Underrated Classic: R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi

I mean seriously, people, who's with me?

This can't be overlooked any longer ... Honestly: why isn't this given the street cred it so richly deserves?

Oh the humanity!

 

This is the one that made me stop buying R.E.M. Albums.

 

Seriously? It was their last album with Bill Berry, and it is regarded is their last great album.

 

Those'd be fightin' words, if I weren't a pacifist and if they didn't make me so sad. So very, very sad. (wipe tear from eye)

 

I am a huge fan of their 80s work, but the 90s was just diminishing returns for me. Some good songs here & there, but lots of forgettable or bad material.

 

Same here, until I heard it again with fresh ears two years ago and loved it. Why didn't this album resonate with me in '96???

 

My top 3 REM albums, seriously...

1. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
2. Reveal
3. Monster

 

Now, that's a list you don't see every day from an R.E.M. fan. Still, I won't criticize it out of hand. Enjoy them all in good health.

I finally picked up an inexpensive copy of New Adventures in Hi-Fi within the past year but never listened to it. I think I just wanted some confirmation beforehand that I hadn't made a mistake. This is good to know.

 

I love New Adventures In Hi-Fi. That whole album is so good. "Bittersweet Me"??? I remember the day I bought it. It was not an easy listen the first time through but a grower. I think a lot of that had to do with the length of the album--its almost an hour long. And there are no truly chirpy happy songs on it--most of it is a bit glum but in a Fables way. I see no fault in New Adventures in HiFi at all.

 

My top 4:

1. Reckoning
2. Fables
3. New Adventures
4. Up

After the disaster that was Monster, they bounced back with one of their best efforts in New Adventures, imho. On "Undertow" and "Leave" you can tell they are out on a limb, playing at the edge of their abilities, putting their heart and soul into the music. I think the fact that it is the last album where they worked out their new material on tour is tremendously relevant to why it is such a great record.

 

Monster is such a powerhouse rock album that their next one sounded kinda lightly peppered and flaccid. I haven't seriously evaluated New Adventures or listened to it in a dog's age, but jeez, could they make a more dramatic change in feel?

 

My favorite R.E.M. album.

 

Yeah, but remember, the "Aneurysm Tour" was a tough one for the band. The mood had to have colored at least some of those songs. I remember a lot of fans felt surprised that any new material had come in the midst of such adversity.

 

It's a great record but definitely a few songs too long. I'm not sure what I would cut, but some editing would snap it down to a Top 5 contender for sure. (As long as you don't touch "Leave". One of my all time R.E.M. favorites.)

I do think it's a pretty representative snapshot of where the band was at the time, so in that regards it's quite successful. I've just always found it hard to get through in one pass.

 

Mine -

1. Out of Time
2. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
3. Automatic . . .

They had a real good second decade, mostly.

 

REM was cool because they were everything a cool band wasn't. street cred goes away after an album sells as many copies as Automatic. fantastic album imo....but the fans were a fan of of a band that was theirs, and albums like that make a band everyones. ...plus a lot of what made the albums of the 1980s so close to peoples hearts was missing by the time New Adventures came out.

I didn't give new adventures a fair shake either probably....but the last album I felt had a sense of the band being 100% into the album was Automatic for the People. and then it was like they wanted to get away from everything that made them. outside of a few songs over the remaining 20 years after felt fake or like they just had nothing to say....with the exception of Reveal, as that was a very unique album. but that was still missing something.

 

There's a great 9-10 track album in there. If it had come out in the LP era I think it'd be more renowned clocking in at around 40 minutes.

 

I loved it when it came out, more than I did AFTP.

 

Also in the camp that beleives this is a fine REM effort. Not in my top 5, but still a great listen. Agree that it's probably a couple of songs too long, but it made more sense to me when I recently I got the LP and it was spread over 4 sides. Until then, I never realized it was really REMs "double album", which was a concept lost in the CD era. I also love that it was recorded on the fly mostly at soundcheks, which gives it a looser, liver, more urgent feel. Wake Up Bomb is an awesome rocker and a track I feel finally lived up to Monster's potential.

 

May I say that upon first second third fourth listen whatever--I thought MONSTER by REM was the biggest jerk of a record they ever came out with. And Yeah it was probably the initial shock that it didnt sound like Automatic For The People (by the way I was confounded by, honestly, the first couple of plays). Listening to it (Monster) now its actually really good. The album I can't deal with now is Out Of Time. I don't know what it is. Never been able to play it straight through.
But for some reason, New Adventures in Hi Fi just hit me at the right place at the right time and I played it a lot. I cannot think of a single track I would get rid of.

 

To me, this was the album that tipped the scales and they never really came back. Berry's departure really WAS the end of an era and every album since then had the band in some sort of "wandering" mode. After coming off a 3 album rush of greatness (and sales) this one felt like as a band, this was as far as they could go and from that point on could only equal or get within target distance of their past glories.

 

I had a similar reaction - I remember just not liking this album when it was originally released, but now it's for sure in my top 5 with R.E.M.

 

You won't find a lot of people who are bigger R.E.M. fans than me, and I started falling out of love a little bit with R.E.M. with every release that came out after Automatic for the People. But I started going back over the years and listening to all the newer stuff thinking there was something I was missing that I knew had to be there.

Then I started listening to Reveal more and more. And then more and more. All the way to Reno first hooked me and then The Lifting really hooked me in. I really love that album almost as much as anything pre-Monster now.

You have to piece together a lot of their later work to appreciate the work they did on 'Up', 'Reveal', Leaving New York, Collapse Into Now, Accelerate, but it is there.

I'm still not super stoked about New Adventures like I am Reveal. Some of the B-sides and live versions of their later stuff will get you more into their later work as well. Stuff like Sad Professor Live, a b-side on the Daysleeper EP.

I did really dig when they got into doing Jimmy Webb songs during their New Adventures tour.

I do like listening to my vinyl copy of Collapse Into Now. The only thing that really bothered me about the final albums was that Peter Buck's Ric 360 sound went to a more heavily distorted sound on their rock songs and you lost some of that signature hollow body electric sound and the subtly overdriven staple of his sound from Time and Green.

I made a playlist on not too long ago of songs that would make you fall back in love with modern R.E.M.

Now that I look at it, I had a few from New Adventures on there. haha.

Bittersweet Me from NAIHF
Binky the Doormat from NAIHF
Strange Currencies from Monster
Around the Sun from Around the Sun
All the way to Reno from Reveal
Uberlin from Collapse Into Now
Daysleeper from Up
Sad Professor from Up
The Lifting from Reveal
E-Bow the Letter from NAIHF
Beat a Drum from Reveal
Leaving New York from Around the Sun
Until the Day is Done from Accelerate
Electrolite from NAIHF


Feel free to tell me what else you guys would put on there

 

Removing " Binky the doormat " and " Departure " and here is a 12 song fantastic album in my opinion
yes , very underated
How The west was won is one of my favorite LP opening song of their whole catalogue

 

Great album. I think the length does mean it can be hard to get into - excellent point by katstep about thinking of it as a double album. I have the vinyl and it does make it more manageable.