On REM's "Shiny Happy People" ...

Must be a Daysleeper.
You snooze, you lose!!!

 

I like the song just fine, about 3-4 times a decade. No seriously, it's a good song - that wears out its welcome with too much repetition, quite easily.

 

I'm with you on this! It's pure fun! I love dark music/lyrics, but I also need songs like this to give some balance to what I listen to. This one makes me feel good, makes me want to move! The next time my 4 year old granddaughter is here, I'm going to show her the video, and we'll see if we can have some fun trying to copy Michael and Kate's moves.

 

Wow. There are people who dislike "Stand"? It's just a groovy little hipster pop song at a time when groovy little hipster pop songs were needed (see also "Pop Song 89," "Get Up"). Jesus. If that song bothers you, you hate music.

As for "Shiny Happy People," I think it's great how it works on both levels - as the overt upbeat pop song, and as the ironic comment... one that allowed Mike to smile through the video and Peter to roll his eyes while Michael and Kate hammed it up.

 

I can like Stipe a lot and still think he could get ... emphasis on COULD get ... pretentious and self important.

So could Bono and John Lennon. Ain't a capital crime.

REM was like the Beatles, it wouldn't have worked without the four of them. And I'll admit there that I tuned out after Bill left.

 

Always loved it and Out Of Time on the whole

 

To an established R.E.M. fan, the success of Shiny Happy People felt a little bit like an inside joke, like ‘we’ had infiltrated the pop charts and consolidated the success on our own terms. To someone who didn’t have that context, I can see how it might have seemed superficial and banal. As the ‘alternative’ genre they helped popularize started to coagulate around a dour negativity in the early 90s, the character of Shiny Happy People turned unfashionable pretty quickly. In fact, I think this change of fashion is at the heart of the argument about whether or not the song is meant ironically, as though it needs to be justified somehow. It doesn't. Songs can have multiple meanings and work on different levels. Grunge-era militants demand that songs must express the singer's suicidal anguish, social awkwardness or childish fingerflipping in order to be likeable art, but they're wrong.

 

I've never liked it. It's always struck me as being very forced and obvious, and the fifth-grade lyrics don't help.

But why so much hate for "Stand"? Great guitar sound, great harmonies, and still well within the genre that they owned at the time. Some bands should just stick to what they do best.

 

I like it better than Losing My Religion.

 

I'm just joking with you

 

I would evaluate comparison based on albums sold by both groups. There's your answer.

 

The b-side...of this thread

 

We have a winner.

 

I got pretty tired of Stand because it was a video that was played a lot, and was the opening of that Chris Elliot show (which I liked fine otherwise). I can see Shiny Happy People getting tiresome, I probably just wasn't exposed to it as much as Stand and Losing My Religion. I remember the Sesame Street Monsters version too... what a delight to run across that!

 

Same here. And the rest of Out of Time along with it (including "Radio Song").

 

I like it...always have. All the remixes and extended versions of it, too.
But then I like "At My Most Beautiful" as well so what do I know.
It's just Pop music.

 

Never expected this thread to go this far about a silly pop song! But I guess most people either love it or hate it, and that brings discussion. I don't hate it by the way. Just don't love it!

 

That's my association to the song too. Got tired of it used in that way.
How did that happen anyway?

 

What's wrong with "At My Most Beautiful"? That's a good song.

 

Many years ago, when I DJ'ed a teen "night club" -- R.I.P., The Rock House in Houghton Lake, MI -- I had a raven-haired young 'un pester me for about an hour to play "Shiny Happy People" for her and her friends, and I kept telling her that, as much as I liked the song, it would be dance floor poison. But she kept demanding and demanding, so I decided to show her what clearing the floor would look like. And of course, people went apesh*t for that song, packing the floor and dancing their teenage asses off. Right after the song, the young lady stormed up to the DJ booth screaming "I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU!" at the top of her lungs. Sometimes, the customer is right after all.

 

Wait, what about Everybody Hurts?

 

I have always liked it.

"Me In Honey" is the masterpiece of OOT, IMO.

 

If it helps those struggling with this being a guilty pleasure, this is from the Urban Dictionary:

The term is based on a Chinese propaganda poster popularized by REM in the song of the same name. Its a term that determines that people are faking happiness or false happiness in order to fool the outside world that there are no problems. Shiny Happy People are effectively massive fakes.

If true perhaps it could be a modern day anthem for those types on facebook, you know the ones.....

 

Er, Perfect song.

 

Never had a problem with SHP or Radio Song actually. I've never understood why Low is (apparently) popular though. It's too much of a dirge for me, where things like much of Fables... is the right amount of dirge... whatever that may be...

Otherwise, OOT is great.