're in the process of reissuing their vinyl catalog, but I haven't heard any news in regard to what's next.

 

"Automatic For The People" fall 2017!!! (25 years)
My favorite album along with "Life's Rich Pageant."

 

Underrated gem

 

They lost Bill Berry is the something.
Bill didn't want the band to break up. He wouldn't quit unless the other three continued. They continued and obviously lost something in the process, but gradually learned to cope with that loss and made some pretty descent music by the time they actually disbanded in late 2011. OMG it's been that long already?

 

Hated it... I was a fan from before the first LP. I saw them the week that Chronic Town came out. This is were they lost me. And I was heartbroken, as I was incredibly poor when this was released. I could only afford the CD and one way of a three mile bus ride, so I walked to Borders Honolulu the evening it came out. Of course it poured. When I left, I discovered that I actually had enough for the bus ride home... I settled in with my cd discman.... and it sucked. It was so not what I needed then (or now). I've heard a few things by them since, but have never bought another REM album (other than a few live MP3s from the earlier live bonus tracks on Reckoning and Murmur). They had once been my favorite band.

 

Some of us actually did live in loft spaces in NYC around 1983, and we did love the jangle and joy of the first albums, which were coming out while we young. If you don't get those albums, fine, but hey, you're entitled to like this piece of dreck, and I won't even insult you.

 

Very strange, because this is their last great album and you would think that long time fans would recognize that the album has everything that makes R.E.M. great.

 

Ranks as one of my favorite REM albums. Vastly underrated.

 

REM weren't chart toppers in the '80s but they were the spearhead of the college/alternative rock movement and were far better known than you'd think. No, they weren't Nirvana sales-wise but they weren't the Velvet Underground, either. They were critics' darlings from the debut single and were the subject of gushing reviews and year-end best-of lists, which is how this rural college kid found about them. So there were plenty of passionate fans for those early records. I'd have to choose among the first three as my favorite.

Funny sidenote about their debut: My copy got loaned around the dorm and almost everyone had the same initial reaction to the intentionally murky sound and indecipherable lyrics. They'd check their cartridge for dust or tap the receiver's volume control, sure something was wrong with their stereo!

 

First album on WB that you can start skipping a lot of tracks. The opener beyond sucks and about puts you to sleep (how the west...) but I like the more rocking stuff.. Wake up Bomb.. Bittersweet Me.. maybe Leave I forget, this album is pretty forgettable after an awesome run on WB and it just goes downhill after .. though THE GREAT BEYOND is bad ass.. This album was a total let down

 

Remove the three dull, midtempo beginning-with-'B' songs which kill the second half and you've got a pretty great album.

 

Related article on Stereogum from Sept 2016:

New Adventures In Hi-Fi Turns 20

 

I really liked New Adventures when it was released, in part saw a few Monster tour shows where they started playing some of this material in the set. Of that mid-era REM, it's likely the album I return to the most (or at least those three final tracks).

 

It really is among my favorite R.E.M. albums. Easily in the top 3 for me.

 

It is a great album, but it has its weaknesses, for instance "Binky" and "Zither" which ruin the momentum of the album a bit. The last three tracks however are absolutely awesome.